Is my boyfriend too skinny?

[GraceCes]

My boyfriend is 6’1 and 10 1/2 stone. He has a 28” waist. He is a cyclist and a runner. He works 12-hour shifts. He rarely ever drinks alcohol and drinks healthy juice and a lot of water and eats healthy food.

I don’t often seen guys who are around the same height as he is who are as slim as he is. He doesn’t look anorexic and looks very much like a stereotypical professional cyclist, but I think he should be at least 13 stone for his height, surely.

I know that it’s wrong to compare your current partner to an ex, but my ex-boyfriend is 6ft and he’s about 15-16 stone. Even when I compare (urgh, I feel bad doing it) my boyfriend to my male friends and my girl friends’s partners, he is by far the slimmest and athletic looking. Heck, he’s even lighter than most of my girl friends, lol.

I know that one’s BMI is not the most accurate thing to go by, but his BMI is on the lower side for his age and height.

I think a lot of my thoughts come from envy because I’m not exactly skinny.

We both work full-time, but I am in the house for a couple of hours before he gets home when he is working day shift (he works 7 to 7, but he works days and nights) and all week when he gets back home he goes out for at least two hours on his bike so he doesn’t get back home until about 10pm and then he quickly goes in the shower. We talk for about twenty minutes and then it’s time to go to bed because we both need to be up so early in the morning. On a weekend, he is always up bright and early without fail.

He hates sitting in the house doing nothing so he always asks me if I want to go clothes shopping or to a restaurant, etc. He really is a lovely boyfriend, my family and friends approve of him and he would do anything for me.

I don’t even think he needs to be so restrictive as someone else has described his lifestyle because he’s so active that he would never even put on any weight anyway if he were to have a treat every now and then.

I don’t know anyone else who is the same height as he is and is a 28” waist, I feel almost annoyed when I compare my pair of jeans to his pair of jeans! Why do I feel like that?

He has a superbike and I often go on the back and we spend time together camping on a weekend. But, when he goes out cycling I feel very alone. I do have friends, but I would rather spend most of my time with him.

His physique makes me feel unattractive. I don’t try and push him away, but I think he would prefer it if I were a size 8. I hate to admit it, but I think I’m jealous of him.

I am “into him”. I have lived with him for a few years now and he is everything I want from a man - kind, caring, loving, etc. We never argue and he is not an argumentative person.

I think my issues are more to do with my own feelings than his personal choice of eating and drinking healthy and exercising a lot.

My DH is that height and was that weight when I met him (he was 18 and I was 19). He ate loads and just stayed skinny and I was a plumpish size 12/14 then. We are now 57 and 58. He is probably around 11.5/12 st now and I am over 13 st and a size 16. He still eats loads and I eat much less. It is never been an issue for us. I like skinny men and he likes curvaceous women. Win win.

I don’t even think he needs to be so restrictive as someone else has described his lifestyle because he’s so active that he would never even put on any weight anyway if he were to have a treat every now and then.

YABVU

You're massively deflecting your own issues.

While you're busy sticking your nose into your boyfriend's eating and exercising habits, it means you can ignore whatever issues you clearly have.

Concentrate on yourself. No-one else owes it to you to 'make you look better'.

If you really like him as you say you do then try to use your feelings of jealousy to get where you’d rather be.

When you were a size 8 what did you do differently?

You sound completely different. How did you ever get together?

My husband is about 6', maybe 5' 11.5", very gangly with long limbs, and usually weighs about 10 stone. He's been as low as 9.5st and as heavy as 12st which gave him a tiny bit of weight around his face and on his belly but he was still by anyone's standards very slim. He's not an athlete, has a sedentary job and doesn't eat particularly well, he just has a very fast metabolism.

At his usual weight his BMI is about 20 and he wears a 28/34 in jeans.

My happy weight is roughly the same as his, puts me at a size 10 in most shops, and I'm 6" shorter!

My DH is 6ft 1 and is 10.2 stone. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a human being devour so much food. And he never puts a single pound on. It makes me sick with envy! He leads a very healthy active lifestyle some people are just built that way! I am also a size 12 so I know how you feel with that but you know what. I can’t get down to a size 8 any more than he can get up to 13 Stone. We are happy with each other and ultimately that’s all that matters

All the professional/semipro Mountain bikers I know of are slim and tall..It goes with the territory, I think.
Lean and slim, like Whippets.
They are often surprisingly strong, their muscle is lean and wiry , the opposite of ''puffed up '' beefy muscles.

Instead of having a takeaway together, he refuses to have any junk food so there have been times when I’ve had a pizza or so kebab and he’s had a salad or something similar. He’s a fantastic cook and cooks plenty of nice meals, but would it really be that bad for him to have a little treat once in a blue moon?

Maybe he just doesn't like that sort of food? I'm not that big a fan myself and a takeaway pizza or kebab is definitely not on my list of treats. I'd rather have a nice salad too.

He does sound a little obsessive on the exercise thing but I also don't want to sit around doing nothing much in my spare time.

We are all different

Not too skinny no, however he is a cyclist so LTB.

But he doesn't sound like he's being restrictive - he's eating what he likes to eat and what he believes is healthy (and it is). Why should he eat a pizza? He may not see it as a treat, I know I wouldn't.

It reads as though you are focussing on a weight issue (yours or his) but it doesn't sound like that's on his mind at all. He is focussed on exercise and health.

If there any way you can compromise so you're spending some time together? My tall, skinny, athletic dh and I will sometimes take a trip to the hills together. We get to chat while we are travelling. Then we walk some of the route together. After a few miles I will find a sunny spot and settle down with a book while dh run to the summit of the mountain and back down. We walk together back to the car.

His weight is fine. But you sound incompatible. It’s odd for you to refer to certain foods as “treats”. He doesn’t see those foods, takeaways, as treats, so you shouldn’t force that viewpoint on him.

@Ginnyrellas

Why can’t you get down to a size 8? Why can’t he gain weight?

I know that some people find it either easier or harder to gain weight, but we are all capable of changing our weight.

I’m going to get back down to a size 8 so I can feel better in myself and even wear his pairs of jeans.

The NHS BMI calculator suggests a healthy weight for his height is 10st to 13st7.

It also suggests your brothers are overweight so you may have skewed perceptions.

I think YABVU expecting him to eat unhealthy food he doesn't want just to make you feel better about eating it.
I do eat junk food sometimes but if I want to not because DH fancies a Domino's and will feel insecure if I don't eat it too.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with him having a 28" waist, issues around that are your own.

YANBU to want to be unhappy in the relationship if he spends all his spare time cycling.

He really is a lovely boyfriend, my family and friends approve of him and he would do anything for me.
Your family and friends aren't in a relationship with him. You are and you don't sound happy to be, if so work out what you want and if you don't want to be with him end it and both find someone you're actually happy with.

I probably sound horrible

Yes, you do.

it can also be down to ethnicity
DH was so slim the nurse use to decrease his height by an inch or so! She knew he was healthy, his weight was constant & people of his ethnicity tended to be very slender (skinny)
I wasn't (except after I had dc than I weighed less than him for a while! yay!)
Age has caught up with him - he still doesn't weigh that much though!
don't give a fig what others think so long as we are both healthy

I'll swap you for my husband. He's slim but so not sporty. He'd rather sit playing PS4 or watching tv.

I like to be out running, cycling or walking. I hate sitting about.

I rarely drink. He does drink. I don't want to eat rubbish. He loves a pizza. We just have different dinners and I leave him doing his thing whilst I go out and do my exercise.

Some times he'll come on a walk with me. But I have to walk slower and not go so far 😂

Plus when my 6ft1 lean dh does put on weight he just gets a sort of paunchy belly (not attractive) he doesn't get a muscly chest or arms.

@ASandwichNamedKevin I’m just not built that way. Im a standard hour glass figure. I’ve got naturally big boobs, hips, bum skinny waist. It’s just who I am. He’s the same. Naturally built that way. His metabolism is so fast it’s trying to go back to the future I swear! He’s happy with the way I look ( as am I) and vice versa.

Don’t feel begrudged when he doesn’t eat takeaway. I don’t either and it’s no bad thing.

@Ginnyrellas

I understand what you are saying, but if you wanted to then you could change your appearance/weight - anyone can.

Ladies, would it bother you if your partner went cycling for hours and hours a day six days a week?

@GraceCes
Why not try to get slimmer and fitter yourself?..I was given a family member's old Mountain bike 'long shorts' to go on a Mountain bike ride, and they only did up when I breathed in...He said ' Too many biscuits!?'.....
He is 5 inches taller than me, too.
I was huffing and puffing up an incline 10 minutes in and he said ''Out of breath ALREADY?'' but he was very patient...

Cycling burns shedloads of calories, and most cyclists inhale food and don't put on any weight at all.

Perhaps buy a bike, and take it easy, going on your own cycle rides..? I recently bought a new bike with an aim to get fitter....and hopefully will eventually be able to do up the waistband of the shorts without feeling like a wasp.😂