How to explain weight loss to DP who is slim

[PixiKitKat]

How can I explain to my DP that losing weight isn't easy to my DP who is slim? He has never been fat or overweight in his life. I don't think he understands how difficult it can be to lose weight.
I'm not massively overweight, I need to lose about 3 stone though.
He knows I want to lose weight but he comments when I make bad food choices, says my portions are too big etc
I honestly don't eat that badly, I've done healthy diet and gym before and it's a slow process for me to lose weight.
I just don't think he understands as he is trying to help but his negative comments just make me feel like a failure :(

Does he have some learning difficulties, or does he struggle with processing concepts? Because i can't otherwise see why he would continue being unsupportive and quite hurtful when you have told him that you struggle with losing weight.

I am going to get massively flamed for this.

I don't put on weight easily. The amount of food I have to eat and visits to the gym is staggering. If I want to put it on I have had to be committed, eating massive amounts of food through the day and training for over an hour 4 days a week.

Why is losing weight harder than gaining it.

I know there are emotional reasons for people eating food and all other kinds of things but if you want to lose wait doesn't it just take commitment to excercise and diet.

I am honestly asking for thoughts but let the abuse begin.

Have you tried the clean program. I've done it twice, it is time consuming but it works.

You can also do it but add little things in that aren't bad e.g you can't eat tomatoes but no harm in that, you can't decide to eat cheese though.

You can still have delicious food.

I mean the program says no tomatoes but I don't see any harm in having the / modifying the program for it to work for you.

Sorry just to add one thing to limit the abuse I'm going to get. He should be supportive and keep his mouth shut.

If losing weight was easy no one would be fat!

I am the same MrMagooooo, I need to train and eat a lot to keep weight on, my body naturally wants to stay very slim!

Anyway, back to the OP, Pixikitkat, I used to have a terrible diet and suffered mentally for it, so although I didn't have a weight problem my diet was definitely affecting me, I still had to go through part of what overweight people go through such as resisting foods I was craving and breaking unhealthy eating patterns etc, so is it possible your DP may have experience that way?
It's the same even when you are slim, although obviously there can be added issues if you are overweight, such as being upset about your body or obsession with the number on the scales and being disheartened when the number doesn't move.

He should absolutely be supportive if you are trying though, so a honest conversation about how he makes you feel should be enough, have you already tried that? If so I would just go straight to telling him to back off

He knows I want to lose weight but he comments when I make bad food choices, says my portions are too big etc

I also have about 2 stone to lose. My position is that I want to lose the weight, I'm happy to lose it slowly because I like beer and cheese. I am losing - but slowly. If I made better choices and had smaller portions, I would see a faster weightloss. I don't ever mention my weight or weightloss to others.

I suppose my point is that, yes it probably doesn't feel helpful him saying those things, and everyone loses/gains weight at different rates, but it is going to be a lot slower if you eat too much of the wrong sort of food.

I have a friend who is constantly talking about how she is going to lose weight. She doesn't have sex with her husband anymore because she feels unhappy with her weight. She complains about it constantly. Is always talking about losing weight and eats large portions of crappy food constantly.

Her husband doesn't give a shit about her size. He loves her and fancies her regardless. But he does find the constant talk about losing weight; followed by expensive food shops to stock up on healthy food; followed by making poor food choices irritating.

It's hard to be constantly supportive to someone who isn't helping themselves and then complains about the situation they're in. It's just tiring.

Is it the way he says it? Do you not wish him to comment?

I think if you're actively trying to loose weight, and three stone is a lot, then unless he's being unpleasant or constantly at you, I don't understand why you're taking issue with him telling you the portion size is too big or you're making bad food choices.

If you don't wish him to comment, simply tell him you don't wish him to comment on what you eat or how much.

I'm not going to flame you @MrMagooooo I haven't tried the clean program, I'll have a look at it. I have tried slimming world previously and lost almost a stone but then stopped going as I moved house.
I need to rejoin the gym and I keep saying it but haven't gotten round to it yet. I think it's quite easy for me to gain weight as my job is a desk one now which I've never had before so less moving around.

@funnylittlefloozie I think he genuinely doesn't understand how hard it is to resist 'bad' food. He says it's okay to have treat but when I do he sometimes comments.
I think compared to come people my diet is okay, we eat from scratch each night, I've only had one take out in the last 2 months, I try to have healthy pack ups at work. I just don't seem to lose weight.

I think I need to go to gym 5 days a week and have a 1200 calorie limit but I havent got much willpower so find it tough :( especially as he can seemingly eat whatever he likes and doesn't put on any weight.

You need to be frank with him as well as yourself. Tell him his constant comments hurt and aren’t helpful. However, you should also acknowledge that saying you want to lose weight and doing the right things to lose weight, are two different things and the contradictory behaviour doesn’t help either of you. I have a colleague who constantly moans about her weight but she eats poorly and her portion sizes are huge. Of course I haven’t said anything but it is bloody annoying especially when she says the struggle is real.

Losing weight can be difficult but if you’re sabotaging yourself by making poor food choices and your portion control isn’t good then yes, then you are only making a challenging task even more challenging

He should stop making negative comments and you need to be honest about your behaviour. I am not skinny (depending on shop, somewhere between a UK size 10 and 12) but to put things into context, you say you want to lose a third of my body weight.

It a lifelong battle for a lot of people and one that most lose, me being one of them.

I think it's quite easy for me to gain weight as my job is a desk one now which I've never had before so less moving around.

If you're eating salad and lean protein for your lunch, you won't put on weight.

If you're eating sandwiches, crisps and a chocolate bar, you will.

The clean program is hard core. What I'm saying though is just use the foods you are allowed to eat as a basis for what to eat and make some tasty things.

You can try to skip one meal like lunch and just juice. You will loose weight whilst cleansing your body.

I think I just want him to stop and let me do it in my own time. I don't talk about it a lot at all.
The thing about the portion size comments is he makes tea most nights so he chooses the portion size!!
I accept my cereal portion size is too much but that's it! My lunch one is fine as it's a small lunchbox of a slimming world recipe.

I had a similar problem some years ago with DH who could always eat and drink anything (and ate like a horse!) and never gained an ounce. He genuinely struggled to understand how very different our bodies were. I put on weight easily and am a completely different shape to him. I am 5'5'' and the lowest I have ever been was 10st 7lb, when there physically was no more to come off as you could count my ribs and my hip bones stuck out. The smallest dress size I have ever been as an adult is 12-14. I just don't go any smaller! I am now over weight and he still finds it a bit hard to understand how hard I have to work in terms of diet and exercise to shed weight. However, he gets it a bit more since turning 50 when he has begun to turn from a greyhound to a labrador a bit himself! Just keep explaining it to him. Keep a food and exercise log and share with him the results. Explain to him the effort it takes but tell him to keep his thoughts on what you eat to himself!

@drseuss I think a good log is a good idea! I have my fitness Pal on my phone so I'll start using that again!

Hi OP have you tried my fitness pal app? Also I'm sure there's weightloss threads currently in full swing on here if you're feeling lonely. You do you, tell him thanks but no thanks and get support from people who know what you're going through. Good luck x

Sorry cross posted with you but found ut really good - and link it with a fitbit

Losing weight isn't a hard concept. It's just an energy balance. Calories in vs calories out.
I recommend signing up to James Smith academy for free and using his Calculator to calculate your TDEE(total daily energy expenditure) then track your calories using the MyFitnessPal app.

Also Walk everywhere you can, park that bit further away from the shops, take the stairs instead of a lift. All small easy changes but will benefit you massively

It's more of a mental aspect of losing weight not a physiological one.

Interesting that you can be "naturally slim" and find it hard to gain weight but apparently people can't have the opposite problem 🤔🤔🤔

If you've told your DP that you want to lose weight, and he's making comments about portion sizes etc., it's more than likely just him trying to help (unless he's actually just generally a dick, in which case it would have been handy to know that first).

Have you told him specifically what kind of help, if any, you want from him?

Or is he trying his best to be supportive but mostly navigating in the dark about what you actually want and need?

A grown man doesn't need weight loss 'explaining' to him – it's not complicated.

The complicated bit is where you say "I think I need to go to gym 5 days a week and have a 1200 calorie limit but I haven't got much willpower so find it tough"

That's perfectly understandable, AND it's a very different conversation from "losing weight is just hard to do."

But there really isn’t much more to it than good food choices and portion sizes. If he knows you want to lose weight I can’t see how it’s negative to point that out. There’s nothing wrong with being a bit fat - some people would prefer to be able to eat all the food they love than to be constantly on a diet. And good for them. But when your partner moans about being fat and also whines about how, for some reason, it’s especially hard for them to lose weight it’s a complete bore.

Something I've seen over and over on here, the idea that its hard to lose weight, but if you are slim, it's easy to maintain that.

Sorry OP, but chocolate and French bread and crisps etc. still taste good to thin people. Sitting down watching TV on a rainy evening is still preferable to going for a run if you are your ideal weight.

Dont assume he doesn't know what it's like to have to show self restraint around food, dont assume it's easy for him because he does make the "good" choice.

And dont presume you will find it easy once you've hit your target weight.

Interesting that you can be "naturally slim" and find it hard to gain weight but apparently people can't have the opposite problem

I don't think anyone would disagree that people can have the opposite problem but there is a difference between being naturally predisposed to put on weight and losing it slowly and eating large portions of crap.