The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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I and my girlfriend have been putting on some weight lately and we've struggled with constructively helping each other lose it. We've both been wondering how to communicate : 'you're not unfit or fat, I still find you attractive, but a few pounds off wont hurt' to each other. (We've both started hovering around 25 BMI)
She's supposed to meet my parents by the end of the year. Turns out Indian parents are a great excuse. Indians are famously direct in calling fat people fat. So, that's been a good excuse to start actively pushing each other to lose weight without your self-esteem being shanked every time. 'We aren't losing weight for each other, we are doing it for the glaring eyes of society'. Both us are intelligent enough to know what's going on, but somehow the lie still functions effectively.
Tech lad that I am, I'm still learning how to balance soft-landing so your loved ones don't feel attacked vs proving direct feedback to avoid passive aggressiveness. It's getting better, but it's some verbal IQ gymnastics for sure. Also, timing. Timing is everything.
This is a tough one. Honestly, it's probably more about her than you. My ex was very insecure about this to the point where it was impossible to discuss. But my current partner and I can discuss this freely, even our exact weight in pounds, with zero hard feelings. She's kind of a unicorn that way.
Most men, even obese ones, can discuss their own weight in a frank and open manner. Most women can't. And there isn't some secret code by which you can discuss it productively with like 12 indirections and soft eye contact and compliment sandwiches. It just can't be done. And it's not you, it's her. Women don't help their fat friends lose weight either. They just lie and tell them they look hot.
Would love to be wrong on this, but honestly I'm not sure this is fixable.
So forget about discussing weight and dieting with a person who can't handle it. The best way is to couch things in terms of health. "I'm eating this boring salad to be healthy, not to lose weight." And if you lose weight yourself, she might get the point.
haha, that's the thing. She's already doing most things right. Eats salad for all lunches, walks a lot, works out regularly.
But she has a fatal love for chocolate and eats like shit when travelling. And she has been travelling A LOT.
I actually think it will be a lot easier for both of us to stay a decent weight once we move in together. But long distance has made that especially hard.
Is it that while travelling she doesn't have easy access to low-prep, decent tasting easily eatable food?
As a financially constrained student, if I wake up in the morning and don't have stuff prepped the previous night, I am going to gorge myself on milk, cheap chocolate and cereal.
Well, she is currently living through her 'Europe' phase. I can hardly blame her for wanting to try out great food while travelling through Europe.
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