Does anyone else have a problem with dieting because of your family? Right now I'm making peanut butter sriracha ramen for my BF and I just want to strangle him for being so darn skinny without doing a single thing. He's 6'1" and weighs less than I do by ten pounds.
It's the same when I go to our parents houses too. Trying to keep my portions small and feeling guilty when they say something about it. It's really discouraging, I'm not gonna lie. I know failing diet after diet really is my fault, but sometimes it feels really easy to blame everyone else around me.
I cook for me and make enough for everyone else. They don't like it, NOT MY PROBLEM! I supplied dinner. It wasn't anything weird. It was a meat and two veggies. Eat it or find your own dern stuff. Oh...and I have taken up "forgetting" to buy junk food, you know, so I am not tempted.
The problem was very short lived. They stopped moaning and I stopped caring. And suddenly, they were either making their own sandwiches or learning that pork loin with garlic asparagus and a salad doesn't taste all that bad.
Also, if someone says something, I simply point out I am on a diet and it is not diet friendly. When nagged, I tell them I am dropping the subject and it is best they do it as well.
I live alone so I don't struggle that much but I did grow up in a family with the Clean Your Plate Club mentality. I still have that mindset and it is hard for me to change. When I do go for family events, I think it will be tough not only because of that mentality but because of some food allergies that I now know that I have. So, I hear you about your frustrations.
Good luck with everything and I think it is important to set boundaries and compromise at times.
i have your same problem. my bf also loves to cook.. it's not bad foods, or the bad foods he does, i could skip... but the main issue is portion control, cause he makes so much (even though i have told him) and i tend to be hungry so i eat all of it
so it really is MY fault, but it is hard when things around you don't seem to help :/
If I am not eating it, I don't cook it. If my husband wants to eat something unhealthy, he makes it himself. We share all the cooking, except if its something that only one of us is going to eat. Then we just make it ourselves.. I would never make something I wasn't even going to eat... especially if its something I can't have!
I lived alone for a number of years and recently moved in with a friend. She's an extremely healthy eater. Sometimes this works to my advantage. She's thin because she eats so well. She has a natural liking for all the healthy foods and a natural dislike for the unhealthy. We eat separate meals most of the time unless it's a meal where we have friends over.
Whereas I am a picky eater (I have a separate thread on this forum about that) and a carb craver. So sometimes we don't eat the same thing. If I am able to eat what she fixes, sometimes that works out great. But if I can't, I feel kind of self-conscious because I am never going to be the same in my food preference, yet I'm the fat one who "should" be eating the way she does.
My issues with food are complex and the best paradigm of dieting I've found has been Martha Beck's 4-Day Win. This is for people like me who have to stop fighting with themselves and do the best they can, and who, if we forbid any food, will rebel and it won't be pretty. But if I have the option of the food, I then feel free to choose not to eat it.
It's like if I can negotiate with myself I will eat healthier - and if I'm lucky, it will become easier to make it a habit. I have given up soda and burgers for quite awhile now, and Little Debbie and Twinkies and no longer miss them.
The thing is that now I don't have the complete privacy and autonomy to follow the 4-Day Win my way 100% - I sometimes have to compromise. I'm hoping I'll get in the groove eventually. Right now I haven't been doing as well overall with my ways of eating. Tried on some shorts and they were tighter.
I couldn't give a sh!t what other people eat or what I cook for them to eat. What bugs me is when they criticize me for what I eat. Both my mom and my in-laws have accused me of starving myself (normally to my wife and not me).
I respect my elders, but in this case they can just p!ss off.
The reason guys often can eat like that and stay slimmer is because of muscle. Have you ever considered weight training? For every pound of muscle you build (takes 4-6 weeks on average), you burn an extra 50 calories at rest. That means, for example, say you lost 5 pounds of fat and gained 5 pounds of muscle (keep in mind although they each weigh the same, one pound of muscle is MUCH smaller and appears smoother under the skin than fat), you would be burning an extra 250 calories a day with no extra effort, weigh the same, but probably drop a jean size or two.
What I'm saying is, the more muscle you build, the more calories you can eat and you will STILL get smaller, not to mention more fit!
Anyway, don't let family or friends de-rail you. I have friends and coworkers asking me why I'm eating so WEIRD when I'm just eating a lot of vegetables. They usually don't have very healthy eating habits themselves and aren't fully comfortable with their bodies, so they aren't comfortable with you making these changes around them. All you really have to say is that you want to eat for health and fitness, and it's a decision you've made that will better your body. I bring my own food to other people's houses and have found ways to be quite polite about it. I simply explain I am working diligently on my fitness, and have a limited amount of calories I can intake. I appreciate the food they are offering, acknowledge how absolutely delicious it looks, but it's important for me to stick to my plan to reach my goals. I have never met anyone who has given me a really hard time, I think it really is about how you approach it. Also, always bringing my own food to friends, work, parties, restaurants sometimes, etc, allows me to control my food and calories while still eating socially!
When you're cooking for your boyfriend, keep in mind all of his lean body mass and THAT is why he can eat those extra calories, his body burns through them. Yours can do the same thing too, but you will have to work for it more because you don't have the testosterone for it
I can relate to this and will tell you that at 5'1" this will always be an issue. We just can't get away with overeating or eating the wrong stuff. I know the answer is to build up muscle, I wish I had done that when I was younger, that gets so much harder with age.
The Family Dieting Obstacle
So, I hear you about your frustrations. 
But if I have the option of the food, I then feel free to choose not to eat it. 
