I'm a 27 year old female and I've been dating my wonderful boyfriend (who's 32) for about four years now. When we started dating I was about 100lbs overweight. I've been overweight almost my whole life and I come from a family of people with weight issues. This has been something that has been a negative in my life for a long time. I have been on a diet forever and my boyfriend knew this when we started dating.

Fast forward to the present, and I've lost about 85 lbs. I've finally been able to follow through with long term healthy eating and excercise. This has been partly inspired by my boyfriend who is himself a heathy eater and a muscle-bound fitness nut. I should feel great right? Except my boyfriend and I have been having less and less sex and yesterday he told me that he is not as attracted to me since I've been losing weight. He said that he is primarily attracted to "fleshier" women and he feels that I need to gain back some of my weight. When I asked him why he didn't bring this up sooner, he said that he didn't beleive that I would follow through in the end (which, I guess, is reasonable as I've been yo yo dieting forever)

So now I'm torn. I LOVE my boyfriend and I want him to be attracted to me. My problem is that I never knew that this was the ONLY way that he would want me. He always said that he thought I was beautiful when I complained about wanting to lose weight, so maybe I should have had a clue. I feel stupid. If this were only an aesthetic issue I would probably just give in, but it's not. I've worked so hard for this, and I really feel a hundred times better and healthier without all the extra pounds. Plus my sex drive has shot up dramatically which makes this whole situation blow (but I'm not doing the blowing. ha!). I was really proud of myself until he told me that and now I feel like shit. And I see his point. If he were to suddenly let himself go I would probably react similarly. I don't know what the right thing to do is. Am I obligated to regain my weight? Is there some other solution? Help!

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

My response after the jump...

Well, BARAAHP, according to the leading lights of the size-acceptance movement, there's no way you can keep keep the weight off permanently. Because, you see, anyone who's ever lost weight through diet and exercise winds up gaining-it-all-back-and-more once she goes off her diet and stops exercising. So... no need to worry, according to the leading lights of the size-acceptance movement, because this problem will work itself out in a few months, i.e. you'll gain all the weight back (and more), and your boyfriend will once again want to fuck you (and more).

But just in case you made realistic and sustainable changes to your diet (instead of going on a diet) and built exercise into your life in a realistic and sustainable way—just in case, in other words, the changes you made to your life are likely to be permanent, in which case the weight loss is likely to be permanent too—you might wanna think about finding a new boyfriend, one who isn't going to undermine your health by creating an incentive to put all that weight back on.

And please don't feel stupid, BARAAHP. All men are required to tell their girlfriends—overweight, welterweight, idealweight—that they're beautiful when their girlfriends complain about wanting to lose some weight. You had no way of knowing that your boyfriend, unlike most women's boyfriends, actually meant it. He needed to say, "Don't lose the weight—I'm only attracted to big girls!", and not, "Oh, honey, I love you just the way you are."