Sorry to say that men are at it again. This time, a man seemingly “misunderstood” his girlfriend and her weight loss journey. A new Am I The Asshole post on Reddit had me seeing red the minute the man finished his first sentence.
The lovely “concerned” gentleman did point out that he tells his significant other that she’s beautiful to him. But when she told him that she wanted to lose weight, he took it upon himself to count her calories to prove a point. She was at a standstill with her weight loss, which can happen for a number of reasons. She got frustrated, told him about it, and he asked her to tell him what she ate all day long. Mistake number one.
But it got worse when she did. He counted her calories and told her that the 2200 calories that she ate was going to force her to gain weight and she needed to eat less. Sir, that’s not true at all. To maintain weight, women should be consuming roughly 2400 calories a day. She’s eating 2200 and if she’s working out, that’s more than normal. It is also extremely dangerous to tell a woman to stop eating that man calories!
Someone pointed out that while his intentions may have been in the right place, he went about it in the wrong way. “I know you want to help but the way you went about it wasn’t what she needed.” They went on to offer advice on how he can help instead. “Ask her how you can help her. Maybe cook together and meal prep healthy foods. Go on walks together to help burn calories. Ask if she is using any tools or would like help researching tools to help be healthier. There are apps or journals that help track and encourage people in being healthy and losing weight.”
Don’t ever tell someone to watch their calories like this
I am incredibly touchy on stuff like this. When I was at my most “weight” obsessed, I would eat just a few calories and then try to run them off because the obsession was that bad and damaging. So when I see someone think they’re “helping” someone by encouraging this behavior, it rubs me the wrong way.
Sure, this man thought he was being kind. He does praise his girlfriend’s looks and body but that’s all beside the point. The damage something like this can do could take her years to work through. And even then, it might weigh on her. What she wanted was encouragement, maybe someone to work out with her. Not someone to preach at her and criticize her in the process.
She wasn’t eating any wild amount of calories, a normal amount for a healthy human to consume daily. But if he wanted to help her, there were ways to go about it that wasn’t forcing her to tell him everything she ate and then calculating her calories to yell at her about them. That’s what makes him the asshole in this situation.
