Convincing GF How to Diet Right

As many other girls my girlfirend does think that fat is the all evil of diet and belive that the sure way to a fattloss is the ‘chocolate diet’

any of you who have a link to an article that I can show her and convince her better?

Strength Training, Bodybuilding & Online Supplement Store - T NATION #3
Strength Training, Bodybuilding & Online Supplement Store - T NATION
Strength Training, Bodybuilding & Online Supplement Store - T NATION
Strength Training, Bodybuilding & Online Supplement Store - T NATION

Apparently your father never explained this to you, but if you want to keep a woman around, harping on her about dieting is not a good idea.

[quote]supabeast wrote:
Apparently your father never explained this to you, but if you want to keep a woman around, harping on her about dieting is not a good idea.[/quote]

What do you do then when a slender, firm gazelle of a woman turns into a whale?

inb4 shouldnt matter, love, etc.

You can never convince a “true believer” that they are wrong. The only path to change for them is a religious experience in which the fallacy they’ve been idealizing turns against them.

Oh, wait, we’re talking diets here. I guess that applies here too.

Chocolate diet?

OP:
Is your girlfriend “on a diet”?
If she’s trying to diet but doing it wrong, point her in the right direction, and if she’s serious she’ll change.

If she’s not trying to diet but you don’t like the way she looks, you may be out of luck. You can give people tools to reach their goals but you can’t give them goals. Love her for who she is, or dump her because she’s not right for you, but don’t nag, because nagging doesn’t work.

[quote]yorik wrote:
You can never convince a “true believer” that they are wrong. The only path to change for them is a religious experience in which the fallacy they’ve been idealizing turns against them.

Oh, wait, we’re talking diets here. I guess that applies here too.[/quote]

[quote]AlisaV wrote:
Is your girlfriend “on a diet”?
If she’s trying to diet but doing it wrong, point her in the right direction, and if she’s serious she’ll change.

If she’s not trying to diet but you don’t like the way she looks, you may be out of luck. You can give people tools to reach their goals but you can’t give them goals.[/quote]

I definitely agree with these points.

If she’s just talking about this chocolate diet stuff, but not trying it, let her keep talking instead of trying to convince her you know better.

But if she actually is trying these fad diets, she’ll fail at them and get frustrated, and that could be your opportunity to show her pictures of Jen Heath, Olesya Novik, or pretty much any figure athlete and say “Well, these girls eat a certain way, here’s some info if you want to see it.”

One of the irrational things about women is that they think – or should I say feel – that “support” and good conversations mean Relating to Her Feelings, as opposed to getting the slightest bit of constructive advice. The latter is a bad thing, namely One of Those Awful Things That Men Do Because They Don’t “Understand,” that the less of, the better.

My suggestion is, save it for things of more importance.

Where having the highest quality physique, in terms of muscular mass and strength as well as bodyfat, is not the issue, it really is almost as simple as what has been shown in studies:

Calories, relative to expenditure, are the prime determinant of outcome.

Not how great a quality, by our standards, the diet is.

If she wants to follow some stupid “chocolate diet” for some period of time, so what.

You could get her a subscription to Woman’s World (found at the supermarket counter.) Every week they have a lead feature with sound nutritional advice.

Always with an insane claim such as losing 9 lb every week simply by doing this one small thing, but sound advice nonetheless, touted the way women like things touted.

They also have online articles I believe. If so, and if you’re determined to print articles out, you could hardly do better than to pick a good selection of these.

This.

Start dropping subtle hints that she’s fat.

If you can get her to go bulimic all that purging will give her some rock hard abs.

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
One of the irrational things about women is that they think – or should I say feel – that “support” and good conversations mean Relating to Her Feelings, as opposed to getting the slightest bit of constructive advice. The latter is a bad thing, namely One of Those Awful Things That Men Do Because They Don’t “Understand,” that the less of, the better.

[/quote]
Oh, for Christ’s sake! Women aren’t imbeciles. I have never behaved like that. Most of the women I know don’t behave like that.

As for the woman who wants food to make her happy. I used to be that way; unless you sprang from the womb as a baby fitness buff, you were probably that way at some point. I found that logging my food online helped a lot – I got more of a charge out of being able to give myself a gold star for diet, so to speak, than I did about the taste of what I was eating. Substitute one stimulus for another.

Watching your nutrition stats shift in the right direction is the same kind of psychological zing as watching the polls go your way on fivethirtyeight.

[quote]AlisaV wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
One of the irrational things about women is that they think – or should I say feel – that “support” and good conversations mean Relating to Her Feelings, as opposed to getting the slightest bit of constructive advice. The latter is a bad thing, namely One of Those Awful Things That Men Do Because They Don’t “Understand,” that the less of, the better.

Oh, for Christ’s sake! Women aren’t imbeciles. I have never behaved like that. Most of the women I know don’t behave like that.[/quote]

That is probably an example of women often not understanding what women do on various points.

In fact it is completely common for women to really not want to get constructive advice when they talk about their problems, and to enjoy the fact that their women friends generally don’t do much of that but instead focus on empathizing rather than solving.

That a given woman disagrees that this is common female psychology doesn’t change that it is.

Congratulations to you, however, for not being that way yourself, as it isn’t productive. Either to solving the problem at hand, or to the relationship, to be annoyed by getting constructive suggestions. That doesn’t stop countless other women from being that way though.

Maybe she just really doesn’t know how to get in shape. I got fat for a few years, I don’t know how my husband could stand me, but he did.

I really didn’t know how to lose weight. I did crazy cardio in the gym, pretty much starved myself. Hell, I even PAID people to help me lose weight, and the advice that they gave me was so bad, it’s a good thing I live in a different city now, or I would hunt those fuckers down…

Everyone preaches moderation. I remember deciding just not to eat candy or junk anymore, and everybody and their mother telling me that I couldn’t do that! That was a recipe for failure! It’s just not possible! It was actually a Chris Shugart article I stumbled across on the internet that got me really pissed off and set everything in motion for me.

But, I STILL hear it! People who haven’t seen me in awhile, the first thing they say is “You look GREAT, what have you been doing?!?” Then when I tell them, they go ahead and tell me how everything I’m doing is wrong, and I won’t be able to keep it up.

It is hard for women to be in shape right now. Everyone is against us, the media, the trainers, our friends and family. It’s no wonder so many women are downright fat, they don’t have any friggin’ clue what they’re supposed to be doing. There’s just so much misinformation out there.

Just keep being the voice of reason, and give her good advice when she asks for it. If you can’t deal with the weight issue, then move on, some might call you shallow but there’s nothing wrong with making fitness a priority when choosing a partner.

It’s impossible to convince a woman of anything, diet especially…

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
One of the irrational things about women is that they think – or should I say feel – that “support” and good conversations mean Relating to Her Feelings, as opposed to getting the slightest bit of constructive advice. The latter is a bad thing, namely One of Those Awful Things That Men Do Because They Don’t “Understand,” that the less of, the better.

Oh, for Christ’s sake! Women aren’t imbeciles. I have never behaved like that. Most of the women I know don’t behave like that.

That is probably an example of women often not understanding what women do on various points.

In fact it is completely common for women to really not want to get constructive advice when they talk about their problems, and to enjoy the fact that their women friends generally don’t do much of that but instead focus on empathizing rather than solving.

That a given woman disagrees that this is common female psychology doesn’t change that it is.

Congratulations to you, however, for not being that way yourself, as it isn’t productive. Either to solving the problem at hand, or to the relationship, to be annoyed by getting constructive suggestions. That doesn’t stop countless other women from being that way though.
[/quote]

As much as I hate to, I have to agree with Bill on this one. I see it all the time, and it’s infuriating. That attitude is one of the major reasons I have a very difficult time making female friends.

Yup, it’s common that women talk about problems for empathy not necessarily problem-solving. I won’t give a valuation judgement on that, but I will say it irritates the dickens outta me when a guy attempts to solve my problem and he’s giving me shitty advice. Seriously, if you cannot understand the basics of human relationships, don’t tell me how to handle a crappy co-worker. The proverbial “put-it-in-her-pooper” does not solve everything. :slight_smile:

Sorry for the vent/hijack.

[quote]nvh95 wrote:
The proverbial “put-it-in-her-pooper” does not solve everything. :slight_smile: [/quote]

Actually, there was an '80s porn video where Ron Jeremy played Dr Peter Proctor (no relation to the hair doctor today of that name) and I forget who played his brother, both of whom worked as counselors aiding women with their relationship problems.

They did not quite agree on methods. One had it that anal sex was the solution to each problem – naturally, in the form of, the therapist having anal sex with the woman so as to get her off to a good start – while the other, I think Ron Jeremy, had it that the correct answer was double penetration.

So while at first I didn’t see where “put-it-in-her-pooper” was all that widely considered to be the cure-all, on further thought, true, it has been advanced that way.

One day set it up like your masturbating to one of debras before and after pictures or any one of the hot chics who post in the T-Vixen thread. Pretend like you got caught in the act and just cover your face and hide in the bathroom acting ashamed she caught you looking at your ideal womens physique.

Then she’ll be curious and will surf through pictures and maybe have a few links open to some of Dr. Jonny Bowden’s youtube clips talking about nutrition. Then put up some other windows of various informative articles.

Then have some diets and sound nutrition advice posted up on the refrigerator. Don’t hint or tell her it’s for her. Just be like I like to have my info there so I can make better choices in what I eat. A visual aide if you may.

Then as you keep doing all this without once telling her you think she should diet this way. I believe she will come around and start eating like you and wanting to work out. Act super happy when you’re done working out be like “Omg Cynthia I just had an awesome work out I feel great hun” then say things like “Damn this protein and good fats are the bomb”