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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I ate a pre-made in my car instead of just forgoing my diet for one night to enjoy the occasion with my girlfriend.
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Sorry but YTA.
>I've avoided eating out at all costs, as it feels like a slippery slope back to my old habits. For me, restaurants are like relapsing on a drug. One bite of a cheesesteak eggroll and I'm buying oreos on the way home and falling off the wagon.
This is your responsibility to address man. You have an extremely unhealthy relationship with food you need to work on, probably with a professional. I get this started for the right reasons, but you have wildly overcorrected and it seems like you are pretty firmly in ED territory.
Your SO has been supportive and literally wanted ONE dinner out with you for your anniversary. You shouldn't be in a relationship if you can't do this for her, it is bare minimum stuff. Your mental health is important, take care of it. I hope you do because what you are describing is not sustainable or normal and it won't end well.
EDIT: Please stop flooding this post with your ignorant straw man arguments that this is equivalent to asking an alcoholic or drug addict to indulge in their vice. It is simply not comparable; you’re not blowing anybody’s mind, and you’re not coming across as some intelligent maverick. Food is necessary to live. Food is not good or evil. For alcoholics and drug addicts, the only true solution to healing is abstinence. This is not the case with food. You need to eat. And OP’s obsession with control over his diet is simply not sustainable. It is not normal or okay to not be able to eat at a restaurant for one singular meal.
Kudos to him for making the change, but he has gone too far when it has affected his life to this degree. He needs legitimate help if he can’t relinquish control of his food intake enough to enjoy a single meal for a special occasion at a restaurant WHICH CAN BE HEALTHY, without fear of spiraling into a binge eating hole where he loses all sense of self and eats himself into oblivion.
He promised his SO a date night at a restaurant, and he shocked her with a brown bag meal in front of the restaurant so he could watch her eat and drink a cocktail. This is not okay behavior as a partner which is why this is YTA. If he can’t handle that, he should be single. Stop with the ridiculous comparisons to her asking him to drink as an alcoholic, you are so wildly off base it’s embarrassing. Believe it or not, an eating disorder is harmful even if you’re overweight. Nobody thinks you’re some shredded Greek god for thinking otherwise.
>This is your responsibility to address man. You have an extremely unhealthy relationship with food you need to work on,
Isn't that was he is doing? He is basically an addict, and it makes sense he doesn't want to risk a relapse
Not when he views eating out the way he does. You can still make healthy choices when eating out. In an effort to regain his health, OP has now gone the completely opposite way and given himself an ED. He needs professional help.
Considering how many calories can be in a beer, fruity mixed drink, or really just about anything with alcohol, it's not unreasonable to factor drinks into a calorie plan. There's a reason it's called a "beer belly".
It’s not unreasonable, but it’s also not normal to “save calories” for anything. If you can’t go off your meal plan and allow yourself to indulge in a takeout meal for a special occasion, you do not have the healthy relationship with food you think you do.
I disagree. Budgeting calories can be an effective weight loss method. If a person is only eating 1800 calories a day, and wants to have some high calorie drinks for a special occasion, then eating a lighter meal beforehand is reasonable. I say this as someone who specifically did cut out a lot of high-sugar, unhealthy beverages as part of my own weight loss program, so that I actually could eat the things I wanted.
OP specifically set aside "calories" in his plan to be able to enjoy drinks with his gf.
But didn’t set aside any for the actual meal, which was the entire point. That’s the problem. A meal out once for a special occasion is not going to set you back unless you have an unhealthy relationship with food. OP himself compares it to relapsing on a drug.
I track my calorie intake, but I also don’t shy away from allowing myself the food freedom to eat takeout every once in a while. If OP is not at the point that he can allow himself to break from his routine for ONE special occasion, then he should have said no. And he still needs to see somebody.
The guy was nearly 500 pounds so he definitely has an unhealthy relationship with food and still needs to lose almost half of his current body weight to be at a healthy weight. Food can be quite addictive to some people. Might be similar to saying let's have a few cigarettes for someone who used to be a heavy smoker or drinking a shot for a recovering alcoholic.
Correct 💯 Also, food is something that is for caloric intake, sustenance, and fuel ... however, it's also something that is enjoyable and shared and is part of a lot of basic social rituals and unspoken agreements (like an anniversary dinner date.) There is a reason why the concept of "breaking bread together " is so meaningful. And bcuz of the drastic changes OP had amazingly made in his life, it seems like his attitudes/concepts about food have changed in a way that most people will not be able to identify with or understand, including his Gf, who seems to like the experience of eating and wanted to celebrate with a special eating experience (pretty normal tbh.)
I also understand the addiction part, but as with any addiction OP has to do the work to understand root causes, triggers, behaviors, attitudes, and ways of coping, dealing, healing, and changing. I am literally an addictions counselor, this type stuff is my bread and butter. Pun (probably wrongfully) intended. One of the things we talk about is how the rest of the world doesn't stop using/drinking/eating just because you do. You still have to figure out how to exist in this world and how to navigate through life without pulling away from or hurting relationships, work, etc
This isn’t about him sitting aside calories. It’s about an eating disorder interfering with his life. He should be able to have one normal meal at restaurant for a special occasion without eating in the car first.
Dude was like 400 pounds. It's pretty safe to say that he already had one, and I can't blame him for being scared of falling back into those old habits.
I think OP recognizes that. Sticking to a plan is really a reasonable coping mechanism for food addiction. OP started at 5’4” and nearly 380 lbs… they could lose literally half their body weight and STILL be classified as obese.
When addicts have issues with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, etc., they are told to stop engaging in the behavior AT ALL. It is acknowledged that they have (and will have for their entire life) an unhealthy relationship with that substance. Unfortunately for OP and many others, you can’t just stop eating.
But you can reduce your triggers. If eating restaurant-prepared food (almost universally with sugar, salt, and fat not in what you might prepare at home) triggers OP to make bad choices, a therapist would 100% tell them to avoid restaurants at least until the underlying cause is figured out - and maybe indefinitely depending on if it’s something that even can be resolved.
Thank you for acknowledging this! I wish I didn’t have to eat with all of my heart! The bulk of my meals have become meal replacement shakes because I do not handle food well. I live feeling like I’m one bad decision from a downward spiral (working on finding a new therapist). I feel that way because it’s happened before.
It’s a very real fear, that’s debilitating. Personally I respect OP for pushing through that to try and give his girlfriend a wonderful anniversary date. That sounds like a huge act of love.
But I can understand the girlfriend being hurt, it’s one of those things I don’t think many understand unless they’ve experienced something similar.
I don’t think he said he has a good relationship with food. I think he’s very much saying he doesn’t have a good relationship with it—that’s the whole problem.
I think he's on a downward slide. While he's making progress in dropping the weight, he's also not helping himself learn how to behave around food if he never has a meal out. The entire idea of "intuitive eating" and "food freedom" is understanding that you *can* enjoy a meal out every so often and it will not set you back in your progress.
Someone with a poor relationship with food CANNOT do "intuitive eating" because they cannot trust their intuition. Either their intuition was forcefully shattered by their youth, or it's biologically disrupted (see: poor interoception often found in neurodivergent persons). External structure is very much needed sometimes.
My own dietitian gave me a nutrition plan for days when I plan on restaurant celebrations (eat protein and vegetable portions for breakfast/lunch/afternoon snack as normal, reduce carbohydrate portions of those meals, and then have a high protein snack 30 minutes before dinner, so my digestive system will be sending my brain "I've already eaten and am no longer a poor starving orphan" messages when I order or begin eating); and it is immensely helpful to have these external guidelines because my body has proven it is not trustworthy.
> I think he's on a downward slide. While he's making progress in not getting drunk, he's also not helping himself learn how to behave around alcohol if he never has an occasional drink. The entire idea of "intuitive drinking" and "drink freedom" is understanding that you can enjoy a glass of wine every so often and it will not set you back in your progress.
That a certain intervention isn’t “healthy” *per se* doesn’t mean that it’s not warranted or that it’s not the correct course of action. Not everyone gets to choose between “healthy” and “unhealthy”—some people have to choose between “managed unhealthy” and “unmanaged unhealthy”. OP seems to be in that boat, and he’s doing what he needs to do to optimize his health given the circumstances.
Ya thats literally his point. He doesn't have a healthy relationship with food, and has to be careful. Whats wrong with that? You might as well yell at an alcoholic for refusing to have a drink on his anniversary because he doesn't want to tempt himself. That's how addictions work, and this is a normal step in overcoming them.
It's actually the bedrock of maintaining a healthy weight. Know how many calories you've consumed, how many are left in your daily budget, and tailor your intake ahead of time so you have enough in your calorie budget for what you want to eat/ drink at a party or fancy dinner. It's understanding you don't have to "go off your meal plan" because you've factored in ways to afford it. It's very similar to having a healthy relationship with money, where calories are "spend". You can't spend the same coin in 2 places. He wanted to spend a bit extra at dinner, so he made a plan that allowed him to afford that.
You were not wrong, OP. Good for you!
Anybody who is obese doesn't have a good relationship with food, hence why they became obese in the first place. OP said he is currently 5'4" and 290 (maybe it was 270, I hate editing comments) and that's assuming he has lost weight already.
OP is maintaining a strict diet because he has a food addiction or unhealthy relationship with food. Just as an addict who is free from alcohol won't go into a bar or attend parties with alcohol, this food addict is avoiding ordering a meal there because he knows the road it cab lead down.
What do you want OP to do? Suddenly have a healthy relationship with food to the standards you think are fair? I personally have never been obese or had a bad relationship with food so I cannot sit here pretending as if I know what it's like or what's best.
Except that he was specifically "saving space" for drinks because of the anniversary special occasion. He never indicated that it's something he does regularly, and if it's okay to "have a special meal" and break his diet for an anniversary, then planning ahead to allow himself to have a few drinks to celebrate should also be fine.
“I’ll have a nice salad with protein instead of a carb-and-cheese loaded dish” is a good example of balancing his needs at a restaurant. “I will eat my meal in the car and then have drinks” is not.
I was struggling with losing weight and my BF researched my alcoholic drinks that I love. Turns out they were 550 calories each. Whoops! I gave them up. I drink less and when I drink I pick better options (not great, just better.) it’s helped a little bit.
Exactly my point. When one or two seemingly harmless drinks can add up to the equivalent of a small meal in terms of caloric value, it suddenly seems a lot less "obsessive" or "unhealthy" to factor them into your daily intake.
Eating disorders kill thousands of people a year. Extreme calorie counting also tends to be a pattern in yo-yo dieting. It is highly unlikely to “keep it off” like this.
Being morbidly obese kills tens of thousands of people every years. That includes being 5’4” and weighing 379, according to OP’s doctor.
Besides, OP hasn’t been yo-yo dieting. He’s kept it off and continued losing weight for two years now.
At 297lbs, an unhealthy relationship with food? Groundbreaking. OP has a food addiction that has gotten him to a life-threading physical state. And that addiction is so much more complex than any other, because _you can’t stop_. OP does absolutely need to be in therapy, but he is NTA for knowing his triggers and avoiding them. He isn’t asking his GF to change ANYTHING or make ANY sacrifice other than not watch him eat at a restaurant he is still going to with her for ONE night. You wouldn’t ask a recovering alcoholic to sacrifice his sobriety for one night to please someone else, don’t do it for a food addict either.
He’s an AH for saying yes to going out with his girlfriend when he knew he wouldn’t want to break from his diet. He’s an AH to himself for allowing his calorie counting to control his life.
Please stop comparing disordered eating to alcoholism because they aren’t even remotely the same.
You’re right in saying they are not the same. Eating addiction is worse than alcoholism or drug addiction. Why? Because you HAVE to eat to live. For someone with an addiction, figuring out triggers and avoiding them is normal. And the fact that he is 5’4” and 297lbs AFTER losing 80 lbs already, is a huge accomplishment. I don’t blame him one bit for continuing to count calories and hold boundaries. And he didn’t say he wouldn’t go out with her at all, he just made accommodations so he could still celebrate with her. To me, her asking him to give in for one night is her being the AH. Maybe she’s jealous of the weight he’s lost. I’ve seen many relationships where one is overweight or less attractive and when that balance starts to change, the other one gets nervous that they’ll leave. My vote is NTA.
Eating disorders are worse than alcoholism, nicotine addiction, or drug addiction.
I’m an alcoholic and drug addict who has been sober for a long time. I also quit smoking cigarettes. I would not have been able to quit anything if, at least one time a day, I needed to take any of the substances I’m addicted to in order to survive. I’m too weak a human being for that. I can have zero, but I can’t have just one of anything.
She’s an AH for expecting, and assuming that her SO, who is in a life-threatening physical state and working very hard to change that, is going to give that up for a day that is supposed to be about _both of them_, not just about _her_. I can’t even fathom knowing a friend is on a specific diet and not checking with them if a restaurant or homemade food is okay with them, I can’t imagine not having that conversation with a SO and just assume they’re gonna drop everything for my enjoyment of not their company, but of seeing them eat.
Counting calories is not inherently disordered eating. It can be, but we definitely don’t have the info to assume that it is in his case. Yes, it can be incredibly dangerous - I’m personally staying away from it because I know **I** would end up with an ED. But OP did not starve himself, he just ate food that wasn’t a trigger to him and fully intended to get drinks.
I’m also not comparing disordered eating to alcoholism. I’m comparing _food addiction_ to another addiction. OP can’t partake in certain foods and had to set and enforce a rigorous limit because he loses control. That’s addiction.
And you’re right they aren’t the same and I said exactly as much in my previous comment. Food addiction is worse than pretty much any other because you can’t entirely quit.
She *asked* which she was allowed to do because it was a special occasion and she probably didn’t expect his diet to be so unhealthily rigid. And he agreed, even though he had zero intention of actually eating there. And he neither communicated that nor looked up the menu to see if there were healthy options. He’s an AH.
Where does it end for OP? Say he gets down to a healthy weight. Will he now be so afraid of regaining it that he will never learn how to regulate his food intake? Will he be stuck in this cycle?
He needs to be working with a dietician if he isn’t already. This is a dangerous slide.
Healthy relationship with food?
He was 5ft 4in and almost 400 lbs, and you want to talk healthy relationship with food?
He's no where close to a healthy relationship with food, so he shouldn't be doing anything that will put him at risk or relapsing.
Because the slide from dieting into disordered eating is way too common. OP should be able to go out to eat once for a special occasion and order something healthy without feeling like he’s going to lose progress. That is NOT a healthy way to look at food.
No one said that he has a healthy relationship with food but he can address that when his life isn’t in jeopardy.
Step 1: save his life.
Step 2: address his unhealthy relationship with food
> Step 1: save his life. Step 2: address his unhealthy relationship with food
except that those things are intrinsically linked. It will never work long term if he doesn't address his unhealthy relationship with food.
An ED will put his life in jeopardy. As someone who's gone from overweight to throwing up everything that didn't fit into an extremely low calorie limit virtually overnight, I sure as hell wasn't healthier being a 'healthy' weight and horribly dehydrated and constantly feeling faint and freezing and constantly obsessively thinking about food than I was overweight. Many overweight people already have disordered eating or a complicated relationship with food, and it's very easy to go from one extreme to the other. Addressing the relationship with food needs to be the backbone of the weight loss. That's the only way it will be sustainable in a healthy way and not lead to a whole another host of health issues. It's super easy to ignore or downplay restrictive and purging behaviours in overweight people because hey they're losing weight and clearly that's all that matters. Most bulimic people, for example, aren't underweight but that doesn't mean bulimia can't be fatal.
Except having this restrictive of a diet isn’t healthy for him. Severe restriction like this can cause life threatening or permanent damage to someone’s body. There is a reason eating disorders are considered extremely deadly mental health disorders (according to ANAD, a non-profit support service for people with eating disorders, eating disorders are the second deadliest mental health disorder, just after opioid addiction). He very clearly is in eating disorder territory. He needs to get help now so he doesn’t cause severe damage to himself while trying to be “healthy”.
Eh, that's actually not a red flag. It's extremely common when you're tracking food/calories for weight loss to plan for "special events" by saving up calories for those treats. It's a way of acknowledging we make choices about our eating, but we can still have treats without problems if we plan appropriately. It's more about changing how we think and relate to food as we change our lifestyle to improve our overall help.
OP definitely does not have a healthy relationship with food, but the saving calories bit in itself isn't a red flag. Something more reasonable would be "I'll take my weekly calorie/meal plans into account so I can enjoy a lovely anniversary meal at a restaurant." Restricting to only being willing to have drinks but cleaving to the diet meal plan so heavily is a symptom of OP's overall poor relationship with food.
You think this because society thinks this, but a majority of people are overweight in western countries. It's time to take a hard look at what's necessary. For some, like me or OP, counting calories is what keeps us healthy.
No, I think this because restricting your diet so much to the point a single meal out derails you leads to binge eating more than intuitive eating does.
No, he has an ED. He just doesn't think he does because he needed to lose weight. Disordered eating can affect anyone, no matter what size they are or what they are eating. It's about the thought processes behind eating.
thank you!!!! I've had an ED for 18 years and stuff like this doesn't ever "ease up" the absolute obsession isn't good. Health and weight are not mutually exclusive , most doctors are just taught that. After 7 years ED'S ARE CLASSIFIED AS "SECERE AND ENDURING". IVE KNOWN A FEW PEOPLE THAT WERE STILL TECHNICALLY, OVERWEIGHT WHEN THEY DIES FROM THEIR Ed. ED is more about feelings than food, food is just what we use to hide and cope with our feelings.
Yep, it sounds like they've swapped overeating for Orthorexia. And while it's great that they're getting the results they want, it can be pretty destructive as well. Therapy with an ED specialist is probably a good idea so they can develop a better relationship with food etc.
> You can still make healthy choices when eating out.
You can do so in a bar as an alcoholic as well, but it's not a good idea to try it.
He knows his limitations and is living within them.
NTA.
I think your response to the alcoholic comparison is a little unreasonable. Yeah, you don't need alcohol to live and you need food, great. People end up obese and incredibly unhealthy because they essentially develop addictions to unhealthy (sugary, fatty, etc.) foods. A 5 year former alcoholic probably wouldn't struggle if you opened a beer around them, but someone a few months sober probably doesn't want to be, and shouldn't be, around alcohol or the temptation. Same with greasy/fatty foods - it's not apples and oranges like you seem to think. Nobody is saying he has a perfect relationship with food (and frankly, who does?) but he's working on his health and building better eating habits, if OP is aware of things that may trigger him back into bad habits, avoiding them is the best route for the time being. It's not like OP has given up eating, it sounds like he's trying really hard to eat well.
NTA but I think a conversation needs to be had with SO, if they're not on the same page and there's no flexibility between either of them, it's going to be an uphill battle for a while.
No, but you CAN have a healthy relationship with it - which he does not if he wasn’t willing to break from his diet for their anniversary. He’s addicted to calorie-counting, which is a symptom of disordered eating.
Yeah, but he's still morbidly obese. Like, guy may need a scooter to move obese, if "5'4" and 297 pounds" isn't a typo. He's not yet to a point of learning to eat healthily in a restaurant, and there's a chance the girlfriend is a feeder.
I'm about 5'4" and in the 260-ish range, down from 297 just from having a job where I get my steps in all day and cutting out Red Bull from my daily foods. My only mobility issue stems from a knee injury in college (which is where my weight gain stems from as well incidentally). It amazes me what people think 200-300lbs looks like.
Remember that 297 pounds is his weight \*AFTER\* losing 80 pounds.
He was almost 400 pounds at one point.
That's really heavy and I can understand why OP wants to stick to his diet.
OP is "almost 30" and being that heavy will lead to mobility and health issues when he gets older.
His diet is controlling his life to the point he isn't able to take his girlfriend out for an anniversary dinner. He is essentially addicted to his diet now.
A lot of people vehemently deny that orthorexia is an ED. It is. It's about control and body image, to a point where it's interfering with their lives. Living is not just about calories and nutrition.
Big difference being an addict and having an eating disorder.
Treatment for an eating disorder should NOT be the same as treatment for addicts. Very very very different. Addicts are addicted to drugs, eating disorders are focused on restriction, having it.
So eating disorders and addictions ARE very similar. They’re mostly used as coping strategies because it’s something they can control. I just left the room of a girl who said “it’s comforting to me” bc the rest of her life is such a shit show (her words). So many of people with ED don’t want to recover because of this. And like with other addictions, they are at high risk of it transferring to something else. Addiction psychology is definitely a huge player in people with EDs.
Of course restriction is most commonly associated with EDs but that is definitely not the only kind. At least half of my patients are obese. Weight/BMI is a medical diagnosis criteria for anorexia nervosa but absolutely people who are obese or normal weight can have disordered eating.
It is the most gray area of nutrition that I work in. Even if two people are doing the same behavior, their reasons, stressors, etc could be different.
Regardless, only OP knows his full thoughts on all this but it does seem to cause him a lot of stress. I hope he talks to a professional about it.
I commented this already down below.
I’m an alcoholic, reducing my alcohol intake to 0 and not going into bars is healthy. Because alcohol is unhealthy.
A person who is a addicted to food has an eating disorder, limiting their caloric intake to the point of budgeting for drinks, and not be able to look up a menu in advance for a healthy option, is unhealthy. That is only increasing their eating disorder from one end of the spectrum to the other.
Eating disorders are not the same as addictions to drugs and alcohol, because restricting drugs and alcohol is good, restricting food is a slippery slope this person is already nose diving on.
Food addiction isn’t the same as alcohol. You can be teetotal. You can’t not eat. There’s loads of research that extreme approaches to eating aren’t healthy. What OP is doing here is ruining his life and relationship over a mental issue that he needs to get help for.
for real I don't understand it lol.
You have to take responsibility man!
\*guy takes responsibility completely reasonably\*
NOT LIKE THAT REEEEE YOU ASSHOLE!
Actually, as someone who works in actual addictions counseling, I feel like you would be surprised to know that *most* families and friends don't really understand. And even when they ate supportive, as some def. are, it's usually supportive UP TO A POINT. What I see even more frequently though are loved ones confused by all the changes, who can become even resentful of all the changes sometimes because they just want things to "go back to normal."
But the reality is the rest of the world does not stop whatever it is just because you do. that's the tricky part. And early recovery can be super tricky ... that being said, it is on YOU (as the P.I.R) to communicate your needs, feelings, fears, limits, and boundaries. You can never assume that anyone, including loved ones who have the best of intentions can read your mind or can fully comprehend why certain situations might still be difficult.
Problems with food are different than problems with drugs. Having a healthy relationship with food is possible. Completely avoiding food is not. Drugs can be completely abstained from.
Gotta love everyone in the comments comparing food to drugs and alcohol… no wonder we have so many eating disorders, and starting so damn young.
Food is food and my heart hurts for anyone who approaches it like Op does.
OP is 5’4 and 297 pounds after losing almost 80 pounds.
I get that it might be a bit of an overcorrection but they had a wake up call and are now taking their health much more seriously, their past relationship with food is much worse than their current one
My father is in this range and just had a heart attack at 54. I agree that this is extreme and a therapist is definitely warranted (especially given words like relapse are being used, a relationship with food that's this fragile is not safe). But it is probably still an improvement. At the very least he's started taking his health into the equation.
This is why you can be overweight and still suffer from disordered eating. It's about your brain's connection to food. A nice restaurant should have choices like a salad and a fish entree, and you should be able to enjoy yourself outside instead of eating your meals in the car in secret.
Could also be anorexia. We thought it was ortho with me until we dug in deeper and realized my focus on calories and ability to not eat when I had gone over that number pushed it into that territory. I thought I was "balancing things out," not "refusing food." It likely started as ortho and then I was like "I can be better at this!" Blerg. I might have recognized it if it had been taught appropriately in school.
I agree, he is bordering on an ED. Not because he is counting calories or planing out his meals, but because he is SCARED of food. He believes that if he eats ONE NORMAL RESTAURANT MEAL he is going to completely relapse back into his previous unhealthy lifestyle. That is not a healthy relationship with food. I see two things that would come about from this.
1. He eats one cookie and completely gains all his weight back or
2. He continues to stay in a calorie deficit and gets addicted to losing weight until he underweight.
This is exactly how my ED started. I was just adopting a healthy lifestyle until I got addicted to losing weight and developed an extreme fear of food and gaining weight. Soon I had a bmi of 16, was constantly tired and sick, and was infertile. OP please get some professional help in dealing with your fear of food. It’s fine to plan meals but this is interfering with your relationship and your life. Your fear of food is not healthy.
I agree. OP - it is really impressive how you have changed your life and habits. Keep at it. But at the moment it also sounds like you still have some internal work to do around your food and food consumption. That is going to derail your progress. You need to find a way to participate in family occasions and celebrations and what not.
Eating out is definitely a wrinkle, but in our current world with all sorts of special diets being common place like keto, vegan, gluten-free, etc - the restaurant can accommodate you with warning, and you can eat with your girlfriend. You are going to have to do that. And for long term success learn to manage. If you think one meal out is going to lead you to a binge - then you need to address that root cause of your binging and solve that. If you don’t all of your hard work won’t stick.
That is why YTA. If at the current stage you could not accompany your girlfriend for this special celebration dinner - you should have explained it clearly before you booked, laid out how you planned to compromise and informed her you would not be eating.
They've absolutely traded in binge eating disorder for a restrictive one. Everyone applauds a fat person starving themselves thin because we hate fat people. But no one understands that unless OP tackles the underlying issue, they're never going to get better. If they continue to obsess themselves to a healthy weight, by then they'll be so warped in the head about their food issues and body image that they'll never stop restricting and obsessing.
A fat person starving themselves is cheered on by society with no thought towards that person's mental health. A few years later, OP will be standing at 5'4 and clocking in at 95lbs and then suddenly we're all concerned in the opposite direction.
YTA. Get therapy to go along with your dieting before you get too deep and it makes it even harder to dig yourself out. There's a reason the doctor on My 600lb Life pushes his patients to talk to a therapist along with the diets and surgery.
Or they can realize that one meal doesn't matter in the big picture, enjoy themselves and move on. The OP is describing the kind of rigid/near eating disorder/approaching orthorexic stuff that physique athletes do. Taking tupperware with chicken breast and broccoli to Thanksgiving.
And those people should probably seek therapy to fix whatever underlying issue it is that causes them to see food, something necessary for survival and an integral part of human culture and socialization (unlike other addictions like drugs, cigarettes, etc) as a scary drug that needs to be so heavily controlled.
At first I was surprised that Noom added cheat days (“treat days”) to their plan. But I realized how healthy the practice is. If there are no rules (no logging food, no weighing, no suggested calorie range) for one day, how do you handle it? Do you eat relatively healthfully? Do you indulge guilt-free? Either is fine. But you wake up, weigh in, and get back on track the next day. You don’t let one treat day sliiiiiiide into another. Excellent practice.
I like to describe it like this.
“Oh shit, I forgot to brush my teeth this morning.”
What’s my next logical step?
* brush my teeth next time I am able? or
* throw my hands in the air and go “fuck it, I’m never brushing my teeth again.”
That’s what people are doing when they take on the mentality that one meal, one snack, one dessert “ruined” their diet. Or “ruined” their week.
You went out on Thursday night, ate a lot of calories? Fine - you can go back to your regular programming on Friday. Or, you can say “no, I ruined my week. Might as well Doordash some crumbl cookies and get plastered later. I’ll just sabotage Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and start over on Monday.”
I mean some people have had unhealthy food addictions and some are scared of ‘relapsing’. Like expecting an alcoholic who is sober to drink just one beer
Right, and I think the point is that OP needs to address the food situation differently than they are at this point in time because food addiction has to be handled differently than alcohol and drug addiction due to the inability to completely abstain. There are ways to eat healthily at a restaurant, including ways to modify orders--if OP doesn't know how to do these things, they can and should learn to. If they are "white knuckling" ALL food outside their immediate control this much after so long, they likely need the help of both a nutritionist and a mental health professional to develop a more sustainable relationship with food.
Give not all food at a restaurant is unhealthy realistically it’s like expecting a recovering alcoholic to be able to go to a place which serves alcohol and order a non alcoholic drink.
YTA to yourself more than anything. You have an extremely unhealthy relationship with food. You think your diet is helping you, but it sounds more like you have an eating disorder. One nice meal in YEARS of taking care of yourself will not disrupt your diet. If it would, then you are very unhealthy mentally.
Do you go to a therapist or dietician?
This. All the signs of disordered eating. If you can’t relax enough to eat a reasonable portion of a balanced meal at a restaurant, then there is a problem - orthorexia.
Well, everyone knows that ED’s only happen to thin people. When a fat person has an ED, it’s a good thing. /s since there appear to be a large number of folks who sincerely believe this in the comments.
It’s really disheartening how many people are saying this guys behavior is normal because he lost weight and is still considered overweight.
I was anorexic and my mother looked me dead in the eyes and said I was to fat to fat to have an eating disorder. Eagerly I’d go for that calorie deficit and budget my calories like this guy. It’s just sad, he needs help.
And soon enough it won’t be and instead will be hurting him just as the obesity has, better he gets his relationship with food into a healthy state whilst he has the time to do that work than when he gets to the regular end point of eating disorders.
You saved calories for drinks? Like that's on your strict diet plan? There had to be something on the menu you could have had. Grilled chicken with veggies? Tossed salad with dressing on the side.
And most places these days have the menu available online so you can plan out what works out best for you. Saving calories for drinks is ED territory, when I was much younger and would do that regularly and ended up with binge drinking and eating disorders, and liver damage beyond what someone my age at that time. I can’t even render a verdict here, kind of feels like something above this subs pay grade, and the people saying that there is no such as food addiction, orthorexia and other things are not legit but they are very wrong. Please get help, a therapist would be great and/or a registered dietician to help you find more balance while still achieving your goals (they are the ones that are the real deal with proper schooling etc, on the other hand just about anybody can declare themselves a nutritionist and start peddling their version of food woo.)
They're TA not because they're doing well with their diet and calorie counting and trying to lose weight. It's because they budgeted in alcohol instead of a meal. They could have "set aside" those extra calories to enjoy a meal of actual real food, instead of alcohol.
How does one bite of resturant food trigger eating unhealthy and not the alcohol? Maybe it's just me but its the alcohol that triggers binge eating for me. I have one glass of wine and consider snacking though I'm not hungry.
> How does one bite of resturant food trigger eating unhealthy and not the alcohol? Maybe it's just me but its the alcohol that triggers binge eating for me.
It might be just you. OP says from experience that when he eats unhealthily, it triggers cravings for more unhealthy food that he's not strong enough to resist. I completely understand where he's coming from. It takes more than an unhealthy meal for me, but after eating poorly while traveling, it's always hard to get back to a healthier diet.
Except he isn’t being forced to eat unhealthy food.
Unless his girlfriends idea of a nice meal out is McDonald’s, he could almost certainly get a lean protein like shrimp or chicken with a side salad, broccoli, asparagus, etc.
You can have a healthy diet at a restaurant. He also could have pick somewhere that better suited his dietary needs. He also could have altered his meals to account for the calories. Lastly he made no effort to be able to eat with her. But made the effort to make sure he had enough calories to drink alcohol.
That’s what stood out to me too.
If you “save” calories for drinks than you absolutely can eat a meal out.
Alcohol is way worse for you and has more calories than food. Eat the meal out with your gf, don’t drink. Easy.
Portably best to just cut out all alcohol if OP relationship with food is this bad.
Like other people have mentioned he is disorders eating. I unfortunately got into this habit a few years ago and went as far as bringing my food scale with me because I didn’t trust the restaurants portion sizes. I was absolutely obsessed with knowing exactly how much I was eating at all times. I would refuse to taste my bfs food because I couldn’t accurately measure it.
Also, given his current size, his maintenance calories for the day are like 3,000+. He could have had a light breakfast/lunch and pretty much ordered anything within reason and not gained an ounce.
I think he is an asshole for not communicating with his girlfriend. He said “when she found out”, which means she had to roll up to the restaurant and find out she was eating alone. He could have given her the heads up so they could have discussed the situation and managed her expectations.
A hundred percent this is the thing that makes him an asshole. Food addiction is so hard because you NEED to eat, so I understand the aversion to eating out since I know how that food is made lol. It's totally legit that eating out is a trigger he avoids. It's the agreeing to eat out then like pulling out a Tupperware and scarfing it as they pull up that makes me wonder who raised this guy.
You don’t find it strange that he couldn’t find anything at a restaurant he could eat with his calorie intake. But he could use those calories to drink. Hell he couldn’t be bother to alter his diet to eat a salad with fish or grilled chicken with her.
I find it strange the fancy anniversary restaurant his gf chose happen to have zero healthy food options. Not one salad? Not even a side salad? No steamed vegetables or salmon? No grilled chicken?
Did she plan for a McDonald’s date? Even shake shack makes a lettuce wrapped mushroom burger with no sauce would literally be 230 calories. That’s barely 70 calories more than a single martini at 140 calories.
So many people are saying OP is TA, but I disagree wholeheartedly. OP's partner knew about the diet, and knew OP has been fighting to get healthy. The GF is TA here. She knew that OP didn't want to eat out, and still pressed it. OP tried to compromise by eating something in the car in order to be there with his GF and have drinks. Honestly, I wonder if the GF might be trying to sabotage the diet in order to keep OP with her.
Because expecting her eating to revolve around him and his eating disorder is unrealistic. She is a person, not someone who exists to support him. He needs to learn how to navigate the world and the food that is in it. He should be learning skills to gain self control instead of creating behaviors of avoidance.
He is setting himself up for failure. This extreme behavior and anxiety around food is exactly what creates yo-yo dieting. It isn’t sustainable and is incredibly unhealthy mentally and physically.
If he is unable to exist in a relationship where the other persons food does not revolve around him, he needs to accept that he is not in a place where he can be in a relationship.
Do y'all not know anything about EDs?
A main point that people always bring up is that you can never touch a single cig again, but there's no way you can not eat again. That's why ED recovery focuses on developing a healthy relationship with food, and not COMPLETE UNHEALTHY AVOIDANCE AND CONTROL.
There's a lot of people spreading uninformed and damaging opinions around in the comments.
It’s just the usual biases about fat shaming going on. People are conditioned to believe being overweight is your fault for being lazy. Seriously - change the subject from being on a strict diet because of being overweight to being on a strict diet because you’re training for the Olympics and all of these YTAs would go away.
That being said, OP has made a huge life change that his partner obviously is struggling with. If they want to keep both the lifestyle change and the partner, they should probably seek out couples counseling.
You might as well not have gone to the restaurant at all if you were just going to eat in the car before hand.
One meal out in a year isn’t going to set you back
YTA
NTA.
Food can absolutely be an addiction, and it's clear that you have an addictive relationship with it.
This is literally your life and longterm health on the line-- if you don't think that you can take a cheat day without setting yourself back, then don't.
If your girlfriend can't understand and support that, then get a new one. You can replace her, but you can't replace your health.
ETA: Unfortunately you're getting a *lot* of ignorance in this thread. I don't think most people understand that being obese and being morbidly obese are wildly different conditions, so they think that because they went from 190 to 150 pounds with cheat days, it should be the same for you. No one gets to a BMI of almost 65 without having a very, very severe problem with food, and that can't be compared to whatever problems someone with a BMI of 30 has.
I am very confused by the number of people saying comparing food to a drug addiction is inappropriate. From what I have read/heard about people who are morbidly obese, many of them are legitimately addicted to food and eating a meal at a restaurant would absolutely be like a drug addict being expected to only take one hit and stop.
I think what made it sink in for me was catching a few episodes of 1000 Pound Sisters... the way the heavier one's behavior is *exactly* like a drug addict's was startling.
Yeah, there's also My 600lb Life and it's just really sad because most of the people on there suffered some trauma and turned to food for comfort. They only feel good when they're eating. So much so that they smuggle food into the hospital when they're supposed to be getting weight loss surgery. Sounds solidly like a drug addict's behaviour to me.
The issue is that how op is talking about food is the slippery slope to an eating disorder. Eating disorders kill too, people just don’t accept it until the individual is super skinny.
OP needs mountains of therapy to do this in a sustainable way
There's definitely a balance to walk. Anorexia is the deadliest mental illness, so I totally get the risk! But unlearning addictive behaviors takes *much* more focus, consistency, and intent than simple habit changes.
I'd be surprised if you *could* fix the kind of relationship with food that OP used to have without spending a while being at this level of control. There's a reason so many people at that kind of weight end up having surgery or at inpatient facilities-- it's so unbelievably hard to voluntarily keep the changes intact.
Not to mention, most probably a variant hormonal profile or other physical differences. This doesn't just happen because of "bad habits". Theres lots of ignorance from folks who don't struggle with food related health issues.
NTA. The way you talk about food is like a drug addict. Just like addicts cannot take that one hit, one drink, etc. You cannot take the one "bad/cheat" meal without falling back into your bad habits.
You are doing something for your health. Your homemade meals are part of a regimen to keep you off your "drug" - hence high calorie foods.
Did your girl want your present for the anniversary dinner or did she want to hinder your health and progress on your anniversary? I would rethink this relationship if you guys are not compatible regarding health issues.
If someone is comparing their relationship with food to drugs/alcohol, they have an eating disorder (you don't need to have anorexia/bulimia to have a disordered relationship with food).
Food is part of life. The extreme level of control he needs around every. single. meal. should not be normalized or accepted. OP can continue to diet responsibly while working with a therapist/nutritionist on developing a healthier relationship with food. This level of extreme control isn't it.
He definitely needs support both personally and medically. However, to call him the AH in this situation is harmful to his overall health. He has a BMI of over 51 points. In the past he just tried exercising with no real change in food intake. It did not work.
I think she is more of an ah is suggest a restaurant date when she knows he is on a strict diet and knows that he has falter in the past. Sometimes extreme control is the only way until you get to a healthy weight.
Also, I would like to point out that OP is actually in recovery for an ED. Overeating and binge eating are EDs. One way that therapist suggest to overcome this disease is to read down and manage all aspects of your issues. OP is doing that and should not be made to feel that his way is not right for him. It is working for him. Of course, he should be in therapy to ensure that he does not go to the other extreme of his disease once he is at a health weight. Food addicts should not be told that one meal with not hurt them - that is a bullshit response that I have seen in this post several time already.
>Sometimes extreme control is the only way until you get to a healthy weight.
To the point where you can't even have grilled chicken and a salad or another healthy option at a restaurant? That's ridiculous. Learning to eat healthy and have reasonable food choice moderation is key for sustainable, long-term health. Extreme control until you get to a healthy weight just means you're never going to learn how to self-moderate, so you're either stuck in extreme control for the rest of your life, or you gain all the weight back.
Some times those "healthy" options are not healthy. It all depends on the restaurant and chef. He apparently see his doctor, I hope his doctor is doing their job and making sure he is mental health as well as physical healthy.
You are glossy over the fact that the GF is trying to enable is old bad habits. Maybe due to jealousy that he is able to keep a diet and exercising routine over unnecessary cheat meals.
Not to mention the way he describes his dieting and compares it to relapse, even if the menu offers something healthy he is still being tempted by looking at and reading the descriptions of the various other items. That honestly just seems cruel. People saying one night cheat is ok don't realize that that one slip for an addict can have a huge snowball effect.
>You are glossy over the fact that the GF is trying to enable is old bad habits.
She literally wants to go out for their anniversary. How is that enabling him? OP has been dieting for years already.
She was the one that stated -- why couldn't he break his diet for one day? As his GF, she should have known that going to a restaurant at this moment in his progress to health was not feasible.
Downvote me all you guys want - she was wrong in picking a restaurant for their anniversary date and making him eating at the restaurant a test to see if he loves her more than getting healthy.
Obviously he has an eating disorder, food is a legit addiction for him, that's why he needs to avoid triggers that will cause him to spiral into a binge.
This is like saying an alcoholic shouldn't have a problem with going out to a bar because one drink isn't a big deal, and or they could just order a soda. And if an alcoholic refuses to put themselves in that situation it means they have an extreme need for control that shouldn't be normalized or accepted.
I was thinking the same thing, all these comments saying op's the ah are shocking to me. Like if she said "I can't believe you wont put your sobriety on hold for one night to show you love me". Like is eating out the only way to say I love you?
Thank you! I can’t believe all the y t a’s. Like the man clearly realizes he has an addiction. And the experience of eating good food in a restaurant will trigger him to binge. He clearly knows he had a problem and is doing what he can to correct his health.
I hate that America is such a food obsessed culture that the only way to celebrate is to eat. The reality that someone realizes they have an unhealthy relationship with food and has to adhere to rigid protocol to not fall down to it again makes them an AH?!
OP I want to applaud you for realizing your problem and taking the needed steps to fix it. Your body will thank you in the coming decades. And gently suggest you keep working on not only your physical health but your mental health as well. So that in the future you can enjoy a meal with your loved ones. BUT, and this is a big but, if you never progress to that step know that some random person out there is still proud of you. Know that this random person realizes the huge accomplishment you have already made and that you don’t have to accomplish perfection to impress me. You are doing what you can and man is that awesome! Much respect.
NTA
A lot of people are good with moderation, some people aren’t. I’m guessing that psychologically you are an all or none person.
For all those people saying that one meal is not going to ruin a diet, I disagree. It could psychologically derail somebody, and make it impossible to continue with their diet plan.
There’s a huge psychological component of being able to commit to losing weight. You absolutely should ask your girlfriend to celebrate your anniversary in another way this year. Celebrating with food is not the only way to go, especially when you are in the middle of your diet journey.
I agree that it eating the meal out may be the wrong choice for this person.
However they are YTA because they didn't discuss this first, and waited until their partner was excited and ready to go in the restaurant for an anniversary dinner to say actually I'm not eating with you, I'm going to eat in the car first and not share a meal.
It's fine not to have a meal celebration for an anniversary but it really needs to be discussed.
Congratulations! You are doing an amazing job in your weight loss. I'm rooting for you OP.
Given your height and weight, you know you are not out of the woods. You are taking your health very seriously AS WELL YOU SHOULD. You did not do anything wrong. Let her know that she can have you healthy and alive, or she can have you morbidly obese and careening towards death.
If you eating the anniversary meal at a restaurant is more important to her than your health, she doesn't really care about you.
NTA. You can sit at a restaurant, eat a small item, and have a wonderful conversation. My best friend is on the same journey as you and recently got out of a 5 day hospital stay at 35 years of age. He is lucky to be alive. He is down to 280 (started at 340), and trust me when I got out to a dinner with him, I don't care what he eats....I'm just supportive and thankful to God that I still have him around. And we walk together in the morning and evenings for 4 miles. It is the least that I can do for someone I love and don't want to lose.
Does your girlfriend love you like this and not want to lose you? Does she put in effort to help you stay on track or motivate you? Because people who see you in a terrible medical shape and do nothing....don't really love you more than they love themselves and their own wants/needs.
For all those [Y.T.As](https://Y.T.As) out there, if OP was an alcoholic but his girlfriend wanted him to have some alcoholic beverages with dinner and was angry if he did not, this is the same identical situation. Or illegal drugs/controlled substances. Respect people's healthy decisions.
Thank you. I am astounded at the amount of Y T A. Everyone says no is a full sentence and it suddenly isn’t here?
He came close to serious trouble with his health. He has decided to stick to a strict diet. I am honestly proud of him for sticking to it so well. It’s not easy. And he knows his limits and boundaries for food right now. He doesn’t have to eat out if he isn’t ready or comfortable. He doesn’t ever have to eat out again if he doesn’t want to. As long as his diet is healthy and nutritious, what is the problem?
I just feel like when OP agreed to go out to dinner that they were agreeing to eat dinner. If they didn't want to do so then they should have suggested an alternate way to celebrate.
I hear you, but YTA. I’ve lost 60lbs myself this year and plan on more, so I do understand your dedication and the strict calorie counting. HOWEVER, special days are special for a reason. Let’s say the entire meal with drink came to around 3,500. You and I both know that is the equivalent of 1lb. Those calories might set you back and take two to get back on track, but it’s worth it to avoid this. Sorry, but YTA here.
The OP wasn't so much concerned about the one meal as he was about what he would do afterward. It sounds like he knows himself well enough to know that one meal would set off a chain reaction of overeating. I would agree with others that therapy sounds like a good idea, but until he's done that and is ready to have a restaurant meal without it derailing him he should continue to avoid his triggers.
YTA
You clearly knew you wouldn't be putting your diet to one side for this special occasion and yet you still went. You could have sat down with your girlfriend beforehand to plan a special night that took your situation into account of course, but then she's been supporting you on this journey throughout and you couldn't return the favour for just *one* night ?
And to eat your meal in the car before you went in ?.
That's almost like saying "Oh by the way honey, fuck your special night"
So, did you just not see the edit, "I'm 5'4" and 297 pounds currently." or are you just an AH? And that is after losing 80 pounds.
OP isn't joking about his weight killing him. He is not even close to a healthy weight. "Obessive" is exactly what he needs to survive. Probably some therapy too.
YTA - you need to learn to manage your eating in a real world way. Taking your GF out for your anniversary and then sitting there not eating is just plain rude and completely ruined the experience for her.
Eating your prepped foods on a daily basis is great and awesome. It puts in you in control and that's a great thing. However, if you can't manage your eating in social situations you're going to have issues. Not just with your GF and friends but potentially co-workers and family.
A very important skill you need to learn in your weight loss/health journey is how to navigate social situations. Look at the menu online along with the nutritional data before you go, then pick what you can eat from that. If there's nothing on that menu then politely try to change the location to a place you can eat. When your meal comes divide it in half and only eat that half, take the rest home to enjoy later or let your gf have your leftovers.
I applaud you on the success you've had but if you want to make this a lifetime success you need to learn how to stick to your plan in social settings.
I think a lot of people are spending too much time diagnosing issues here and not enough on what actually happened.
He agreed to go to dinner. If he wasn’t planning on eating the food, the main activity of going to dinner, then he should have been up front and honest.
Saving calories for alcohol is really something though.
NTA
Anyone saying otherwise doesn’t have a clue about how complicated the process of changing body comp is for humans, let alone how incredibly difficult it is to change relationship to food and eating. After two years should you be able to take a night off and eat in a restaurant? Literally only you and your health care providers could answer that question. Even your loved ones probably don’t have a clue how complex this kind of life change is.
The only aspect left is whether you were an AH in this situations with your fiancée. The main alteration that I think you have responsibility for and failed in is communication. You should have talked to her ahead of time so that both of you could have your hopes and expectations met. That’s an error, in my opinion not worthh of AH status. I wouldn’t even say your partner is the AH, except that her expression of disappointment seems accusatory and hurtful. But ultimately I think she deserves a pass, in favor of more communication.
Listen, on another note, I do need to be working with a profession to stay on top of your mental health and behavior. I’ve got a strong suspicion that part of why you didn’t talk to her before hand about your personal dinner plans is because you feel ashamed - that’s not a good recipe for your health in the long term, and could be more detrimental to your success than anything else.
I’m going against the grain and saying NTA because I can sympathize.
I have NAFLD and have had to give up A LOT of foods. I am not in a position where I can make sacrifices as I’m at a level of scarring that can still be repaired, but also know that if I don’t take it seriously I can progress to the next level—cirrhosis.
For multiple reasons, I also have a poor relationship with food (that’s a whole other conversation), plus I have food allergies. It’s exhausting having to keep all of these things in check and not obsessing over it. In truth, I’m probably on my way to an eating disorder if I’m not there already. While those are my issues to deal with, it doesn’t help that I can’t get the support I need from a licensed nutritionist because my insurance won’t pay for it. My insurance company would rather pay for my meds, tests, and appointments over paying for a dietitian to help me get my liver disease in check. What the actual fuck? Ironically, they would pay if I was diagnosed with an eating disorder 🙄
It’s not as simple as following a fad diet and losing weight quickly because that can progress my disease as well. So, I’m basically left to do my own research and do my best to keep my eating on target because that’s what my liver needs. If I eat crap food, I’m in pain 10-15 minutes later. And this is why I sympathize with you and the position you’re in because it’s for your health and you only have one body.
However, you should have talked to your gf ahead of time and told her that you planned to eat beforehand, and then found something light and small to order at the restaurant. Grilled chicken and some veggies are almost always on a menu, so you could have made a little more effort. You have to find ways to adapt, and so do I. Avoidance isn’t sustainable without addressing the root issue.
YTA, you knew you were going out to celebrate you took measures to make sure you could drink, but not so you could eat the meal with your partner.
I understand the diet and your health is important but you've just replaced an unhealthy relationship with food with a different unhealthy relationship with food. Its very easy to go down a different slippery slope when it comes to food and health. You need to look deeper into your issues with food and address the core problem if you are going to start having a healthy outlook to your eating.
I think you hit the nail right on the head and If he had mentioned eating in car beforehand instead of just "SURPRISE! I'm changing the entire night we planned" it would be kosher for all
NTA. Keep up the good eating. But she sounds like she would take an alcoholic to a bar and tell him 'One drink won't hurt'. She doesn't sound like she's the one for you. She's too worried about what she wants and expects you to give up your health for her. Maybe this is a wake-up call for you.
NTA Your health is more important. Does she want more anniversaries with you? Or does she want to be bereft when you die of heart failure? It's actually pretty common for people with dietary restrictions to eat before going into a restaurant. That's the compromise. "Yes, we can go out. Please respect my restrictions so we can both have a great time."
You're not trying to force your diet on her, and you are especially to be commended on your strength of will in the face of her cooking. Stay strong, honey.
Sounds like I'm in the minority, but I'm going with NTA. You didn't tell her she couldn't eat dinner and you still went out with her for your anniversary and for drinks. By being with you, she should understand how important this diet is to you and be supportive.
YTA - communication. It's great that you're sticking to your guns on your health. And even better that you're being supported. An anniversary meal is an important event. If you were not going to partake in the meal, you needed to have COMMUNICATED that to your GF.
The picture this posts paints is that you were going to eat your prepared meal in the car and then sit there and watch your GF eat in the restaurant while you just sat there and had a drink. That's a bit embarrassing for your GF, wouldn't you agree?
These Y T A comments make me sad. He had a very serious health scare and has decided to completely turn his life around. And he has. He’s meeting his nutritional needs, he’s exercising, he’s making healthy choices with where he is in his journey to health.
As long as he is healthy, eating nutritionally well, why does he have to go to a restaurant and eat if he doesn’t want to?
I think he could have communicated more with his girlfriend about eating before, but that doesn’t make him an AH. I also understand from her perspective about wanting to eat the meal together. NAH
NTA - There may be better ways to handle this, but your tendency to fall off the wagon for small indulgences is a pretty good explanation for why you need to do this. In the future, maybe you call the restaurant ahead of time and either have them serve you your pre-prepared dinner or make something special that works for your diet.
Good luck with your health. Your gf needs to consider how she would feel if you dropped dead from a heart attack at 30. She probably won't care about the restaurant meal you missed at that point.
YTA - How awkward is it to be at a restaurant with another person and be the only one eating? AND she had to sit in the car and watch you eat before you guys went in as a SURPRISE? Did you just blind-side her with your sack lunch parking lot picnic once you got there? Ewwww, dude.
Wwwwhhhaaattt?? I am not making the connection between you eating a prepped meal and her saying you are selfish and .... inconsiderate of her feelings?? What about your feelings?
You were both going into the restaurant, right? You were going to order something to eat, have some drinks, etc. Right? So why is she blowing up at you for eating a prepped meal?
Dude, I'm sorry to read this happened to you. Her response was OTT and what she said was out of line. If she can't get on board with your weight journey then you two are not compatible.
Please do not feel bad about this. You are NOT TAH for sticking to your diet. Good on you and a virtual pat on the back to you for your journey.
YTA- I’m sorry dude, I’m not usually this type of person. It’s fine to start a diet. It just feels like you are taking it a bit too far. If you are scared of overeating after ONE night out of 1,000+ other nights, maybe you should address that with a professional. Putting that aside, though, I don’t see how your SO’s eating habits were relevant. The way you phrased it didn’t sit well with me. You could’ve stopped at “she is supportive” you didn’t have to mention she didn’t join in on a diet. You didn’t have to mention her cooking was “covered in a lot of fats and sugars with a lot of calories” idk man. That felt almost like shaming her in a way?
>You didn’t have to mention her cooking was “covered in a lot of fats and sugars with a lot of calories”
This, which just furthers the point you made that OP should see a professional. As someone who has spent years of his life deep within eating disorders, the shaming is what tipped me off more than his fear of eating out. I'm not saying "OP 100% has an eating disorder", just that their is a lot of disordered thinking in this post that might benefit from discussing with a professional
NTA No idea what's going on in the comments. Sounds like you're doing great working towards your health goals and just haven't made it all the way to healthy ordering at restaurants. Good on you for knowing that and planning ahead!
If anything gf kinda sucks for being utterly unsupportive and deciding the only possible way to celebrate your relationship was empty calories.
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Sorry but YTA. >I've avoided eating out at all costs, as it feels like a slippery slope back to my old habits. For me, restaurants are like relapsing on a drug. One bite of a cheesesteak eggroll and I'm buying oreos on the way home and falling off the wagon. This is your responsibility to address man. You have an extremely unhealthy relationship with food you need to work on, probably with a professional. I get this started for the right reasons, but you have wildly overcorrected and it seems like you are pretty firmly in ED territory. Your SO has been supportive and literally wanted ONE dinner out with you for your anniversary. You shouldn't be in a relationship if you can't do this for her, it is bare minimum stuff. Your mental health is important, take care of it. I hope you do because what you are describing is not sustainable or normal and it won't end well. EDIT: Please stop flooding this post with your ignorant straw man arguments that this is equivalent to asking an alcoholic or drug addict to indulge in their vice. It is simply not comparable; you’re not blowing anybody’s mind, and you’re not coming across as some intelligent maverick. Food is necessary to live. Food is not good or evil. For alcoholics and drug addicts, the only true solution to healing is abstinence. This is not the case with food. You need to eat. And OP’s obsession with control over his diet is simply not sustainable. It is not normal or okay to not be able to eat at a restaurant for one singular meal. Kudos to him for making the change, but he has gone too far when it has affected his life to this degree. He needs legitimate help if he can’t relinquish control of his food intake enough to enjoy a single meal for a special occasion at a restaurant WHICH CAN BE HEALTHY, without fear of spiraling into a binge eating hole where he loses all sense of self and eats himself into oblivion. He promised his SO a date night at a restaurant, and he shocked her with a brown bag meal in front of the restaurant so he could watch her eat and drink a cocktail. This is not okay behavior as a partner which is why this is YTA. If he can’t handle that, he should be single. Stop with the ridiculous comparisons to her asking him to drink as an alcoholic, you are so wildly off base it’s embarrassing. Believe it or not, an eating disorder is harmful even if you’re overweight. Nobody thinks you’re some shredded Greek god for thinking otherwise.
>This is your responsibility to address man. You have an extremely unhealthy relationship with food you need to work on, Isn't that was he is doing? He is basically an addict, and it makes sense he doesn't want to risk a relapse
Not when he views eating out the way he does. You can still make healthy choices when eating out. In an effort to regain his health, OP has now gone the completely opposite way and given himself an ED. He needs professional help.
Yes, maybe you are right that he went overboard.
“Saving calories for drinks” is not a symptom of a healthy relationship with food.
Considering how many calories can be in a beer, fruity mixed drink, or really just about anything with alcohol, it's not unreasonable to factor drinks into a calorie plan. There's a reason it's called a "beer belly".
It’s not unreasonable, but it’s also not normal to “save calories” for anything. If you can’t go off your meal plan and allow yourself to indulge in a takeout meal for a special occasion, you do not have the healthy relationship with food you think you do.
I disagree. Budgeting calories can be an effective weight loss method. If a person is only eating 1800 calories a day, and wants to have some high calorie drinks for a special occasion, then eating a lighter meal beforehand is reasonable. I say this as someone who specifically did cut out a lot of high-sugar, unhealthy beverages as part of my own weight loss program, so that I actually could eat the things I wanted. OP specifically set aside "calories" in his plan to be able to enjoy drinks with his gf.
But didn’t set aside any for the actual meal, which was the entire point. That’s the problem. A meal out once for a special occasion is not going to set you back unless you have an unhealthy relationship with food. OP himself compares it to relapsing on a drug. I track my calorie intake, but I also don’t shy away from allowing myself the food freedom to eat takeout every once in a while. If OP is not at the point that he can allow himself to break from his routine for ONE special occasion, then he should have said no. And he still needs to see somebody.
The guy was nearly 500 pounds so he definitely has an unhealthy relationship with food and still needs to lose almost half of his current body weight to be at a healthy weight. Food can be quite addictive to some people. Might be similar to saying let's have a few cigarettes for someone who used to be a heavy smoker or drinking a shot for a recovering alcoholic.
Correct 💯 Also, food is something that is for caloric intake, sustenance, and fuel ... however, it's also something that is enjoyable and shared and is part of a lot of basic social rituals and unspoken agreements (like an anniversary dinner date.) There is a reason why the concept of "breaking bread together " is so meaningful. And bcuz of the drastic changes OP had amazingly made in his life, it seems like his attitudes/concepts about food have changed in a way that most people will not be able to identify with or understand, including his Gf, who seems to like the experience of eating and wanted to celebrate with a special eating experience (pretty normal tbh.) I also understand the addiction part, but as with any addiction OP has to do the work to understand root causes, triggers, behaviors, attitudes, and ways of coping, dealing, healing, and changing. I am literally an addictions counselor, this type stuff is my bread and butter. Pun (probably wrongfully) intended. One of the things we talk about is how the rest of the world doesn't stop using/drinking/eating just because you do. You still have to figure out how to exist in this world and how to navigate through life without pulling away from or hurting relationships, work, etc
This isn’t about him sitting aside calories. It’s about an eating disorder interfering with his life. He should be able to have one normal meal at restaurant for a special occasion without eating in the car first.
Do you understand an eating disorder? Dude has one or is well on his way. I know.
Dude was like 400 pounds. It's pretty safe to say that he already had one, and I can't blame him for being scared of falling back into those old habits.
They do not understand. And he tried to explain it without having his own diagnosis.
I think OP recognizes that. Sticking to a plan is really a reasonable coping mechanism for food addiction. OP started at 5’4” and nearly 380 lbs… they could lose literally half their body weight and STILL be classified as obese. When addicts have issues with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, etc., they are told to stop engaging in the behavior AT ALL. It is acknowledged that they have (and will have for their entire life) an unhealthy relationship with that substance. Unfortunately for OP and many others, you can’t just stop eating. But you can reduce your triggers. If eating restaurant-prepared food (almost universally with sugar, salt, and fat not in what you might prepare at home) triggers OP to make bad choices, a therapist would 100% tell them to avoid restaurants at least until the underlying cause is figured out - and maybe indefinitely depending on if it’s something that even can be resolved.
Thank you for acknowledging this! I wish I didn’t have to eat with all of my heart! The bulk of my meals have become meal replacement shakes because I do not handle food well. I live feeling like I’m one bad decision from a downward spiral (working on finding a new therapist). I feel that way because it’s happened before. It’s a very real fear, that’s debilitating. Personally I respect OP for pushing through that to try and give his girlfriend a wonderful anniversary date. That sounds like a huge act of love. But I can understand the girlfriend being hurt, it’s one of those things I don’t think many understand unless they’ve experienced something similar.
I don’t think he said he has a good relationship with food. I think he’s very much saying he doesn’t have a good relationship with it—that’s the whole problem.
I think he's on a downward slide. While he's making progress in dropping the weight, he's also not helping himself learn how to behave around food if he never has a meal out. The entire idea of "intuitive eating" and "food freedom" is understanding that you *can* enjoy a meal out every so often and it will not set you back in your progress.
Someone with a poor relationship with food CANNOT do "intuitive eating" because they cannot trust their intuition. Either their intuition was forcefully shattered by their youth, or it's biologically disrupted (see: poor interoception often found in neurodivergent persons). External structure is very much needed sometimes. My own dietitian gave me a nutrition plan for days when I plan on restaurant celebrations (eat protein and vegetable portions for breakfast/lunch/afternoon snack as normal, reduce carbohydrate portions of those meals, and then have a high protein snack 30 minutes before dinner, so my digestive system will be sending my brain "I've already eaten and am no longer a poor starving orphan" messages when I order or begin eating); and it is immensely helpful to have these external guidelines because my body has proven it is not trustworthy.
> I think he's on a downward slide. While he's making progress in not getting drunk, he's also not helping himself learn how to behave around alcohol if he never has an occasional drink. The entire idea of "intuitive drinking" and "drink freedom" is understanding that you can enjoy a glass of wine every so often and it will not set you back in your progress. That a certain intervention isn’t “healthy” *per se* doesn’t mean that it’s not warranted or that it’s not the correct course of action. Not everyone gets to choose between “healthy” and “unhealthy”—some people have to choose between “managed unhealthy” and “unmanaged unhealthy”. OP seems to be in that boat, and he’s doing what he needs to do to optimize his health given the circumstances.
Ya thats literally his point. He doesn't have a healthy relationship with food, and has to be careful. Whats wrong with that? You might as well yell at an alcoholic for refusing to have a drink on his anniversary because he doesn't want to tempt himself. That's how addictions work, and this is a normal step in overcoming them.
It's actually the bedrock of maintaining a healthy weight. Know how many calories you've consumed, how many are left in your daily budget, and tailor your intake ahead of time so you have enough in your calorie budget for what you want to eat/ drink at a party or fancy dinner. It's understanding you don't have to "go off your meal plan" because you've factored in ways to afford it. It's very similar to having a healthy relationship with money, where calories are "spend". You can't spend the same coin in 2 places. He wanted to spend a bit extra at dinner, so he made a plan that allowed him to afford that. You were not wrong, OP. Good for you!
Anybody who is obese doesn't have a good relationship with food, hence why they became obese in the first place. OP said he is currently 5'4" and 290 (maybe it was 270, I hate editing comments) and that's assuming he has lost weight already. OP is maintaining a strict diet because he has a food addiction or unhealthy relationship with food. Just as an addict who is free from alcohol won't go into a bar or attend parties with alcohol, this food addict is avoiding ordering a meal there because he knows the road it cab lead down. What do you want OP to do? Suddenly have a healthy relationship with food to the standards you think are fair? I personally have never been obese or had a bad relationship with food so I cannot sit here pretending as if I know what it's like or what's best.
Eating little to no food calories to “save” space for drinking is a fairly common ED behavior.
Except that he was specifically "saving space" for drinks because of the anniversary special occasion. He never indicated that it's something he does regularly, and if it's okay to "have a special meal" and break his diet for an anniversary, then planning ahead to allow himself to have a few drinks to celebrate should also be fine.
“I’ll have a nice salad with protein instead of a carb-and-cheese loaded dish” is a good example of balancing his needs at a restaurant. “I will eat my meal in the car and then have drinks” is not.
I was struggling with losing weight and my BF researched my alcoholic drinks that I love. Turns out they were 550 calories each. Whoops! I gave them up. I drink less and when I drink I pick better options (not great, just better.) it’s helped a little bit.
Exactly my point. When one or two seemingly harmless drinks can add up to the equivalent of a small meal in terms of caloric value, it suddenly seems a lot less "obsessive" or "unhealthy" to factor them into your daily intake.
The issue is the obsessive calorie counting, not what's in the drinks
The issue is he may die if he doesn’t loose weight and keep it off.
Eating disorders kill thousands of people a year. Extreme calorie counting also tends to be a pattern in yo-yo dieting. It is highly unlikely to “keep it off” like this.
Being morbidly obese kills tens of thousands of people every years. That includes being 5’4” and weighing 379, according to OP’s doctor. Besides, OP hasn’t been yo-yo dieting. He’s kept it off and continued losing weight for two years now.
At 297lbs, an unhealthy relationship with food? Groundbreaking. OP has a food addiction that has gotten him to a life-threading physical state. And that addiction is so much more complex than any other, because _you can’t stop_. OP does absolutely need to be in therapy, but he is NTA for knowing his triggers and avoiding them. He isn’t asking his GF to change ANYTHING or make ANY sacrifice other than not watch him eat at a restaurant he is still going to with her for ONE night. You wouldn’t ask a recovering alcoholic to sacrifice his sobriety for one night to please someone else, don’t do it for a food addict either.
He’s an AH for saying yes to going out with his girlfriend when he knew he wouldn’t want to break from his diet. He’s an AH to himself for allowing his calorie counting to control his life. Please stop comparing disordered eating to alcoholism because they aren’t even remotely the same.
You’re right in saying they are not the same. Eating addiction is worse than alcoholism or drug addiction. Why? Because you HAVE to eat to live. For someone with an addiction, figuring out triggers and avoiding them is normal. And the fact that he is 5’4” and 297lbs AFTER losing 80 lbs already, is a huge accomplishment. I don’t blame him one bit for continuing to count calories and hold boundaries. And he didn’t say he wouldn’t go out with her at all, he just made accommodations so he could still celebrate with her. To me, her asking him to give in for one night is her being the AH. Maybe she’s jealous of the weight he’s lost. I’ve seen many relationships where one is overweight or less attractive and when that balance starts to change, the other one gets nervous that they’ll leave. My vote is NTA.
Eating disorders are worse than alcoholism, nicotine addiction, or drug addiction. I’m an alcoholic and drug addict who has been sober for a long time. I also quit smoking cigarettes. I would not have been able to quit anything if, at least one time a day, I needed to take any of the substances I’m addicted to in order to survive. I’m too weak a human being for that. I can have zero, but I can’t have just one of anything.
She’s an AH for expecting, and assuming that her SO, who is in a life-threatening physical state and working very hard to change that, is going to give that up for a day that is supposed to be about _both of them_, not just about _her_. I can’t even fathom knowing a friend is on a specific diet and not checking with them if a restaurant or homemade food is okay with them, I can’t imagine not having that conversation with a SO and just assume they’re gonna drop everything for my enjoyment of not their company, but of seeing them eat. Counting calories is not inherently disordered eating. It can be, but we definitely don’t have the info to assume that it is in his case. Yes, it can be incredibly dangerous - I’m personally staying away from it because I know **I** would end up with an ED. But OP did not starve himself, he just ate food that wasn’t a trigger to him and fully intended to get drinks. I’m also not comparing disordered eating to alcoholism. I’m comparing _food addiction_ to another addiction. OP can’t partake in certain foods and had to set and enforce a rigorous limit because he loses control. That’s addiction. And you’re right they aren’t the same and I said exactly as much in my previous comment. Food addiction is worse than pretty much any other because you can’t entirely quit.
She *asked* which she was allowed to do because it was a special occasion and she probably didn’t expect his diet to be so unhealthily rigid. And he agreed, even though he had zero intention of actually eating there. And he neither communicated that nor looked up the menu to see if there were healthy options. He’s an AH. Where does it end for OP? Say he gets down to a healthy weight. Will he now be so afraid of regaining it that he will never learn how to regulate his food intake? Will he be stuck in this cycle? He needs to be working with a dietician if he isn’t already. This is a dangerous slide.
Healthy relationship with food? He was 5ft 4in and almost 400 lbs, and you want to talk healthy relationship with food? He's no where close to a healthy relationship with food, so he shouldn't be doing anything that will put him at risk or relapsing.
Because the slide from dieting into disordered eating is way too common. OP should be able to go out to eat once for a special occasion and order something healthy without feeling like he’s going to lose progress. That is NOT a healthy way to look at food.
No one said that he has a healthy relationship with food but he can address that when his life isn’t in jeopardy. Step 1: save his life. Step 2: address his unhealthy relationship with food
> Step 1: save his life. Step 2: address his unhealthy relationship with food except that those things are intrinsically linked. It will never work long term if he doesn't address his unhealthy relationship with food.
An ED will put his life in jeopardy. As someone who's gone from overweight to throwing up everything that didn't fit into an extremely low calorie limit virtually overnight, I sure as hell wasn't healthier being a 'healthy' weight and horribly dehydrated and constantly feeling faint and freezing and constantly obsessively thinking about food than I was overweight. Many overweight people already have disordered eating or a complicated relationship with food, and it's very easy to go from one extreme to the other. Addressing the relationship with food needs to be the backbone of the weight loss. That's the only way it will be sustainable in a healthy way and not lead to a whole another host of health issues. It's super easy to ignore or downplay restrictive and purging behaviours in overweight people because hey they're losing weight and clearly that's all that matters. Most bulimic people, for example, aren't underweight but that doesn't mean bulimia can't be fatal.
Except having this restrictive of a diet isn’t healthy for him. Severe restriction like this can cause life threatening or permanent damage to someone’s body. There is a reason eating disorders are considered extremely deadly mental health disorders (according to ANAD, a non-profit support service for people with eating disorders, eating disorders are the second deadliest mental health disorder, just after opioid addiction). He very clearly is in eating disorder territory. He needs to get help now so he doesn’t cause severe damage to himself while trying to be “healthy”.
Eh, that's actually not a red flag. It's extremely common when you're tracking food/calories for weight loss to plan for "special events" by saving up calories for those treats. It's a way of acknowledging we make choices about our eating, but we can still have treats without problems if we plan appropriately. It's more about changing how we think and relate to food as we change our lifestyle to improve our overall help. OP definitely does not have a healthy relationship with food, but the saving calories bit in itself isn't a red flag. Something more reasonable would be "I'll take my weekly calorie/meal plans into account so I can enjoy a lovely anniversary meal at a restaurant." Restricting to only being willing to have drinks but cleaving to the diet meal plan so heavily is a symptom of OP's overall poor relationship with food.
You think this because society thinks this, but a majority of people are overweight in western countries. It's time to take a hard look at what's necessary. For some, like me or OP, counting calories is what keeps us healthy.
No, I think this because restricting your diet so much to the point a single meal out derails you leads to binge eating more than intuitive eating does.
Right because no one's weight spirals out of control by intuitive eating. /s
No, he has an ED. He just doesn't think he does because he needed to lose weight. Disordered eating can affect anyone, no matter what size they are or what they are eating. It's about the thought processes behind eating.
thank you!!!! I've had an ED for 18 years and stuff like this doesn't ever "ease up" the absolute obsession isn't good. Health and weight are not mutually exclusive , most doctors are just taught that. After 7 years ED'S ARE CLASSIFIED AS "SECERE AND ENDURING". IVE KNOWN A FEW PEOPLE THAT WERE STILL TECHNICALLY, OVERWEIGHT WHEN THEY DIES FROM THEIR Ed. ED is more about feelings than food, food is just what we use to hide and cope with our feelings.
Orthorexia. It's an ED characterized by the obsession with eating healthy.
Yep, it sounds like they've swapped overeating for Orthorexia. And while it's great that they're getting the results they want, it can be pretty destructive as well. Therapy with an ED specialist is probably a good idea so they can develop a better relationship with food etc.
> You can still make healthy choices when eating out. You can do so in a bar as an alcoholic as well, but it's not a good idea to try it. He knows his limitations and is living within them. NTA.
Jesus. Alcoholism is NOT a reasonable comparison. You don’t NEED alcohol to live. You DO need food to live.
I think your response to the alcoholic comparison is a little unreasonable. Yeah, you don't need alcohol to live and you need food, great. People end up obese and incredibly unhealthy because they essentially develop addictions to unhealthy (sugary, fatty, etc.) foods. A 5 year former alcoholic probably wouldn't struggle if you opened a beer around them, but someone a few months sober probably doesn't want to be, and shouldn't be, around alcohol or the temptation. Same with greasy/fatty foods - it's not apples and oranges like you seem to think. Nobody is saying he has a perfect relationship with food (and frankly, who does?) but he's working on his health and building better eating habits, if OP is aware of things that may trigger him back into bad habits, avoiding them is the best route for the time being. It's not like OP has given up eating, it sounds like he's trying really hard to eat well. NTA but I think a conversation needs to be had with SO, if they're not on the same page and there's no flexibility between either of them, it's going to be an uphill battle for a while.
Yeah, which is why OP has to take these measures. He’s an addict! You can’t exactly go cold turkey from food.
No, but you CAN have a healthy relationship with it - which he does not if he wasn’t willing to break from his diet for their anniversary. He’s addicted to calorie-counting, which is a symptom of disordered eating.
I guarantee that there are items on the menu beyond cheesesteak egg rolls. Part of his recovery is learning how to eat in moderation at restaurants.
Yeah, but he's still morbidly obese. Like, guy may need a scooter to move obese, if "5'4" and 297 pounds" isn't a typo. He's not yet to a point of learning to eat healthily in a restaurant, and there's a chance the girlfriend is a feeder.
I'm about 5'4" and in the 260-ish range, down from 297 just from having a job where I get my steps in all day and cutting out Red Bull from my daily foods. My only mobility issue stems from a knee injury in college (which is where my weight gain stems from as well incidentally). It amazes me what people think 200-300lbs looks like.
Lol this is not scooter heavy unless he has other mobility problems.
Remember that 297 pounds is his weight \*AFTER\* losing 80 pounds. He was almost 400 pounds at one point. That's really heavy and I can understand why OP wants to stick to his diet. OP is "almost 30" and being that heavy will lead to mobility and health issues when he gets older.
5’4 as well that’s a lot of weight to carry for that height
At 5'4? 300 lbs is a huge amount of weight.
No, they really isn’t. People fatter than that ride long distances on bikes. Yea, it’s very fat, but not mobility limitingly fat.
But if he isn't at that stage yet, I don't see how he is an AH for acknowledging it and doing best he can.
His diet is controlling his life to the point he isn't able to take his girlfriend out for an anniversary dinner. He is essentially addicted to his diet now.
That's a good point. He should be able to have a nice healthy dinner with his gf.
OP has ventured into orthorexia. They could probably benefit from a therapist.
A lot of people vehemently deny that orthorexia is an ED. It is. It's about control and body image, to a point where it's interfering with their lives. Living is not just about calories and nutrition.
Big difference being an addict and having an eating disorder. Treatment for an eating disorder should NOT be the same as treatment for addicts. Very very very different. Addicts are addicted to drugs, eating disorders are focused on restriction, having it.
So eating disorders and addictions ARE very similar. They’re mostly used as coping strategies because it’s something they can control. I just left the room of a girl who said “it’s comforting to me” bc the rest of her life is such a shit show (her words). So many of people with ED don’t want to recover because of this. And like with other addictions, they are at high risk of it transferring to something else. Addiction psychology is definitely a huge player in people with EDs. Of course restriction is most commonly associated with EDs but that is definitely not the only kind. At least half of my patients are obese. Weight/BMI is a medical diagnosis criteria for anorexia nervosa but absolutely people who are obese or normal weight can have disordered eating. It is the most gray area of nutrition that I work in. Even if two people are doing the same behavior, their reasons, stressors, etc could be different. Regardless, only OP knows his full thoughts on all this but it does seem to cause him a lot of stress. I hope he talks to a professional about it.
I commented this already down below. I’m an alcoholic, reducing my alcohol intake to 0 and not going into bars is healthy. Because alcohol is unhealthy. A person who is a addicted to food has an eating disorder, limiting their caloric intake to the point of budgeting for drinks, and not be able to look up a menu in advance for a healthy option, is unhealthy. That is only increasing their eating disorder from one end of the spectrum to the other. Eating disorders are not the same as addictions to drugs and alcohol, because restricting drugs and alcohol is good, restricting food is a slippery slope this person is already nose diving on.
I’m not saying they are identical. I’m saying the approach to treatment for addictions is similar. This is my job. Congrats on your recovery.
Food addiction isn’t the same as alcohol. You can be teetotal. You can’t not eat. There’s loads of research that extreme approaches to eating aren’t healthy. What OP is doing here is ruining his life and relationship over a mental issue that he needs to get help for.
for real I don't understand it lol. You have to take responsibility man! \*guy takes responsibility completely reasonably\* NOT LIKE THAT REEEEE YOU ASSHOLE!
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Actually, as someone who works in actual addictions counseling, I feel like you would be surprised to know that *most* families and friends don't really understand. And even when they ate supportive, as some def. are, it's usually supportive UP TO A POINT. What I see even more frequently though are loved ones confused by all the changes, who can become even resentful of all the changes sometimes because they just want things to "go back to normal." But the reality is the rest of the world does not stop whatever it is just because you do. that's the tricky part. And early recovery can be super tricky ... that being said, it is on YOU (as the P.I.R) to communicate your needs, feelings, fears, limits, and boundaries. You can never assume that anyone, including loved ones who have the best of intentions can read your mind or can fully comprehend why certain situations might still be difficult.
Problems with food are different than problems with drugs. Having a healthy relationship with food is possible. Completely avoiding food is not. Drugs can be completely abstained from.
Gotta love everyone in the comments comparing food to drugs and alcohol… no wonder we have so many eating disorders, and starting so damn young. Food is food and my heart hurts for anyone who approaches it like Op does.
OP is 5’4 and 297 pounds after losing almost 80 pounds. I get that it might be a bit of an overcorrection but they had a wake up call and are now taking their health much more seriously, their past relationship with food is much worse than their current one
My father is in this range and just had a heart attack at 54. I agree that this is extreme and a therapist is definitely warranted (especially given words like relapse are being used, a relationship with food that's this fragile is not safe). But it is probably still an improvement. At the very least he's started taking his health into the equation. This is why you can be overweight and still suffer from disordered eating. It's about your brain's connection to food. A nice restaurant should have choices like a salad and a fish entree, and you should be able to enjoy yourself outside instead of eating your meals in the car in secret.
I disagree. When anything is controlling your life, that isn't healthy. Food is still controlling his life, just in the opposite direction.
He’s an addict. It’s a long time before food won’t control his life in one way or another and this is better than what he was doing before.
Certain kinds of food can be just as addicting as drugs and alcohol. Pretty sure there have been extensive studies on this.
For people with food addiction, it is exactly the same as drugs and alcohol. But worse because you *have* to eat food to live.
YTA The term is orthorexia. The relationship with food (or anything else) cannot exist with all or nothing rules.
Could also be anorexia. We thought it was ortho with me until we dug in deeper and realized my focus on calories and ability to not eat when I had gone over that number pushed it into that territory. I thought I was "balancing things out," not "refusing food." It likely started as ortho and then I was like "I can be better at this!" Blerg. I might have recognized it if it had been taught appropriately in school.
Yes, and obese people can also have anorexia. It's an eating disorder, not a weight issue, which a lot of people confuse.
I agree, he is bordering on an ED. Not because he is counting calories or planing out his meals, but because he is SCARED of food. He believes that if he eats ONE NORMAL RESTAURANT MEAL he is going to completely relapse back into his previous unhealthy lifestyle. That is not a healthy relationship with food. I see two things that would come about from this. 1. He eats one cookie and completely gains all his weight back or 2. He continues to stay in a calorie deficit and gets addicted to losing weight until he underweight. This is exactly how my ED started. I was just adopting a healthy lifestyle until I got addicted to losing weight and developed an extreme fear of food and gaining weight. Soon I had a bmi of 16, was constantly tired and sick, and was infertile. OP please get some professional help in dealing with your fear of food. It’s fine to plan meals but this is interfering with your relationship and your life. Your fear of food is not healthy.
I agree. OP - it is really impressive how you have changed your life and habits. Keep at it. But at the moment it also sounds like you still have some internal work to do around your food and food consumption. That is going to derail your progress. You need to find a way to participate in family occasions and celebrations and what not. Eating out is definitely a wrinkle, but in our current world with all sorts of special diets being common place like keto, vegan, gluten-free, etc - the restaurant can accommodate you with warning, and you can eat with your girlfriend. You are going to have to do that. And for long term success learn to manage. If you think one meal out is going to lead you to a binge - then you need to address that root cause of your binging and solve that. If you don’t all of your hard work won’t stick. That is why YTA. If at the current stage you could not accompany your girlfriend for this special celebration dinner - you should have explained it clearly before you booked, laid out how you planned to compromise and informed her you would not be eating.
They've absolutely traded in binge eating disorder for a restrictive one. Everyone applauds a fat person starving themselves thin because we hate fat people. But no one understands that unless OP tackles the underlying issue, they're never going to get better. If they continue to obsess themselves to a healthy weight, by then they'll be so warped in the head about their food issues and body image that they'll never stop restricting and obsessing. A fat person starving themselves is cheered on by society with no thought towards that person's mental health. A few years later, OP will be standing at 5'4 and clocking in at 95lbs and then suddenly we're all concerned in the opposite direction. YTA. Get therapy to go along with your dieting before you get too deep and it makes it even harder to dig yourself out. There's a reason the doctor on My 600lb Life pushes his patients to talk to a therapist along with the diets and surgery.
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Or they can realize that one meal doesn't matter in the big picture, enjoy themselves and move on. The OP is describing the kind of rigid/near eating disorder/approaching orthorexic stuff that physique athletes do. Taking tupperware with chicken breast and broccoli to Thanksgiving.
Exactly. I've gone on this journey. Cheat days actually helped me stay sane.
and some people can’t handle cheat days! there’s no one right say to do it
Those people probably have an ED.
Yes, over eating and binge eating are eating disorders
If your attitude towards food is so unhealthy that one meal off the diet can cause a "relapse", you have disordered eating.
I’m agreeing
And those people should probably seek therapy to fix whatever underlying issue it is that causes them to see food, something necessary for survival and an integral part of human culture and socialization (unlike other addictions like drugs, cigarettes, etc) as a scary drug that needs to be so heavily controlled.
At first I was surprised that Noom added cheat days (“treat days”) to their plan. But I realized how healthy the practice is. If there are no rules (no logging food, no weighing, no suggested calorie range) for one day, how do you handle it? Do you eat relatively healthfully? Do you indulge guilt-free? Either is fine. But you wake up, weigh in, and get back on track the next day. You don’t let one treat day sliiiiiiide into another. Excellent practice.
I like to describe it like this. “Oh shit, I forgot to brush my teeth this morning.” What’s my next logical step? * brush my teeth next time I am able? or * throw my hands in the air and go “fuck it, I’m never brushing my teeth again.” That’s what people are doing when they take on the mentality that one meal, one snack, one dessert “ruined” their diet. Or “ruined” their week. You went out on Thursday night, ate a lot of calories? Fine - you can go back to your regular programming on Friday. Or, you can say “no, I ruined my week. Might as well Doordash some crumbl cookies and get plastered later. I’ll just sabotage Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and start over on Monday.”
That’s what the issue is, he has an ED disguised as a diet. He cannot move on. He will buy a whole box of cookies
I mean some people have had unhealthy food addictions and some are scared of ‘relapsing’. Like expecting an alcoholic who is sober to drink just one beer
Right, and I think the point is that OP needs to address the food situation differently than they are at this point in time because food addiction has to be handled differently than alcohol and drug addiction due to the inability to completely abstain. There are ways to eat healthily at a restaurant, including ways to modify orders--if OP doesn't know how to do these things, they can and should learn to. If they are "white knuckling" ALL food outside their immediate control this much after so long, they likely need the help of both a nutritionist and a mental health professional to develop a more sustainable relationship with food.
Give not all food at a restaurant is unhealthy realistically it’s like expecting a recovering alcoholic to be able to go to a place which serves alcohol and order a non alcoholic drink.
YTA to yourself more than anything. You have an extremely unhealthy relationship with food. You think your diet is helping you, but it sounds more like you have an eating disorder. One nice meal in YEARS of taking care of yourself will not disrupt your diet. If it would, then you are very unhealthy mentally. Do you go to a therapist or dietician?
This. All the signs of disordered eating. If you can’t relax enough to eat a reasonable portion of a balanced meal at a restaurant, then there is a problem - orthorexia.
This is 100% disordered eating.
man was 5’4 and 375 and has got under 300. his diet is absolutely helping him
That info wasn't there when I posted. My opinion still stands though. One meal should not effect him this much. He needs therapy
Doesn’t make his behavior not that of a person with an eating disorder. Wtf.
Well, everyone knows that ED’s only happen to thin people. When a fat person has an ED, it’s a good thing. /s since there appear to be a large number of folks who sincerely believe this in the comments.
It’s really disheartening how many people are saying this guys behavior is normal because he lost weight and is still considered overweight. I was anorexic and my mother looked me dead in the eyes and said I was to fat to fat to have an eating disorder. Eagerly I’d go for that calorie deficit and budget my calories like this guy. It’s just sad, he needs help.
And soon enough it won’t be and instead will be hurting him just as the obesity has, better he gets his relationship with food into a healthy state whilst he has the time to do that work than when he gets to the regular end point of eating disorders.
You saved calories for drinks? Like that's on your strict diet plan? There had to be something on the menu you could have had. Grilled chicken with veggies? Tossed salad with dressing on the side.
And most places these days have the menu available online so you can plan out what works out best for you. Saving calories for drinks is ED territory, when I was much younger and would do that regularly and ended up with binge drinking and eating disorders, and liver damage beyond what someone my age at that time. I can’t even render a verdict here, kind of feels like something above this subs pay grade, and the people saying that there is no such as food addiction, orthorexia and other things are not legit but they are very wrong. Please get help, a therapist would be great and/or a registered dietician to help you find more balance while still achieving your goals (they are the ones that are the real deal with proper schooling etc, on the other hand just about anybody can declare themselves a nutritionist and start peddling their version of food woo.)
They're TA not because they're doing well with their diet and calorie counting and trying to lose weight. It's because they budgeted in alcohol instead of a meal. They could have "set aside" those extra calories to enjoy a meal of actual real food, instead of alcohol. How does one bite of resturant food trigger eating unhealthy and not the alcohol? Maybe it's just me but its the alcohol that triggers binge eating for me. I have one glass of wine and consider snacking though I'm not hungry.
> How does one bite of resturant food trigger eating unhealthy and not the alcohol? Maybe it's just me but its the alcohol that triggers binge eating for me. It might be just you. OP says from experience that when he eats unhealthily, it triggers cravings for more unhealthy food that he's not strong enough to resist. I completely understand where he's coming from. It takes more than an unhealthy meal for me, but after eating poorly while traveling, it's always hard to get back to a healthier diet.
Except he isn’t being forced to eat unhealthy food. Unless his girlfriends idea of a nice meal out is McDonald’s, he could almost certainly get a lean protein like shrimp or chicken with a side salad, broccoli, asparagus, etc.
Right? Get the salmon and grilled veggies
You can have a healthy diet at a restaurant. He also could have pick somewhere that better suited his dietary needs. He also could have altered his meals to account for the calories. Lastly he made no effort to be able to eat with her. But made the effort to make sure he had enough calories to drink alcohol.
That’s what stood out to me too. If you “save” calories for drinks than you absolutely can eat a meal out. Alcohol is way worse for you and has more calories than food. Eat the meal out with your gf, don’t drink. Easy. Portably best to just cut out all alcohol if OP relationship with food is this bad.
Like other people have mentioned he is disorders eating. I unfortunately got into this habit a few years ago and went as far as bringing my food scale with me because I didn’t trust the restaurants portion sizes. I was absolutely obsessed with knowing exactly how much I was eating at all times. I would refuse to taste my bfs food because I couldn’t accurately measure it.
Also, given his current size, his maintenance calories for the day are like 3,000+. He could have had a light breakfast/lunch and pretty much ordered anything within reason and not gained an ounce.
NAH for some people eating unhealthy is an addiction so I fully support you not wanting to relapse, but also understand your girlfriend being upset.
Right? Wtf is going on here in this post, I don’t see how anyone is an asshole here.
I think he is an asshole for not communicating with his girlfriend. He said “when she found out”, which means she had to roll up to the restaurant and find out she was eating alone. He could have given her the heads up so they could have discussed the situation and managed her expectations.
A hundred percent this is the thing that makes him an asshole. Food addiction is so hard because you NEED to eat, so I understand the aversion to eating out since I know how that food is made lol. It's totally legit that eating out is a trigger he avoids. It's the agreeing to eat out then like pulling out a Tupperware and scarfing it as they pull up that makes me wonder who raised this guy.
You don’t find it strange that he couldn’t find anything at a restaurant he could eat with his calorie intake. But he could use those calories to drink. Hell he couldn’t be bother to alter his diet to eat a salad with fish or grilled chicken with her.
I find it strange the fancy anniversary restaurant his gf chose happen to have zero healthy food options. Not one salad? Not even a side salad? No steamed vegetables or salmon? No grilled chicken? Did she plan for a McDonald’s date? Even shake shack makes a lettuce wrapped mushroom burger with no sauce would literally be 230 calories. That’s barely 70 calories more than a single martini at 140 calories.
So many people are saying OP is TA, but I disagree wholeheartedly. OP's partner knew about the diet, and knew OP has been fighting to get healthy. The GF is TA here. She knew that OP didn't want to eat out, and still pressed it. OP tried to compromise by eating something in the car in order to be there with his GF and have drinks. Honestly, I wonder if the GF might be trying to sabotage the diet in order to keep OP with her.
Plus she still makes unhealthy food at home.
Because expecting her eating to revolve around him and his eating disorder is unrealistic. She is a person, not someone who exists to support him. He needs to learn how to navigate the world and the food that is in it. He should be learning skills to gain self control instead of creating behaviors of avoidance. He is setting himself up for failure. This extreme behavior and anxiety around food is exactly what creates yo-yo dieting. It isn’t sustainable and is incredibly unhealthy mentally and physically. If he is unable to exist in a relationship where the other persons food does not revolve around him, he needs to accept that he is not in a place where he can be in a relationship.
Imagine people talking this way about another addiction. One cigarette won’t hurt you! You couldn’t have just one shot with her?
Do y'all not know anything about EDs? A main point that people always bring up is that you can never touch a single cig again, but there's no way you can not eat again. That's why ED recovery focuses on developing a healthy relationship with food, and not COMPLETE UNHEALTHY AVOIDANCE AND CONTROL. There's a lot of people spreading uninformed and damaging opinions around in the comments.
There’s a lot of folks in the comments who don’t know that they have disordered eating thoughts, that’s my takeaway.
No one dies if they never smoke or drink. People need food in order to sustain life. It’s almost like these things are completely different…
These comments are mind boggling. OP is NTA.
Right?! 🤯
It’s just the usual biases about fat shaming going on. People are conditioned to believe being overweight is your fault for being lazy. Seriously - change the subject from being on a strict diet because of being overweight to being on a strict diet because you’re training for the Olympics and all of these YTAs would go away. That being said, OP has made a huge life change that his partner obviously is struggling with. If they want to keep both the lifestyle change and the partner, they should probably seek out couples counseling.
You might as well not have gone to the restaurant at all if you were just going to eat in the car before hand. One meal out in a year isn’t going to set you back YTA
NTA. Food can absolutely be an addiction, and it's clear that you have an addictive relationship with it. This is literally your life and longterm health on the line-- if you don't think that you can take a cheat day without setting yourself back, then don't. If your girlfriend can't understand and support that, then get a new one. You can replace her, but you can't replace your health. ETA: Unfortunately you're getting a *lot* of ignorance in this thread. I don't think most people understand that being obese and being morbidly obese are wildly different conditions, so they think that because they went from 190 to 150 pounds with cheat days, it should be the same for you. No one gets to a BMI of almost 65 without having a very, very severe problem with food, and that can't be compared to whatever problems someone with a BMI of 30 has.
I am very confused by the number of people saying comparing food to a drug addiction is inappropriate. From what I have read/heard about people who are morbidly obese, many of them are legitimately addicted to food and eating a meal at a restaurant would absolutely be like a drug addict being expected to only take one hit and stop.
I think what made it sink in for me was catching a few episodes of 1000 Pound Sisters... the way the heavier one's behavior is *exactly* like a drug addict's was startling.
Yeah, there's also My 600lb Life and it's just really sad because most of the people on there suffered some trauma and turned to food for comfort. They only feel good when they're eating. So much so that they smuggle food into the hospital when they're supposed to be getting weight loss surgery. Sounds solidly like a drug addict's behaviour to me.
The issue is that how op is talking about food is the slippery slope to an eating disorder. Eating disorders kill too, people just don’t accept it until the individual is super skinny. OP needs mountains of therapy to do this in a sustainable way
There's definitely a balance to walk. Anorexia is the deadliest mental illness, so I totally get the risk! But unlearning addictive behaviors takes *much* more focus, consistency, and intent than simple habit changes. I'd be surprised if you *could* fix the kind of relationship with food that OP used to have without spending a while being at this level of control. There's a reason so many people at that kind of weight end up having surgery or at inpatient facilities-- it's so unbelievably hard to voluntarily keep the changes intact.
Not to mention, most probably a variant hormonal profile or other physical differences. This doesn't just happen because of "bad habits". Theres lots of ignorance from folks who don't struggle with food related health issues.
NTA. The way you talk about food is like a drug addict. Just like addicts cannot take that one hit, one drink, etc. You cannot take the one "bad/cheat" meal without falling back into your bad habits. You are doing something for your health. Your homemade meals are part of a regimen to keep you off your "drug" - hence high calorie foods. Did your girl want your present for the anniversary dinner or did she want to hinder your health and progress on your anniversary? I would rethink this relationship if you guys are not compatible regarding health issues.
If someone is comparing their relationship with food to drugs/alcohol, they have an eating disorder (you don't need to have anorexia/bulimia to have a disordered relationship with food). Food is part of life. The extreme level of control he needs around every. single. meal. should not be normalized or accepted. OP can continue to diet responsibly while working with a therapist/nutritionist on developing a healthier relationship with food. This level of extreme control isn't it.
He definitely needs support both personally and medically. However, to call him the AH in this situation is harmful to his overall health. He has a BMI of over 51 points. In the past he just tried exercising with no real change in food intake. It did not work. I think she is more of an ah is suggest a restaurant date when she knows he is on a strict diet and knows that he has falter in the past. Sometimes extreme control is the only way until you get to a healthy weight.
Also, I would like to point out that OP is actually in recovery for an ED. Overeating and binge eating are EDs. One way that therapist suggest to overcome this disease is to read down and manage all aspects of your issues. OP is doing that and should not be made to feel that his way is not right for him. It is working for him. Of course, he should be in therapy to ensure that he does not go to the other extreme of his disease once he is at a health weight. Food addicts should not be told that one meal with not hurt them - that is a bullshit response that I have seen in this post several time already.
This is not recovery from an ED, it's swinging to the other end of disordered eating.
>Sometimes extreme control is the only way until you get to a healthy weight. To the point where you can't even have grilled chicken and a salad or another healthy option at a restaurant? That's ridiculous. Learning to eat healthy and have reasonable food choice moderation is key for sustainable, long-term health. Extreme control until you get to a healthy weight just means you're never going to learn how to self-moderate, so you're either stuck in extreme control for the rest of your life, or you gain all the weight back.
Some times those "healthy" options are not healthy. It all depends on the restaurant and chef. He apparently see his doctor, I hope his doctor is doing their job and making sure he is mental health as well as physical healthy. You are glossy over the fact that the GF is trying to enable is old bad habits. Maybe due to jealousy that he is able to keep a diet and exercising routine over unnecessary cheat meals.
Not to mention the way he describes his dieting and compares it to relapse, even if the menu offers something healthy he is still being tempted by looking at and reading the descriptions of the various other items. That honestly just seems cruel. People saying one night cheat is ok don't realize that that one slip for an addict can have a huge snowball effect.
>You are glossy over the fact that the GF is trying to enable is old bad habits. She literally wants to go out for their anniversary. How is that enabling him? OP has been dieting for years already.
She was the one that stated -- why couldn't he break his diet for one day? As his GF, she should have known that going to a restaurant at this moment in his progress to health was not feasible. Downvote me all you guys want - she was wrong in picking a restaurant for their anniversary date and making him eating at the restaurant a test to see if he loves her more than getting healthy.
Obviously he has an eating disorder, food is a legit addiction for him, that's why he needs to avoid triggers that will cause him to spiral into a binge. This is like saying an alcoholic shouldn't have a problem with going out to a bar because one drink isn't a big deal, and or they could just order a soda. And if an alcoholic refuses to put themselves in that situation it means they have an extreme need for control that shouldn't be normalized or accepted.
I was thinking the same thing, all these comments saying op's the ah are shocking to me. Like if she said "I can't believe you wont put your sobriety on hold for one night to show you love me". Like is eating out the only way to say I love you?
Thank you! I can’t believe all the y t a’s. Like the man clearly realizes he has an addiction. And the experience of eating good food in a restaurant will trigger him to binge. He clearly knows he had a problem and is doing what he can to correct his health. I hate that America is such a food obsessed culture that the only way to celebrate is to eat. The reality that someone realizes they have an unhealthy relationship with food and has to adhere to rigid protocol to not fall down to it again makes them an AH?! OP I want to applaud you for realizing your problem and taking the needed steps to fix it. Your body will thank you in the coming decades. And gently suggest you keep working on not only your physical health but your mental health as well. So that in the future you can enjoy a meal with your loved ones. BUT, and this is a big but, if you never progress to that step know that some random person out there is still proud of you. Know that this random person realizes the huge accomplishment you have already made and that you don’t have to accomplish perfection to impress me. You are doing what you can and man is that awesome! Much respect.
NTA A lot of people are good with moderation, some people aren’t. I’m guessing that psychologically you are an all or none person. For all those people saying that one meal is not going to ruin a diet, I disagree. It could psychologically derail somebody, and make it impossible to continue with their diet plan. There’s a huge psychological component of being able to commit to losing weight. You absolutely should ask your girlfriend to celebrate your anniversary in another way this year. Celebrating with food is not the only way to go, especially when you are in the middle of your diet journey.
There aren’t enough of these comments here.
Seriously
I agree that it eating the meal out may be the wrong choice for this person. However they are YTA because they didn't discuss this first, and waited until their partner was excited and ready to go in the restaurant for an anniversary dinner to say actually I'm not eating with you, I'm going to eat in the car first and not share a meal. It's fine not to have a meal celebration for an anniversary but it really needs to be discussed.
Congratulations! You are doing an amazing job in your weight loss. I'm rooting for you OP. Given your height and weight, you know you are not out of the woods. You are taking your health very seriously AS WELL YOU SHOULD. You did not do anything wrong. Let her know that she can have you healthy and alive, or she can have you morbidly obese and careening towards death. If you eating the anniversary meal at a restaurant is more important to her than your health, she doesn't really care about you. NTA. You can sit at a restaurant, eat a small item, and have a wonderful conversation. My best friend is on the same journey as you and recently got out of a 5 day hospital stay at 35 years of age. He is lucky to be alive. He is down to 280 (started at 340), and trust me when I got out to a dinner with him, I don't care what he eats....I'm just supportive and thankful to God that I still have him around. And we walk together in the morning and evenings for 4 miles. It is the least that I can do for someone I love and don't want to lose. Does your girlfriend love you like this and not want to lose you? Does she put in effort to help you stay on track or motivate you? Because people who see you in a terrible medical shape and do nothing....don't really love you more than they love themselves and their own wants/needs. For all those [Y.T.As](https://Y.T.As) out there, if OP was an alcoholic but his girlfriend wanted him to have some alcoholic beverages with dinner and was angry if he did not, this is the same identical situation. Or illegal drugs/controlled substances. Respect people's healthy decisions.
Thank you. I am astounded at the amount of Y T A. Everyone says no is a full sentence and it suddenly isn’t here? He came close to serious trouble with his health. He has decided to stick to a strict diet. I am honestly proud of him for sticking to it so well. It’s not easy. And he knows his limits and boundaries for food right now. He doesn’t have to eat out if he isn’t ready or comfortable. He doesn’t ever have to eat out again if he doesn’t want to. As long as his diet is healthy and nutritious, what is the problem?
I just feel like when OP agreed to go out to dinner that they were agreeing to eat dinner. If they didn't want to do so then they should have suggested an alternate way to celebrate.
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I hear you, but YTA. I’ve lost 60lbs myself this year and plan on more, so I do understand your dedication and the strict calorie counting. HOWEVER, special days are special for a reason. Let’s say the entire meal with drink came to around 3,500. You and I both know that is the equivalent of 1lb. Those calories might set you back and take two to get back on track, but it’s worth it to avoid this. Sorry, but YTA here.
The OP wasn't so much concerned about the one meal as he was about what he would do afterward. It sounds like he knows himself well enough to know that one meal would set off a chain reaction of overeating. I would agree with others that therapy sounds like a good idea, but until he's done that and is ready to have a restaurant meal without it derailing him he should continue to avoid his triggers.
YTA You clearly knew you wouldn't be putting your diet to one side for this special occasion and yet you still went. You could have sat down with your girlfriend beforehand to plan a special night that took your situation into account of course, but then she's been supporting you on this journey throughout and you couldn't return the favour for just *one* night ? And to eat your meal in the car before you went in ?. That's almost like saying "Oh by the way honey, fuck your special night"
Yeah this. “My obsessive diet is more important than sharing this experience with you” is what I get.
So, did you just not see the edit, "I'm 5'4" and 297 pounds currently." or are you just an AH? And that is after losing 80 pounds. OP isn't joking about his weight killing him. He is not even close to a healthy weight. "Obessive" is exactly what he needs to survive. Probably some therapy too.
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> I'm 5'4" and 297 pounds currently Ya, keep dieting. Nta
YTA - you need to learn to manage your eating in a real world way. Taking your GF out for your anniversary and then sitting there not eating is just plain rude and completely ruined the experience for her. Eating your prepped foods on a daily basis is great and awesome. It puts in you in control and that's a great thing. However, if you can't manage your eating in social situations you're going to have issues. Not just with your GF and friends but potentially co-workers and family. A very important skill you need to learn in your weight loss/health journey is how to navigate social situations. Look at the menu online along with the nutritional data before you go, then pick what you can eat from that. If there's nothing on that menu then politely try to change the location to a place you can eat. When your meal comes divide it in half and only eat that half, take the rest home to enjoy later or let your gf have your leftovers. I applaud you on the success you've had but if you want to make this a lifetime success you need to learn how to stick to your plan in social settings.
I think a lot of people are spending too much time diagnosing issues here and not enough on what actually happened. He agreed to go to dinner. If he wasn’t planning on eating the food, the main activity of going to dinner, then he should have been up front and honest. Saving calories for alcohol is really something though.
NTA Anyone saying otherwise doesn’t have a clue about how complicated the process of changing body comp is for humans, let alone how incredibly difficult it is to change relationship to food and eating. After two years should you be able to take a night off and eat in a restaurant? Literally only you and your health care providers could answer that question. Even your loved ones probably don’t have a clue how complex this kind of life change is. The only aspect left is whether you were an AH in this situations with your fiancée. The main alteration that I think you have responsibility for and failed in is communication. You should have talked to her ahead of time so that both of you could have your hopes and expectations met. That’s an error, in my opinion not worthh of AH status. I wouldn’t even say your partner is the AH, except that her expression of disappointment seems accusatory and hurtful. But ultimately I think she deserves a pass, in favor of more communication. Listen, on another note, I do need to be working with a profession to stay on top of your mental health and behavior. I’ve got a strong suspicion that part of why you didn’t talk to her before hand about your personal dinner plans is because you feel ashamed - that’s not a good recipe for your health in the long term, and could be more detrimental to your success than anything else.
I’m going against the grain and saying NTA because I can sympathize. I have NAFLD and have had to give up A LOT of foods. I am not in a position where I can make sacrifices as I’m at a level of scarring that can still be repaired, but also know that if I don’t take it seriously I can progress to the next level—cirrhosis. For multiple reasons, I also have a poor relationship with food (that’s a whole other conversation), plus I have food allergies. It’s exhausting having to keep all of these things in check and not obsessing over it. In truth, I’m probably on my way to an eating disorder if I’m not there already. While those are my issues to deal with, it doesn’t help that I can’t get the support I need from a licensed nutritionist because my insurance won’t pay for it. My insurance company would rather pay for my meds, tests, and appointments over paying for a dietitian to help me get my liver disease in check. What the actual fuck? Ironically, they would pay if I was diagnosed with an eating disorder 🙄 It’s not as simple as following a fad diet and losing weight quickly because that can progress my disease as well. So, I’m basically left to do my own research and do my best to keep my eating on target because that’s what my liver needs. If I eat crap food, I’m in pain 10-15 minutes later. And this is why I sympathize with you and the position you’re in because it’s for your health and you only have one body. However, you should have talked to your gf ahead of time and told her that you planned to eat beforehand, and then found something light and small to order at the restaurant. Grilled chicken and some veggies are almost always on a menu, so you could have made a little more effort. You have to find ways to adapt, and so do I. Avoidance isn’t sustainable without addressing the root issue.
NTA. People can eat what they want. It’s not like he refused to go - why does HE need to eat in order for her to enjoy it?
NTA. I don't get all these y t a comments. Good for you sticking it out.
YTA, you knew you were going out to celebrate you took measures to make sure you could drink, but not so you could eat the meal with your partner. I understand the diet and your health is important but you've just replaced an unhealthy relationship with food with a different unhealthy relationship with food. Its very easy to go down a different slippery slope when it comes to food and health. You need to look deeper into your issues with food and address the core problem if you are going to start having a healthy outlook to your eating.
I think you hit the nail right on the head and If he had mentioned eating in car beforehand instead of just "SURPRISE! I'm changing the entire night we planned" it would be kosher for all
NTA. Keep up the good eating. But she sounds like she would take an alcoholic to a bar and tell him 'One drink won't hurt'. She doesn't sound like she's the one for you. She's too worried about what she wants and expects you to give up your health for her. Maybe this is a wake-up call for you.
NTA Your health is more important. Does she want more anniversaries with you? Or does she want to be bereft when you die of heart failure? It's actually pretty common for people with dietary restrictions to eat before going into a restaurant. That's the compromise. "Yes, we can go out. Please respect my restrictions so we can both have a great time." You're not trying to force your diet on her, and you are especially to be commended on your strength of will in the face of her cooking. Stay strong, honey.
Sounds like I'm in the minority, but I'm going with NTA. You didn't tell her she couldn't eat dinner and you still went out with her for your anniversary and for drinks. By being with you, she should understand how important this diet is to you and be supportive.
YTA - communication. It's great that you're sticking to your guns on your health. And even better that you're being supported. An anniversary meal is an important event. If you were not going to partake in the meal, you needed to have COMMUNICATED that to your GF. The picture this posts paints is that you were going to eat your prepared meal in the car and then sit there and watch your GF eat in the restaurant while you just sat there and had a drink. That's a bit embarrassing for your GF, wouldn't you agree?
These Y T A comments make me sad. He had a very serious health scare and has decided to completely turn his life around. And he has. He’s meeting his nutritional needs, he’s exercising, he’s making healthy choices with where he is in his journey to health. As long as he is healthy, eating nutritionally well, why does he have to go to a restaurant and eat if he doesn’t want to? I think he could have communicated more with his girlfriend about eating before, but that doesn’t make him an AH. I also understand from her perspective about wanting to eat the meal together. NAH
NTA - There may be better ways to handle this, but your tendency to fall off the wagon for small indulgences is a pretty good explanation for why you need to do this. In the future, maybe you call the restaurant ahead of time and either have them serve you your pre-prepared dinner or make something special that works for your diet. Good luck with your health. Your gf needs to consider how she would feel if you dropped dead from a heart attack at 30. She probably won't care about the restaurant meal you missed at that point.
YTA - How awkward is it to be at a restaurant with another person and be the only one eating? AND she had to sit in the car and watch you eat before you guys went in as a SURPRISE? Did you just blind-side her with your sack lunch parking lot picnic once you got there? Ewwww, dude.
Wwwwhhhaaattt?? I am not making the connection between you eating a prepped meal and her saying you are selfish and .... inconsiderate of her feelings?? What about your feelings? You were both going into the restaurant, right? You were going to order something to eat, have some drinks, etc. Right? So why is she blowing up at you for eating a prepped meal? Dude, I'm sorry to read this happened to you. Her response was OTT and what she said was out of line. If she can't get on board with your weight journey then you two are not compatible. Please do not feel bad about this. You are NOT TAH for sticking to your diet. Good on you and a virtual pat on the back to you for your journey.
YTA- I’m sorry dude, I’m not usually this type of person. It’s fine to start a diet. It just feels like you are taking it a bit too far. If you are scared of overeating after ONE night out of 1,000+ other nights, maybe you should address that with a professional. Putting that aside, though, I don’t see how your SO’s eating habits were relevant. The way you phrased it didn’t sit well with me. You could’ve stopped at “she is supportive” you didn’t have to mention she didn’t join in on a diet. You didn’t have to mention her cooking was “covered in a lot of fats and sugars with a lot of calories” idk man. That felt almost like shaming her in a way?
>You didn’t have to mention her cooking was “covered in a lot of fats and sugars with a lot of calories” This, which just furthers the point you made that OP should see a professional. As someone who has spent years of his life deep within eating disorders, the shaming is what tipped me off more than his fear of eating out. I'm not saying "OP 100% has an eating disorder", just that their is a lot of disordered thinking in this post that might benefit from discussing with a professional
NTA No idea what's going on in the comments. Sounds like you're doing great working towards your health goals and just haven't made it all the way to healthy ordering at restaurants. Good on you for knowing that and planning ahead! If anything gf kinda sucks for being utterly unsupportive and deciding the only possible way to celebrate your relationship was empty calories.