he said he has low sex drive... i don't feel so?

[feliciamay]

A bit awkward but I'm quite lost........
My boyfriend and I have been together for about 7 years, and we have always had a good sex life. We were young, met in uni, and we are planning to get married in a few years time. I always knew that I have a higher sex drive, always wanting more and he used to be able to do so. when i went overseas for a work attachment for a year, we maintained good sexual communication (or so i believe), and whenever i'm back we would engage in intercourse.Its been about a year or so that I've noticed things have been dwindling down, to about (if i'm lucky), once a week, or otherwise once in two weeks. I asked him very calmly about it and he said he's just tired, busy from work, and that he has simply a much lower sex drive.... But before chinese new year, when i was helping him spring clean his place, i came across his online deeds.



I know that throughout our relationship duration, he has been faithful, and that while temptations from other women or online stuffs exist, I am aware and I've been doing my best to be ok about it because to me, its part and parcel of being a human. However, whenever I try to talk to him about it, such as "do you watch porn?" or "what do you like?" he would go into a rage or lie straight to my face and say "no i don't", or "nothing". So imagine my disgust, no more like disappointment, when i saw those. I didn't ask him then and there cause I wanted to collect my thoughts first before I jump onto any accusations. But when I did ask him about it, he lost his cool and said those searches or videos or whatever were just curiosity. I told him that I didn't have a problem with it, I never had, but I was very very very hurt by the lies and hiding because there really isn't anything to hide about it, no? He said he won't do it again, but just last night, I found out that he has continued? every night. so i asked him about it this morning but he kept insisting its not him or his stuff but if its not him, then what aliens? He has lied and insisted and lied and insisted many times before, so i no longer know if its true. Like i know a lot of people go on those SBF for curiosity or brag or nothing is quite serious there, the more he hides, the more I fear?



Anywayyy, i really thought its me the problem is me. cause I've gained quite a lot of weight lately cause i on hormonal therapy and he tried very very hard to tell me in a very kind manner that I am gaining weight and its unhealthy. he never say i'm fat, or say i'm ugly, never once ever. just "unhealthy". I work out as much as I can about 3 times a week. Anywayyy, since that incident, i must say my self-esteem has totally taken a plunge. I really really feel that it is me. That i am not comparable to those girls he see, or what. Like now when we go out, like say orchard road, i cannot help but feel like i want to run away and retreat into a turtle shell whenever like hot young ladies with hot shorts walk in front of us or enter the same train carriage cause i no longer know if he is looking and fantasising or comparing me or what. And yet, whenever I have that uncontrollable self-esteem reaction and he notices it, he will go into a rage and scold me loudly cause he know i am very image conscious.



But i still try to be positive like initiate sex, let him touch, but he just never make a move anymore to the point when i try to initiate and he rejects, i feel so utterly rejected and disgusted with myself. I try to be positive by using my frustration and fear in my lost trust in him that i run more, i exercise more, i do more at the gym or workout because I am beginning to hate myself now. He still tells me he loves me every day, he does sweet things for me, he wants a baby, talks about the future when we get our house and stuff like that. So, WHAT GIVES?

 

[daffycat]

hi feliciamay, 1st I must say that I admire your courage in sharing & seeking help on resolving such an intimate & sensitive matter! *hugs*

I hope my suggestions may offer you some food for thought perhaps you may want to explore the option of being honest with him about how his actions are causing you to feel insecure & unwanted.

1. If it helps, you may assure him that you understand completely that every man has their own fantasy and desire/needs and you're okay with his behavior (on the condition that you're totally fine, otherwise it is a separate issue to work on altogether) and leave it at that. There is no need to seek for explanation on why he lied or how things appeared on your investigation (personally I feel the more you pry the more he will hide, maybe it's a male ego thing?).

2. Since he mentioned that work has been taking a toll on him and your proactive-ness has not been too helpful, ask him what helps him create the mood for love? Could it softer lighting/ music/ aromatherapy/ a light oil massage from you or maybe be a nice quiet dinner with wine/ a romantic beach getaway to rekindle that passion? Please don't be surprise if he doesn't know, that's just man being man. But maybe you can tell him to take sometime to think about it and share with you once he has some ideas to try out something romantic.

3. The last point which is also the most important point - love yourself and keep your self-esteem! if you think weight is an issue and its making you feel less sexy, encourage yourself yourself by remembering that you're now hitting the gym & eating clean encourage him about your eagerness of being lean again by sending him photos/msgs about your post-gym achievement! I think he should celebrate your hard work too! If he is game enough, invite him to gym with you!

Though you mentioned that he can be a little insensitive at times when you guys are out & about, shouting loudly. Give him a gentle reminder that such actions hurt and it will really do your fragile heart a great boost if he could be a tag more sensitive and refrain from doing that in public.

On a final note, take his compliment seriously and affirm yourself with his little act of sweetness/love! When you feel sexy, you do things that are sexily even if you don't think so... and that's where the charm is. You move/dance with confidence, you speak/sing with confidence, you live/love with confidence!

Sorry for such a lengthy sharing but I sincerely hope you'll find it useful for your thoughts-sorting process! Feel free to ignore them if you know that it's not going to apply, as I do not know the both well either.

All the best lady!
*peace & hugs*

 

[miloice]

Majority of the guys watch porn. What is important is that it doesn't become an addiction because porn delivers all the stimulus to the brain to give the high that is higher than normal sex. Its every fantasy that you want, you search and get it. In the most explicit manners. Nothing you can do to stop it. Rather, he needs to reflect and realize if it is affecting him sexually. The serious condition of porn addiction will be that he will be unable to enjoy and perform sex well normally because the brain is too used to much more explicit pleasure. The porn industry provides free content to grow the demand and cultivate the porn watching habit. Many of these actress or chat room gals are also escorts. As with any addiction, it is individual responsibility. Your partner needs to realize if it is making it difficult for normal sex with normal women, if yes, then he needs to stop watching so much. This is really how the brain works.

Its the same with food, gambling and all other kinds of addiction. The brain needs a higher level stimulation to reach the same high. Not every person because addicted. Many guys just use porn as quick and easy way to satisfy the sexual needs, get high and wank it off. Masturbation and porn are in a way part of most men's sexual life. We grew up having developing our sexuality through self experiments.

Now, coming your weigh gain. Do speak with your doctor.
However, generally speaking, if you want to lose weight, it is not how often you exercise. Not all exercises yield the same results. So, when you workout 3 times in the gym, what kind of exercise do you do? Do you focus on calories burnt during the workout? My advise is, focus on intensity and resistence strength training. Simple reason because tone muscles increases your bmr, this makes you burn more calories 24/7. When you focus in calories burnt during the workout itself, it is very restrictive. If you search online to find out how much your really burn with each activity. It isn't going to be motivating. Calories burnt from the exercise session is not the effective way to lose. Do research more.

Next, how is your diet, for any weight lost program, your diet is the key. However, it doesn't mean starving yourself. Instead, it is being discipline to choose the right foods. You can eat alot of the right foods without over-eating.

Lastly, your self esteem is something you need to work on. It should not be based on your appearance alone. No one else can help you. When you exercise and want to slim down, do it not for someone else but because you have a goal and ideal physique that you are working towards. Unless you have medical conditions, regardless of body type, we can tailor the workout and diet to achieve our goals.

 

[miloice]

I came across a very good article explaining why low insulin (carbs) diet is effective and safe.

Quoting it here for your reference.

A low carb diet can help you lose weight. But if you go on the Atkins Diet or the South Beach Diet, or any low carb diet, your friends and family might think you're doing something dangerous. Go on a Weight Watchers Diet and it doesn't bother anybody. Why? Because low carb diets are unfamiliar. Read this and you can put their minds at ease.

When you eat carbohydrates (carbs), your body releases insulin into your blood stream. The insulin tells your cells what to do. It tells most cells to absorb the sugar out of the blood and tells your fat cells not to release any fat to burn (because there are carbs already in the blood to burn).

One of insulin's jobs is to take sugar out of the blood — the sooner the better, because sugar in the blood damages the body. The reason diabetics have such bad health problems (blindness, circulation problems, etc.) is because of the damage sugar does when the person can't make enough insulin.

When you eat something with a lot of sugar in it, the body kind of panics and usually overdoes it. Too much insulin is released to mop up the sugar. It takes all the sugar out of your blood. Then your blood sugar is too low, so you crave more sweets.

So insulin saved the day, keeping that sugar from damaging your body, but in the process, it makes your body store fat and prevents you from burning fat.

A low carb diet, like the Atkins or South Beach Diet or Protein Power all vary in how much to limit carbs, but the rough average is thirty carbs a day. At that level, you don't put very much insulin into your system, so your body burns any fat you eat as fuel, and if you need more, your fat cells freely release fat into your blood stream to be burned as fuel.

But when you eat a large amount of carbs — a hundred grams, two hundred grams, or more (most Westerners get about 300 grams a day) — your body releases insulin in huge amounts, which makes it almost impossible to burn fat. And makes it really easy to gain weight. Some people don't gain weight, of course, even though they eat lots of carbs, and we'll get to that in a minute. But first understand this basic process. This is why people lose weight so easily and quickly when they cut carbs: Because carbs increase insulin, which leads to storing fat and preventing fat from being burned.

Two other ways of dealing with this problem are to eat less and exercise more. Weight Watchers and other groups are built around limiting calories. Another way is to eat very low fat. Then when insulin is released, there isn't much fat around to store, and if you eat little enough, your fat cells have to release fat so you can survive. People obviously can lose weight this way. But it is difficult. It requires discipline. One of the reasons Weight Watchers is successful is their support. People help each other stay on the program. It would be difficult to keep at it otherwise because it is so hard. Why is it so hard? Because you're eating carbs, which cause you to crave more carbs, and then you deliberately limit how much you eat. So you feel hungry. And anyone who has tried to eat less for a long time has discovered it is very difficult. It's like running uphill. What you're eating is making you want to eat more, and then you make yourself eat less. It's tough. It can be done, but it's tough.

As anyone knows who has tried simply limiting calories or eating very little fat, it is very difficult to sustain it. You can do it for awhile, but then you can't stand it any more and you eat a lot. You lose weight only temporarily because you can't keep it up for any length of time without a lot of support or self-discipline. It's too hard to sustain. And whatever you do to lose weight has to be sustainable or you'll just gain it right back.

One of the reasons a low carb diet works is that protein and fat satisfy your hunger. When you eat protein, you do not crave more protein. If you had a huge plate of chicken, you would not continue to eat it after you had enough. You would eat a certain amount and then you wouldn't want to eat any more. You don't need a cheering section to keep you from eating any more. You're done. You're satisfied.

With carbs, you can never get enough. You can be full, topped off, completely stuffed, and you could still go for some ice cream! Eating carbs makes you crave more carbs.

Don't get me wrong: Limiting yourself to thirty grams of carbs a day is still difficult, but much easier than eating low fat or low calorie. Your tongue still wants carbs, but the rest of your body feels fine. And after awhile, even your tongue calms down — you aren't craving anything at all. And your fat cells steadily release their fuel to be burned. Instead of getting more difficult over time, low carb eating actually gets easier as the lust for carbs subsides.

We shouldn't really call low carb eating a "diet." You want to find a way to eat that you can maintain for your lifetime, not for a little while. And ideally it would be something you can do without having to rely on a tremendous amount of self-discipline, because it is likely you will sometimes falter. You can almost count on it. Face it, we're human. We weaken sometimes. Then you'll lose weight and gain it back, lose weight and gain it back. That's demoralizing and it's not healthy.

With Weight Watchers or another program that relies on emotional support to maintain, it will work, but you're still eating too many carbs to be good for your health. We'll get into that a little later on this page.

 

[miloice]

continued...

Let's recap a little bit before we go on. Insulin has three effects you don't want:

1. Converts sugar in the blood to fat in the cells — tells the body to store all the fat it can while the sugar is available
2. Tells the cells not to burn any fat, since there are plenty of sugar molecules to burn
3. Makes you crave more carbs

The name, "low carb diet" is really a misnomer. It should be called a low-insulin diet. All you're trying to do is keep your insulin low. You could call it a high fat diet or a high protein diet or even a high fiber diet (if you're doing it right). Fat doesn't cause your body to make insulin. Protein doesn't either. Only carbs do.

When there is very little insulin, your body has to burn fat. That becomes its main fuel, and your body actually gets better at burning fat the more it has to do (because your cells make more fat-burning enzymes and fewer sugar-burning enzymes).

If you want to lose weight quickly and keep it off, and also not hurt your health but actually improve your health, a low-insulin diet is the best way.

One of the most important factors about a low insulin diet is that you won't lose muscle. As long as you're getting enough protein, you could lose a hundred pounds, and you won't lose muscle. In fact, if you're exercising, this way of eating will make it easierto gain muscle. This is not true with programs like Weight Watchers. Yes, you can lose weight by eating less but half the weight you lose will be muscle, and that's no good.

Most people have been eating so many carbs for so long, they can't imagine eating a low insulin diet. But it's not as bad as you'd think and there are a lot of nice surprises. But the first couple days are difficult. Then it gets easier. At first you'll crave carbs, of course. But if you eat all you want of low carb food, after a few days, you'll stop eating so much and your weight will start dropping. Every once in awhile you'll miss carbs, but as you get used to the new way of eating, you'll think about it less and less. Most of the time you'll be really contented. Satisfied. Never hungry. And not nearly as obsessed with food as you used to be.

Because of the benefits of a low-insulin diet, and because it is much easier to sustain for a long time, the low-insulin diet completely crushes a high-insulin diet in any head-to-head competition.

why are carbs bad for you?

Believe it or not, carbs are highly unnatural. They seem so normal and healthy and everywhere it's hard to imagine a world without them, but during our evolution, carbs were very hard to come by.

Our ancestors started eating meat at least two million years ago. We invented agriculture only ten thousand years ago. Ten thousand years sounds like a long time, but in evolutionary terms, it is hardly any time at all. It's not nearly enough time to evolve a way of dealing with so many carbs (unless carbs were capable of killing us off before we had offspring, which they aren't). Our bodies literally do not know what to do with 300 grams of carbs a day.

If you kept your carbs under 30 per day, you would get slimmer in a very short time. And you'd be healthier. And you'd have fewer mood swings. And you'd sleep better. And so on.

But wait a minute. Our ancient ancestors had fruit, didn't they? Yes, they did. But it was only available during one short time of the year and the fruit had far less sugar and a lot more fiber than our fruit today has. For thousands of years, people have been selectively cultivating fruits that are sweeter and less fibrous, so fruit as we know it today hardly resembles the fruits of our ancestors.

And besides that, in the jungle canopy, most fruit is hard to get. It is way up there. Our very ancient ancestors lived in trees and could eat more fruit. But more than two million years ago, our ancestors were on the ground and eating meat and we've been relying on protein and fat ever since. We evolved quickly during that time. Many scientists think that our rapid evolution, especially our brain growth, became possible because we adapted to a high-protein diet.

Occasionally, our ancestors came across a honeycomb or ripe fruit, and they gorged themselves. Those who ate the most would survive a famine better than the others, because they would have more fat on their bodies. But for the most part, our hominid ancestors were lean.

Because carbs were so rare, and because a few carbs could make the difference between living and dying, people with the strongest, most intense desire to eat carbs survived better and had more offspring. The bad news is that now carbs are hugely and abundantly available and we have advertisers exploiting our cravings for all they're worth. The Western world now has an epidemic of diabetes and obesity and heart disease because we have a built-in craving for carbs and there is big money to be made exploiting that intense craving.

Think about this from another angle. When you cut carbs you eliminate heartburn and gas. You just don't have them any more. Those aren't the only two obvious negative consequences to eating lots of carbs, but let's just look at those two for a minute. Doesn't it seem that just from the point of view of what the body has evolved to handle, the diet that causes the least distress to the body is probably the most natural? Heartburn is not only uncomfortable, it is damaging to the esophagus. It is a sign something isn't right. And it goes away when you stop eating so many carbs. Your gas pains go away. Your skin clears up. Your weight goes down. Your blood pressure goes down. It is hard not to see this as clear evidence that eating so many carbs is not natural.

 

[miloice]

continued...
why don't some carb-eaters get fat?

If all I say is true, how come many people eat lots of sugar and don't get fat? That's a good question, and the answer is interesting. We start very young to feed our kids a carb-dominated diet. We crave carbs and carbs are cheap compared with protein. Our bodies do their best to keep up. So our pancreas works overtime making insulin and we keep it busy with our 300 carbs a day.

And many of us remain slim throughout our twenties and well into our thirties. But then something happens, doesn't it? People start to gain weight. Why? Because our cells start to be insensitive to insulin. Our cells don't respond as well as they used to. Insulin is telling the cells to take the sugar out of the blood, but the cell is overworked and underpaid and doesn't respond. The body has no choice. There is no other way to get that sugar out of the blood. And you can't leave it there. It would be too destructive. So the pancreas puts out even more insulin, forcing the cells to take the sugar.

Over time, the pancreas puts out more and more insulin, causing the person to gain weight eating exactly what they used to when they were slim. If this goes on long enough, in some people it will cause adult-onset diabetes. Normal diabetes is caused by a pancreas that doesn't make insulin. Adult-onset diabetes is caused by something different. The pancreas is still making insulin, but the cells have become so insensitive the insulin doesn't work. The insulin is no longer effective. But all the other effects of insulin continue: It forces the body to store fat and not burn it.

The inevitable development of insulin insensitivity is also evidence of the unnaturalness of a high-carb diet.

what do people eat on a low-insulin diet?

What has carbs? Meat has no carbs, except some processed meats (look on the label to find out). But regular meat has no carbs at all.

Almost all vegetables are low in carbs, except corn and potatoes. Carrots and peas are pretty high, but you probably don't have to worry about eating too much of those two because they are also high in fiber and fiber makes you feel full, so they are much more self-limiting than say, chocolate cake.

Here are a few veggies that are so low in carbs you can literally eat as much as you want:
Broccoli
Spinach
Celery
Asparagus
Cauliflower
Lettuce
Cabbage
Mushrooms

One of the great things about low-insulin eating is you can melt cheese all over your Broccoli and it's perfectly fine. It just makes your food that much more satisfying. Saute your spinach in butter. Dip your celery in gobs of blue cheese. As long as you don't stimulate insulin, your body will just burn the fat and won't store it. You don't have the insulin in your system to tell your body to store the fat. A lot of people make fun of this part of the Atkins diet. Robert Atkins really emphasized you can eat all the cheese and butter and fat you want. But what people don't realize is that you don't really want to eat much fat. Once you're past the first few days and your carb cravings have subsided, your desire for fat is pretty low. It is so satisfying it is self-limiting. You'll be eating more than you did before, but you won't be gorging yourself on fat by any means. I think Atkins used that ploy because when people think about giving up carbs, it is hard to contemplate. So at least here is some compensation: You can eat fat. Most of us have been eating less fat than we want for a long time.

So Atkins said: Yes, you have to give up on breads and pastas and cakes, but you get to have cheese and butter and steak. It is easier to contemplate such a large change in your eating habits when you have that to comfort you. But really, you'll find you don't really eat that much once you cut down to thirty carbs a day. Protein and fat are so satisfying, you just don't eat that much. You don't usually even get full.

What about fruits? Most fruits are too high in carbs to eat very much. Berries are an exception. They are closer to natural fruits: Low in sugar and high in fiber. And it turns out berries are really good for you (high in powerful antioxidants).

You can eat all the Brazil nuts, walnuts, and hazelnuts you want. They are low in carbs and high in omega-3 fats.

So here is the bottom line. Eat these:

Meat (grass-fed if you can find it)
Fish (not farmed)
Chicken
Eggs
Veggies
Berries
Walnuts
Brazil nuts
Hazelnuts

And try to eat very little (or none) of these:

Grain
Potatoes
Sugar


All you have to really remember to lower you insulin is to try to eat as close to a hunter-gatherer diet as possible. Imagine what you could eat if you walked out into a wilderness and tried to survive. You'd eat mostly meat. You might find some fibrous leaves. Maybe a few berries at a certain time of the year. Perhaps some roots here and there. Nuts if you could find some.

For the last two million years, our ancestors ate mainly meat, and the vegetables and fruits they had were very low in carbs. Forty thousand years ago or two million years ago, you would have been hard pressed to find anything sweet that was low in fiber.

Eat like the Lakota (Native Americans, Plains Indians): Mostly buffalo. Some plants and roots. Very low carb. Very high fiber.

It seems like eating this way, you're giving up a lot, right? But you're gaining more than you're giving up. Carbs give you acne, make you less able to control your weight, make you more depressed, give you gas, heartburn, and make you feel stuffed. Carbs are bad for your long-term health in many ways. Every time I have slacked and eaten carbs for a few days, my quality of life has gone dramatically downhill. The only thing that improves is a pleasurable sensation on my tongue that doesn't last very long. Keep that in mind. When you find yourself concentrating on what you've lost, give equal time to what you've gained. It feels great to be slim. It is a great relief not to have to think about food all the time, which carbs tend to make you do. And, as a bonus, low carb foods are also pleasurable on the tongue.

By the way, when you're looking at labels to find out how many carbs something has, don't forget to subtract the fiber. Fiber doesn't count. It is a carb, but you can't digest it. That's what fiber means: An undigestible carb. So it doesn't have any effect on your insulin. It puts no sugar into your blood stream. It gives you no calories. It just passes right through you.

For example, a stalk of Broccoli has 8 grams of carbs. But 5 grams are fiber. So a stalk of Broccoli really has only 3 grams of carbs. That's what some labels call "net carbs" or "effective carbs."

If you're trying to figure out how many carbs you're eating, make sure you subtract the fiber.

 

[miloice]

continued...

resisting the urge

Here is another reason a calorie-restricting diet is a bad idea: It makes you weaker. It makes you less persistent. Check this out: A study was done at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. They had three groups of students. Each person was given the same puzzle to solve. None of them knew the puzzle was unsolvable.

One group was allowed to snack from a plate full of cookies as they worked on the puzzle.

Another group was asked not to eat the plate full of cookies.

And the third group worked on the puzzle in a room containing no cookies.

The researchers counted how many times a student tried to solve the puzzle before they gave up. The students who had to resist eating the plate full of cookies gave up after half as many tries as the other two groups. Half as many tries!

Persistence is important, as you well know. The ability to stick with something may be the most important quality of success. And apparently not eating something undermines persistence.

So should you always just eat the cookies? That's one solution. Another is to not have them in the room; to not have them there to resist. In this society, that is a challenge.

We live in a culture obsessed with goodies, obsessed with food — especially obsessed with carbs. You go somewhere to hang out with your friends. You end up at an Italian restaurant. A carb-filled menu if there ever was one. You go to work and someone has brought in cookies. You come home and someone has baked a cake. Now you have to spend psychological energy not eating something.

Although you can't control your environment completely, you can control it somewhat. And whatever degree of control you have, you ought to exert it. Your choice of friends. Your influence over what activities you do together. What is available in your house. And you can try to influence people rather than have them influence you. That's one of the reasons I've written this article. I want you to be able to explain to others how a low carb diet works, so you can influence them, so it'll be easier for you to maintain this way of eating. If everybody in your household eats this way, they will be healthier, slimmer, happier, and it will be a lot easier for you to keep it up without having to constantly resist temptation.

Anyway, I thought you should know about this study. For one reason, if you were trying to resist goodies, you may find yourself with less persistence without any idea it's because you're resisting goodies. And second, because the study suggests it is better to control and influence your environment rather than try to resist your environment.

from scientific american

The following is from an article in Scientific American that had nothing to do with low carb diets. The article was about scientists who are trying to find out what causes aging. They've made a significant discovery, and it applies to low insulin eating. Of course, the scientists are focused on trying to come up with a drug to deal with this. They don't seem to have even thought about a connection to the Atkins diet. Here's the essence of what they discovered:

Sugars act as molecular glue, attaching themselves to the amino groups in tissue proteins and cross-linking them into hard yellow-brown compounds known as advanced glycation end products, or AGEs.

After years of bread, noodles and cakes, human tissues inevitably become rigid and yellow with pigmented AGE deposits. For the most part, piling on dark pigments in the teeth, bones and skin is harmless, but where glucose forms tight bonds with the long-lived protein collagen, the result is a constellation of changes, including thickened arteries, stiff joints, feeble muscles and failing organs — the hallmarks of a frail old age.

Sugar's connection with AGE formation may be one reason caloric restriction might delay aging.


The authors never mentioned it, but maybe a low insulin diet would delay aging too. Instead of taking a drug that prevents sugar from bonding with protein, how about just eating less sugar?

shouldn't you eat a balanced diet?

This is a frequent comment by people against low carb diets: "You need to eat a balanced diet." But what does that mean? An equal amount of what? And who is making the categories? I think people should eat whatever is good for them. If that means very little fruit, lots of high fiber veggies, and lots of meat, then that is a balanced diet. If it's healthy, if eating that way makes a person healthy and strong and feeling good, then that is a "balanced" diet — balanced in the sense that you have the right proportion of foods that will make you lean and healthy.

Should you eat equal proportions of fat, carbs, and protein? If it makes you fat or raises your blood pressure or gives you diabetes, it doesn't seem like a good idea. The solution, so they say, is just eat less and exercise more. Easy to say, harder to do. Communism sounded good, too, until they tried it on actual human beings. What sounds good on paper doesn't necessarily work if you didn't take into account human nature. If you want to succeed, you have to recommend what people can actually do, what they will actually do.

 

[miloice]

last part

Eating less than you want for the rest of your life is something almost everybody will find difficult to do.


Should you make sure you eat something from all the food groups? That's what many nutritionists are recommending. But why? Who says? Some of those food groups are invented! Go into the wilderness and find me some bread or pasta. Humans invented those as foods, put them on the food pyramid, and then declared you have to eat that stuff to have a balanced diet. It's crazy. For millions of years of our evolution, those foods didn't exist. And now they are necessary? Come on. Sounds like hokem to me.

One of the main reasons there is so much controversy about low carb dieting is because a lot of people and institutions have been recommending a low fat, high carb diet for a long time. People have a vested interest in it. They have been promoting it for years. It is very difficult to admit you were wrong, especially if you have confidently recommended something to hundreds of people. Say something enough times and you become very convinced of it. I was one of those. I was a serious athlete at a young age and cared a lot about nutrition, so I've been studying it all my life. So when I first started reading about low carb diets, I was very skeptical.

The first book I read was Protein Power. The authors go into quite a bit of detail about how it works, and I was surprised that nothing they said conflicted with what I already knew. But the information was lined up to form new conclusions.

And it works. What do I mean by "works?" First of all, I lost weight. I wasn't overweight, or at least nobody would have said I was. But I lost twenty pounds and I've kept it off for six years now. My blood pressure also came down. It had been slowly creeping up toward the end of my thirties. Within a couple months my weight and blood pressure dropped to what they were when I was in my twenties, and have stayed there. So it works in that sense. And I am able to keep eating this way without really having to concentrate on it. It works in that sense too.

There has been a steady stream of studies about low carb diets or high protein diets or whatever you want to call them, and they are all positive. One of the best pieces of news is that a low-insulin diet may actually help prevent heart disease, which seems really counterintuitive if you've been indoctrinated into the Fat Is Evil philosophy. But the research is vindicating Atkins. He was saying this a long time ago. And Atkins wasn't the first. This idea goes way back, and has been scoffed at for a long time.

It seems counterintuitive, but it does stand to reason that if a low carb diet helps you lose weight and lower blood pressure it might help prevent heart disease. But I know, it is still hard to believe.

Sometimes something new comes along and you need to update what you thought you knew. I believe this is one of those.

what color is your food?

Because most people selling low carb diets are promoting weight loss, the authors say very little about another benefit of this way of eating: More phytonutrients. Foods have other elements in them besides protein, fat, carbs, vitamins, and minerals. The other elements are called phytonutrients or phytochemicals. And they have some positive benefits to health. They function as antioxidants and virus inhibitors and cancer preventers and vein strengtheners and on and on. This is real science. I'm not talking about "health tonics" or snake oil. The phytonutrients in plants have significant and healthy effects on humans.

When you stop eating so much flour and sugar, you tend to replace it with vegetables and berries, and those contain lots of phytonutrients. Grains and sugars don't have much if any. The first and most vocal promoter of low carb diets, Robert Atkins, didn't say much about this. And it's too bad, because anybody who knows about this stuff usually sees a very big problem with a high protein, high fat diet — namely, the lack of phytonutrients. But I noticed just the opposite. I increased the amounts of vegetables and berries I ate.

All the other stuff about nutrition doesn't go away. It all still counts. Although you may be able to lose weight eating all the butter and steak you want, that doesn't make it the healthiest thing to do. You should pay attention to what kind of oil you eat. Grass-fed beef is better than grain-fed beef. Blueberries are better than apple juice. Yes, eat fewer carbs, but make the carbs, the fat, and the protein good quality and as healthy as you can. Be slim and be healthy.

 

[feliciamay]

Thank you for the encouragement...

daffycat, what you've said made sense to me and I hope I have seen where I can improve on... such as not stressing him out when he is so stressed out with work. its really hard to keep up my self esteem now that i'm so demoralised and yet i don't want to pile onto his plate.

miloice, thank you so much for all the information! they reinforced what I've been told and read.. I've never been overweight before, and it is only upon realising my hormonal problems several years back and going on the pill which had slight adverse effect on me and then changing therapies that caused my body to be so insane. But i also know I don't entirely blame on my "internal failings" but also because I've been so happy dating that i've been lax with my diet and health. that's a big mistake on my part.

Apart from professional doctors for my condition, I've also been working with PTs, and trainers. I have always been an avid runner, taking part at least a few races every year because i love the challenge and mental and physical endurance, and i've been taking up new sports lately too. I love exercising, don't get me wrong. I love the sweat and the endurance feeling i get from it. I also love to cook. I cook all the time, and I know the dangers of sugar and carbs and meat etc. I was diagnosed with bulimia when i was a teenager, because of the pressure of being thin by my parents and friends and schoolmates, but when i met my boyfriend, things got better and I resumed my relationship with food and exploring tastes.

Sigh. Sometimes, when the internals refuse to cooperate, I feel really down. I am trying to fix myself now so that I can be ready to bear a child for our family. I have read in the other forums women who are experiencing somewhat similar problems of conception, and while it heartens to know that i'm not alone, it is still a tough thing to go through. I'm still young, I don't want to be plagued by these problems. I really really really wonder has he found me a turn off now? With my big belly, and stretch marks, and crazy hormonal fluctuations that causes hair in strange places or thinning hair or what? I won't give up. I won't stop trying because i never give up. But with all these revealations about my boyfriend and his wants and needs, our lack of emotional and physical intimacy, its tough.

and it doesn't help that my boyfriend constantly asks me about my "weight" and all i can think about is that i'm not like those girls in the video or online or whatever and that it really weighs me down even more. And yet, when i do feel this way, he loses his temper and tells me that i am misinterpreting him as thinking he is calling me fat but he is actually concerned about my health and healthy BMI. When he is angry with that, he will constantly tells me i'm lazy, i'm not doing things right etc.

you know, it has come to a point that i cannot even enjoy looking at myself in the mirror or going out to town has become a painful self-esteem torture. To the point that like yesterday, we are waiting for the train and a beautiful busty or cute or sexy girl were to join us to wait for the train, I feel all sorts of uneasy and pain that I can't breathe and have to get out of there immediately. I don't want to feel this way, I don't know why i'm feeling this way, and I can't control how i feel with this. he will get angry at me and say that i'm accusing him of having a wandering eye, but all i can think about is that he has lied before, he seems to like porn and other things, who am i to say that he isn't looking glancing?

I know this is my issue, my internal self confidence (or the none existence of it) problem and I must solve it on my own if I have to make this relationship work before we enter marriage.
He has said that if i can't even give him the basic trust, how can we work out. he has seemingly forgotten that he has broken my trust, broken my spirit, my self-esteem.
i've read al o t of posts here that talks about how people maintain their marriages and it gives me great confidence to know what homework i can do to become better and maintain a good marriage like most of everyone here.

don't mean to be whiny here. sorry. just an outlet for me cause I'm quite helpless.

 

[feliciamay]

Today, he lashed out at me and called me overweight and obese - and that i've been lazy to let myself get to here. he told me that all his slip ups and mistakes, and lack of intimacy with me is all my fault for who i have become. he said if i never found out his things, i will never bring up this topic, we will never fight. i disrespected him, i blamed him, and i threw my insecurity on him. i didn't give him his privacy and space, i got paranoid and asked him to share with me his thoughts his day his whereabouts, what he's doing. I asked to open communication - he doesn't share, he doesn't tell me anything. when we are together, we have nothing to talk about except him complaining his work is busy. i listen. i listen intently. i give advice but he told me i'm not on his side. i keep quiet to listen. he say i didn't listen or cared. he told me that i must shoulder the blame and fix myself otherwise we will never work. he told me that i never appreciated him, and that he has been trying so hard to get me to lose weight n be "healthy".

in other words, if i have never gotten fat, he wouldn't have the need to look, i wouldn't be insecure, we wouldn't have fought, we would be fine.

nothing i do can ever be right.
i'm not saying i'm blameless. i'm not saying i am faultless. i want to fix myself.
but i think, he no longer loves me. i think, going into marriage will be a mistake because i can't fix everything on my own.

 

[miloice]

your weight problem should not be his problem to fix. My adult weight have flatuated no less than 20kg.
Was 87kg at 17 yrs old before losing to 64kg.
I ballooned to 89kg at my first kid arrival and brought it down to around 72kg now. Throughout, it has little effect on my relationship and marriage at all !

With the knowledge now, I lose them doing much less than I ever had to before. You mentioned about runners, well, there are many marathon runners that aren't lean or have that aesthetic physique at all. The reason is because long distance running doesn't effectively train your body and build the important muscles. Rather, you need to store reserves to last the marathon. Both carbs and fats. You burn a lot of calories while running but little when not. The BMR doesn't improve. You need to work on exercises that will improve your BMR. HIIT is shorter and the most effective way to improve up your metabolism.

Traditional fat burning zone happens after at least 20 mins and having your heart rate at slow 65% only. It takes forever to burn your calories and you have to be running to burn them.
HIIT, you burn your carbs, mainly but keep your metabolism high, you burn your calories throughout the day more efficiently. I would only advise people that are passionate about running to run. If you want to get your desired body through running, its too long too painful and risk injuring yourself even before reaching your goals.

From you sharings, I have to admit that your weight problem is hitting your self esteem and makig you insecure. Its a vicious cycle, break away it. Your life is in your hands, your weight is something you can overcome yourself, you do not need to be affected by it at all. Being overweight or not, you are not valued just for your appearance. It should never be. Don't look good for others, look good because you have your own goals, your ideal physique that you desire. How others looks like don't matter, how your partner sees you don't matter. It should be what you want for yourself.

The only thing that is affected is your wardrobe, you will need to downsize your clothes, get more smaller slim fit cuts. The old clothes are going to be so baggy once you get the fat burning momentum going. Eating well and enjoying your meals throughout !

 

[feliciamay]

I'm sorry for my Mia. things have taken a sour turn n I no longer know what to do...

finally, we had our honest talk.

he said he loves me so deeply in the heart.

but

he doesn't find me physically attractive.


I found out he likes seeing those pictures not for any emotional connection.



he says, he is embarrassed to go out with me, to be seen with me. because... I'm overweight.


he interrogated me on my BMI n body fat. he asked me angrily, that is that even healthy lets not talk about attractiveness.


he said for a long time for many years he no longer knows if he is physically attracted to me though he knows very clearly that he loves me.

he said: physical attraction is not part of love.


my world just crumbled.



what should I do?
everything I had believed in for all these years of our relationship it's all a lie?

he's embarrassed of the girl he loves...

if physical attraction is nothing to do with love, what does that mean? was he attracted to someone else? many girls?



what does it mean when he can still have intercourse with me to "prove to me I'm what he wants"?


what does it mean when he holds me tightly when I cry out in pain?


what does he mean that I must lose weight in order for this relationship to work out?

what does it mean that despite of me being overweight he still loves me deeply?


I don't know what to do! I'm in so much emotional pain my whole world is crumbling down all around me.

 

[buddhabar]

I think you just realised a simple fact. Man are visual.

 

[feliciamay]

I understand, I do.
but, what am I suppose to do?
he has accounts n stuff to befriend ppl, n
I don't look like any of the pictures at all. WORLDS APART.

he reassured me he loves me deeply and those are just without feeling.
I told myself tt it's ok he's stress he deserves his outlet. but I really feel it's bordering on the line of addiction, and it's ruining me n he reassured he'll stop but on the sly he just changes password immediately when he's alone n private n keep continuing.


how am I to trust that he won't cheat on me one day?

how m I to believe I really know who I'm going to spend the rest of my life with?

 

[soontobe]

He sounds quite crappy to me...so what's going to happen when you are preggy or with a post natal figure? I will think twice of spending my life w such a guy.

I he grown 2 sizes up after marriage and giving birth to 2 boys. Not tt my hubby doesn't mind, but it doesn't give him a reason to do something behind my back or give me stupid reason to ask me to slim down. He is also a visual person and told me b4 he doesn't like fat gf and wife when we were still dating. He had never complain abt it once. But he does add on when I told him I feel fat and don't look good in certain clothes. And he will buy me exercise gears and encourage me to exercise.

 

[hoyinen]

Men will always be a visual animal. But I believe he does love you. Just that he couldn't express it. Why don't you ask him to accompany you to do exercise together? Firstly this will be couple time together, then he will also see the effort you have put into losing weight. That way he appreciate that you still listen / value his comments (about your weight) and have action on it. Exercising is just one part, maybe your diet also need changes? Get him involved too. Before marriage, pls go and see a marriage counselor, it helps for me and let me know what he is thinking and also list down both my and his demands / take on the marriage. Sometimes, it is easier to talk to third party.

Part Timer for Online Marketing

 

[miloice]

I understand, I do.
but, what am I suppose to do?
he has accounts n stuff to befriend ppl, n
I don't look like any of the pictures at all. WORLDS APART.

he reassured me he loves me deeply and those are just without feeling.
I told myself tt it's ok he's stress he deserves his outlet. but I really feel it's bordering on the line of addiction, and it's ruining me n he reassured he'll stop but on the sly he just changes password immediately when he's alone n private n keep continuing.


how am I to trust that he won't cheat on me one day?

how m I to believe I really know who I'm going to spend the rest of my life with?

Watch BBC documentary "the science of lust".
Research suggest no matter how attracted we are to our partners, how good the sex is, it isn't going to prevent us from straying. It is the emotions, memories of the affection that will form the defensive wall against temptation.

While you said you understand men are visual, you haven't really accept it for a fact over men's constant attraction for beautiful women. Your statement "how am I to trust that he won't cheat on me one day?" reflects that. It is really instinctive than anything. Just because a man chooses not to further entertain a thought to cheat, doesn't take away the temptation. Nothing can take away that instinct unless we are brain dead. Dealing with our sexuality didn't happen only after we get into a serious relationship. Every boy learns and discover about his sexuality and deal with it very much throughout his adult life. Nothing change with the fact we are visual, not even when we are too old to maintain an erection.

 

[feliciamay]

i have to the realisation that this is entirely my fault.
if i hadn't gotten fat, perhaps things wouldn't have been like this.

I need to self-reflect and try my best to lose weight for this relationship to work and for our future to pan out.

it wasn't so much the visual looking that bothered me, its the fact that i looked nothing like them, and he clearly needs them to feel excited. I have felt nothing more than just a convenience for him during our time together, and it has made me questioned every single history we have had together. its also the fact that he had deliberately created accounts to get his "fix", and it really tore me apart because in my mind, it was alright when it was internet - surf - do his business - done - off - finished. but now i have come to understand, it is a collection, a necessity, a part of his life and who he secretly is.




perhaps lust is just lust - as he has said: love is from the heart. he doesn't know if he has been physically attracted to me all these years, but he knows one thing is for sure - he loves me. there can be many different physical attraction, that will not necessarily turn into love. maybe you're right miloice, i don't think i've truly accepted that knowledge completely and is just scrapping the surface. but i guess, my fear is, i'll never know when this lust will one day blow up in my face as i have seen way too many cases of it happening to people closest to me that really shook mmy confidence. (of course, women are equally as capable of acting on lust. i'm not refuting that).




i have thought of creating an account to trap him - but after calming down - i have decided that is just plain silly. I should not. and hence, i won't.

but i feel an agonising pain inside of me that i am unable to overcome. we promised to move on together - we promised to put this behind us - but deep inside me, it eats me up every single day. i can't get a good night's rest, i can't function at work without going insane, i can't go out with him without starting to visualise myself.

perhaps one day i'll truly come to understand everything and that i can afford him the rightful freedom and space he requires. and i hope with all my might, that i will have the open hearted and mindedness to see this simple fact. and i will work my best to give him what he wants and make this relationship happier for him.

he won't see a marriage counsellor, but i think, i will go see one on my own, or someone at least, a third party to talk to (thank you hoyinen).

i think, i must truly understand what love looks like and not what i hope it will look like in my idealistic head.

maybe 7 year itch for him?

he tells me everyday that he loves me,
he wants me to eat and enjoy dates with him,
he wants me to look forward to our future and our plans to have children,
he wants me to believe him that his acts are nothing, his accounts are just to facilitate.

 

[diminiblue]

Babe, to start off, you need to stop blaming only yourself.
Every girl is beautiful in their own way. If a guy truly loves you, he will love you for who you are. If you have a problem, he will work with you to solve it.
But I'm sorry to say, this guy doesn't sound like this. He got caught lying, he's feeling guilty, but he gets angry and pushes all the blame on you, and expects you to fix -his- problems.
Ask yourself, do you really want a guy who makes you feel so small, pathetic, and ugly?

 

[buddhabar]

You started sounding confused now you sounds pathetic. Please have some self worthiness. Man are visual doesn't mean you have to fulfil him and losing yourself. How long can you look good? How long can you maintain your physical being, 30s? 40s? How about when you turn 50? Go find someone who appreciate you as a bubbly chubby person. You still have a choice , because you're not married.

 

[feliciamay]

thank you for pointing out to me the reality. I've given time to think and I really want us to work, after all the time and heart invested. I realize it is true. I deserve to be loved the way I deserve to be n for who I am. he has made me feel so small over the years, to the point he wouldn't even have picture of me.

every single time something goes wrong, he'll blame me immediately even if it has nothing to do with me. like if he impulse bought something he'll blame me for like not stopping him or going with him n it's all my fault n I should compensate him. I will literally go on my knees to beg for forgiveness n he'll tell me that he always have to give in in order to stop the fight n that I have never given in to him at all.

I always held on to the belief that perhaps all men do it or he's just immature, with time he'll be more understanding.

After reading the previous 2 comments, I have come to the realization that I am pathetic to feel this way. I'm not awful. I'm a good person. I may not be superstar hot but I deserve some dignity. I work out n dirt because I want to improve my own life, not because of a man I love deeply.

I can't walk away from this relationship. we have a lot invested. the impending house, the future, finances. we're far too intertwined n into this relationship to get out of it. but I also know I can't trust him physically n emotionally anymore. but I know I think he loves me, he does. how can a man not in love talk abt marriage n children with me with such great passion n hope?

 

[miloice]

Your fault in the relationship is your validate and encourage his abuse. You give yourself no options but to allow yourself to be degraded this way. We are always visual. That doesn't mean we cannot maintain lifetime relationship with a woman, needing to have a young thing with us all the time. As I mentioned "Research suggest no matter how attracted we are to our partners, how good the sex is, it isn't going to prevent us from straying. It is the emotions, memories of the affection that will form the defensive wall against temptation."

 

[harvard]

Well not sure am I the only guy here. I have to admit that guys are visual, for me as well. But, for real it's not the part of love.

You should end this relationship if things can't make it right, as problems not in you, it's on his side.

If he loves you, he will care about you, care about how you feel, ask you how's your day and anything goes wrong.

If he loves you, he will not blame you or scold you when something bad happen.

If he loves you, he will be the one who say sorry in every quarrel even if it's not his fault.

A lot more, I can't tell that much.

Being in love / relationship shouldn't be that painful, although there will be some part that both will collide and hurt, but both side willing to change for each other, care for each other.

What I see in your post, you're the one who only care about him. Yes he did care about you, YOUR WEIGHT AND APPEARANCE!!

Wake up girl, you deserve better.

 

[miloice]

What I see in your post, you're the one who only care about him. Yes he did care about you, YOUR WEIGHT AND APPEARANCE!!

Well said brother !

 

[harvard]

Saw this at Facebook. Read through it and think twice, is he really the one for you, is he worth for you to sacrifice that much without appreciate you be by his side.

Most important, give yourself and love a second chance. =)

http://www.scoopwhoop.com/inothernews/generation-forgot-to-love/

 

[feliciamay]

Thank you for the thoughtful posts and replies.

I'm not perfect. I just want to be perfect in his eyes. He believed that if a man stray, it's because the woman did not upkeep herself. and I believed it. I agreed with it. all these years, I have failed to upkeep myself. and he called me a hypocrite for agreeing with that and blaming him.

he had broken his promise over n over n over again. he promised me he loved me he'll fix us for our future but they are all lies. he's always able to find reasons and excuses and I can never out argue him.

I'm not a trusting person and I invade his privacy. I admit this is my mistake and one I must work on conscientiously. I have stopped a ready but he doesn't see my effort n I don't blame him. but, I simply can't trust him.

his best friend tempts him with all these other women and I can't control it. he will always side them over me, even when I've begged him not to n he promised me to. his best friend supports him, tells him he's poor thing to be under my thumb.


he helps me fix my things in the house, carry groceries bags when heavy, enjoy my cooking and food, tell me I'm beautiful, takes me out on walks, plan our house design, children etc. so I don't understand why? does he take me as friend? a convenience?

he tells the whole world I'm crazy, I'm a psychotic person who needs to see a psychologist, not him. I've since went to see one. he tells the world he doesn't want me skinny n I've misinterpreted his words to mean it that way. he wants me healthy. (but seriously he has no sex drive for me, and I look nothing like all the girls he likes to see). he tells the whole world he did nothing wrong and I'm the one invading his privacy n hence I must change n give him back his privacy (then when he's in a gd mood he'll say he didn't mean it he wants to open up his space for me).

worst of all, he has convinced me and the whole world I'm emotionally abusing him n he's so poor thing. which I'll now admit perhaps I have been without realizing.


I can't live a day without him. and yet, I can't put my foot down with him without him screaming abuse. I really want to marry him. I'm still hoping this is just a tiny bump before the big forever-and-ever vows.

 

[miloice]

Why do you want to marry him? Take steps back, look at the entire relationship. Does it even have a future frankly? Its not true that you cannot live a day without him. You just don't want to.

 

[alyooop]

This is sounding more and more like emotional abuse. You need to come to your own conclusion of your self worth and that's give to you by yourself, regardless of what he thinks. Sure there's a lot of investment in the r/s, wedding planning, future flat, plans you've talked about. But is your emotional well-being for possibly the rest of your life worth getting sacrificed over these mostly monetary things? The more I read the more it sounds like he doesn't respect you as a person not does he respect the relationship. It also sounds like you've lost your sense of self when he's not in the picture.

You need to first work on yourself and then getting him to be on the same line as you. If he still can't do it, better to cut your losses as early as you can.

 

[Infernolord]

Someone wrote this on my thread.
"The lady always willing to wait for the jersey be cos these ladies always want to be the one who change the jerk into a nice husband..its a satisfaction that they want to feel proud of and show the rest that they are the only one who can make it happen.
It's a kind of psycho issue."

Which is exactly what i am referring to these days and what is happening. Jerks usually will away with his prizes...

You know logically whats went wrong, please do not continue to deceive yourself and trying to change him for better.

 

[wenber1811]

Maybe try marriage counseling
Seek from a professional point of view

 

[Ayataka]

Hi feliciamay,

First of all, you need to lose weight for yourself (for health sake and/or better looks, self-confidence etc) and not for others. When you try to lose weight for others, that's when you would have wavering determination and even frustrations in doing so (correct me if I'm wrong here).

Regarding your boyfriend's responses to you, I can only say he's being very honest and perhaps blunt. All men I know are visual creatures. They do MIND if their gfs or wives are good looking or have great bodies. This is undeniable. You could cry a river over how unfair this is but this remains to be the fact. As a female, I've experienced ups and downs in my past relationships too. The 'nicer' men will tell you (for a start) that their sex drives have been greatly reduced due to stress from work etc or that it is normal for a couple to have less sex after so many years of relationship but we all know it's not true. Therefore, the men when pressurised to tell you a reason will start to be blunt and brutally honest. I had an ex bf who cried to me one day that he lost interest in my body etc. You could say such a man is superficial or whatsoever but at the age of 20s, 30s or even 40s, if we do not upkeep ourselves, even we are losing our self-confidence and normal sex drives. My current bf is much nicer so he would give me other reasons for his reduced sex drive (possibly because he has gone out of shape too haha) instead of telling me directly that I'm unattractive. But when one day, I finally decided to lose the extra and unhealthy pounds for myself and not for anyone else, I begin to reap the benefits and realise that all this while, his so-called lower sex drive is due to not being attracted to my body. While he continued to be nice etc, intimacy was what we lacked. Now that I'm slim and fit, I regained confidence and our sex lives improve tremendously. Much as I find it superficial, even at the workplace, I find people, both men and women, nicer to me too.

Therefore, I would strongly urge you to be serious and determined in your weight loss approach and journey, not for anyone else but for yourself. To start off, eat healthily. Cut carbs and sugar. For me, I had my carbs only at breakfast or lunch. For the rest of the meals, I ate more protein and veg and these are actually quite filling. I don't drink any sweetened drinks at all and I definitely do not eat rice or noodles. Bread is my main carbs for breakfast or lunch. After you're quite adjusted to this diet, start exercising. As the weeks progress, continue to increase your physical activities without increasing your food intake. It's all possible. I'm older than you and still, it's all possible. In six months, I lost 15kg. I downsize from 2XL to M. Now fitness is very much part of my life / routine. I jog and do strength training (this will build your muscles and help to burn more calories even when you are resting and not engaging in any physical activities) at least 4 to 5 times a week. It takes only six months to 'change my life' somehow. I even changed my entire wardrobe - from baggy long sleeved clothes to sleeveless body hugging outfits to flaunt my new body. You can do it. It's a matter of will power. Now because my fitness levels are high, I can eat more food varieties including carbs without putting on weight. It's all about sustainability for me now.

What you and your boyfriend is experiencing now is a 'vicious cycle' of unhappiness and frustrations. It doesn't even matter who 'starts it first' or who's more at fault. As long as you continue to feel insecure and makes no changes to your body, your bf will continue to react the same way and nag at you. You will continue to feel lousy, self-doubt and also doubt him, making him feel suffocated. And...this cycle continues.

Therefore, I would say, stop the negative feelings and frustrations on him. Focus on yourself and transform your own life. When you are successful, later, you could then decide what you want to do with this boyfriend (e.g. ditch him and find another or to continue with the relationship) and your life. Fix your health first. Relationship can come later. Do not fix your health for the sake of your relationship. You are more worthwhile than that.

Regarding weight loss, I could share with you more tips if you are keen. You could pm me

 

[miloice]

Hi feliciamay,

To start off, eat healthily. Cut carbs and sugar. For me, I had my carbs only at breakfast or lunch. For the rest of the meals, I ate more protein and veg and these are actually quite filling. I don't drink any sweetened drinks at all and I definitely do not eat rice or noodles. Bread is my main carbs for breakfast or lunch.

Exactly. How sugar and carbs are into our diets as the main source of energy is what screw up our metabolism and ability to burn fat. No animal in nature goes hungry all day to be lean, they are naturally not obese except humans, despite all the information about nutrition and calories, we fight a losing battle against fat. The science is completely wrong for the last 40 years. All those advises against fat and restricting consumption of eggs is very wrong. I am eating for years more than 2 full eggs (yolks included) daily. In some periods, 6 or more daily, my cholesterol remains low as long as i consume good balance of protein and natural fruits + vegs.

 

[feliciamay]

Thank you for the encouragements.

the feeling of a vicious cycle never seem to end. whether it's on myself or my relationship with him... I can do everything right but everything can still be wrong. n it has progressed to a feeling of helplessness and destitute...

I haven't lost weight yet not because I didn't care about myself at all. like miloice, I don't shun eggs. I do take 1 every alternate mornings for energy after workout. I weigh my food. watch my portions. how I cook them. I haven't had carbs or sugared drinks or desserts or cakes or etc. for at least 2 months now. I run every alternate days, I kickbox and yoga once every week, Hiit training every alternate days for 5km, and even have a PT.. I do this religiously. religiously. recently, I've retaken up cycling with him... but I'm embarrassed. I haven't lost weight, even if I can run faster stronger longer or successfully hold a yoga pose I've been training to do, I don't feel good at all. because all I see is him n other attractive women.

I went to see a slimming person behind his back because I'm so desperate now. I was told to eat lesser than what I already am. I don't even have dinners anymore even after cutting carbs n sugar completely. she told me, as a matter of fact, some women r meant to be bigger.

I refused to believe.

it has come to a point that I'm seeking a counsellor on my own because I can't feel any happiness or joy anymore. you know the imagery of a person dragging a big ball n chain? I literally feel this way.

n while we have decided to make up n move on n work together n fix it each step of the way, I am feeling nothing but deeply unhappy n miserable even if I don't show it anymore.


love is the deep and the superficial all wrapped up together in one big ball, and we cannot ignore what we think as "the superficial" because they mean just as much. n he's right. he hasn't crossed the line of having physical intimacy with another women n he will never. so why should I fault him if he doesn't want to be intimate with me n would rather choose to do it another way because it's not physical concrete cheating? n I wouldn't date me. I see all our friends who r married recently... their husbands r all overweight while they r slim petite n preciously sized. n I have nothing but questions in my head, envy in my eyes, sadness in my heart. maybe it is just this way... I must look a certain way before love is deserved?

thank you ayataka.. I must do it for myself even if I'm in so much pain, because it all starts from the self. I just want to do 变脸 like those Chinese opera performance.


I hope to find happiness inside again.
more like finding a sense of peace and balance.
and acceptance of reality.

 

[Ayataka]

Thank you for the encouragements.

the feeling of a vicious cycle never seem to end. whether it's on myself or my relationship with him... I can do everything right but everything can still be wrong. n it has progressed to a feeling of helplessness and destitute...

I haven't lost weight yet not because I didn't care about myself at all. like miloice, I don't shun eggs. I do take 1 every alternate mornings for energy after workout. I weigh my food. watch my portions. how I cook them. I haven't had carbs or sugared drinks or desserts or cakes or etc. for at least 2 months now. I run every alternate days, I kickbox and yoga once every week, Hiit training every alternate days for 5km, and even have a PT.. I do this religiously. religiously. recently, I've retaken up cycling with him... but I'm embarrassed. I haven't lost weight, even if I can run faster stronger longer or successfully hold a yoga pose I've been training to do, I don't feel good at all. because all I see is him n other attractive women.

I went to see a slimming person behind his back because I'm so desperate now. I was told to eat lesser than what I already am. I don't even have dinners anymore even after cutting carbs n sugar completely. she told me, as a matter of fact, some women r meant to be bigger.

I refused to believe.

it has come to a point that I'm seeking a counsellor on my own because I can't feel any happiness or joy anymore. you know the imagery of a person dragging a big ball n chain? I literally feel this way.

n while we have decided to make up n move on n work together n fix it each step of the way, I am feeling nothing but deeply unhappy n miserable even if I don't show it anymore.


love is the deep and the superficial all wrapped up together in one big ball, and we cannot ignore what we think as "the superficial" because they mean just as much. n he's right. he hasn't crossed the line of having physical intimacy with another women n he will never. so why should I fault him if he doesn't want to be intimate with me n would rather choose to do it another way because it's not physical concrete cheating? n I wouldn't date me. I see all our friends who r married recently... their husbands r all overweight while they r slim petite n preciously sized. n I have nothing but questions in my head, envy in my eyes, sadness in my heart. maybe it is just this way... I must look a certain way before love is deserved?

thank you ayataka.. I must do it for myself even if I'm in so much pain, because it all starts from the self. I just want to do 变脸 like those Chinese opera performance.


I hope to find happiness inside again.
more like finding a sense of peace and balance.
and acceptance of reality.

Hi Felicia
No one is born big and fat. Do u mind telling me what u eat and drink on a typical day? And what exercises do u do in a day? For how long and at what pace? Somewhere somehow I think there must be some things u probably didn't do right and thus ur weight doesn't come off. Also two months is too short to tell if u would continue to lose weight.

I started out eating the following:
Two eggs for breakfast
One sandwich for lunch (I choose the bread with least carbs and calories. Not necessarily those whole wheat ones. Read the labels)
Fish, meat, veg for dinner without rice or any other carbs.
Snacks: unflavoured nuts (choose those with fewer carbs but high fat)

For fitness:
I jog 5 times a week, each time 5km in about 30 minutes.
I work out 5 times a week too doing 100 sit ups, crunches, planks (for 1min x 3reps), leg lifts etc (am trying to grow abs lol)

The above is just a guide. Everyone has a different body. It's not impossible to lose weight at all. Try to persevere for yourself and not for the men.

 

[miloice]

how hard do you train for your HIIT session. It is the intensity more than the frequency and duration that matter. It has to be really intense, and yet maintaining good form. Maybe you can share what do you incorporate in your HIIT workout? Do you do power jumps? A big part of your workout needs to be hitting the major muscles, i.e. your legs. These are the muscles that will burn the most calories. How much vegs and fruits do you have in your diet? I'm eating like 4-5 green apples or other fruits, 4-5 full eggs on top of my daily meals. Load your diet with nutritious food and cut the empty calories. Once again, you diet for your own goals, it should have nothing to do with your bf. I did not run AT ALL, to lose 16kg from 89kg to 73kg. Just HIIT with low carbs, high nutrient meals.

You don't need to exercise this much to lose. Focus more on your food selection. In fact, you are stressing your body so much and think 1 egg every alternate day is enough protein for you? How is your sleep pattern? You are working out so much, how can your recover enough to have good performance in your sessions? You do not need to watch your portions at all when you are eating the right kind of food. It is calorie dense junk that you can over-eat easily.

 

[MiddleMe]

Thank you for the encouragements.

the feeling of a vicious cycle never seem to end. whether it's on myself or my relationship with him... I can do everything right but everything can still be wrong. n it has progressed to a feeling of helplessness and destitute...

I haven't lost weight yet not because I didn't care about myself at all. like miloice, I don't shun eggs. I do take 1 every alternate mornings for energy after workout. I weigh my food. watch my portions. how I cook them. I haven't had carbs or sugared drinks or desserts or cakes or etc. for at least 2 months now. I run every alternate days, I kickbox and yoga once every week, Hiit training every alternate days for 5km, and even have a PT.. I do this religiously. religiously. recently, I've retaken up cycling with him... but I'm embarrassed. I haven't lost weight, even if I can run faster stronger longer or successfully hold a yoga pose I've been training to do, I don't feel good at all. because all I see is him n other attractive women.

I went to see a slimming person behind his back because I'm so desperate now. I was told to eat lesser than what I already am. I don't even have dinners anymore even after cutting carbs n sugar completely. she told me, as a matter of fact, some women r meant to be bigger.

I refused to believe.

it has come to a point that I'm seeking a counsellor on my own because I can't feel any happiness or joy anymore. you know the imagery of a person dragging a big ball n chain? I literally feel this way.

n while we have decided to make up n move on n work together n fix it each step of the way, I am feeling nothing but deeply unhappy n miserable even if I don't show it anymore.


love is the deep and the superficial all wrapped up together in one big ball, and we cannot ignore what we think as "the superficial" because they mean just as much. n he's right. he hasn't crossed the line of having physical intimacy with another women n he will never. so why should I fault him if he doesn't want to be intimate with me n would rather choose to do it another way because it's not physical concrete cheating? n I wouldn't date me. I see all our friends who r married recently... their husbands r all overweight while they r slim petite n preciously sized. n I have nothing but questions in my head, envy in my eyes, sadness in my heart. maybe it is just this way... I must look a certain way before love is deserved?

thank you ayataka.. I must do it for myself even if I'm in so much pain, because it all starts from the self. I just want to do 变脸 like those Chinese opera performance.


I hope to find happiness inside again.
more like finding a sense of peace and balance.
and acceptance of reality.

Its not about your appearance. If he is all but nothing about how you look, ultimately, when you are old and wrinkle, he will be the 50 year old man with a 20 year old girl. I acknowledge that guys are visual and they like to look at pretty things, who doesn't? But the right way to make a guy to stand up and notice you is CONFIDENCE. Beauty will fade with time but personality will only get stronger, honed by experience. There are girls out there who are not pretty or slim but because they have confidence in themselves, they dressed well and they have spunk!

Instead of spending money on slimming centres, go and pick a new dress that hugs your curves and accentuated your body, pick a color that brings out the best features in you whether it's your eyes or hair. Learn online makeup tips, do you know using a darker bronzer in undercheek and below chin will give the illusion of a smaller face? Doll up, strut down to Orchard in confidence and you will see a lot of eyes will follow in your directions. Instant boost to your ego!

Sometimes, us humans will not know what we have until we have lost them. Its the same theory, the more clingy you are to your boyfriend, the lower the self confidence you have, the worse he treats you. So be spunky, be daring and when he notice that you get admiring glances, it will put him back into his place.

 

[miloice]

Another thing, weight is a bad indicator.... measure your body fat ratio, the pinch test and diameter measurements will be telling.

For the longest time, I believe in the kind of bullshit that my body is meant to be big. It isn't, we just need to find out what works for us.

 

[miloice]

I don't shun eggs. I do take 1 every alternate mornings for energy after workout. I weigh my food. watch my portions. how I cook them. I haven't had carbs or sugared drinks or desserts or cakes or etc. for at least 2 months now. I run every alternate days, I kickbox and yoga once every week, Hiit training every alternate days for 5km, and even have a PT.. I do this religiously. religiously. recently, I've retaken up cycling with him... but I'm embarrassed. I haven't lost weight, even if I can run faster stronger longer or successfully hold a yoga pose I've been training to do, I don't feel good at all. because all I see is him n other attractive women.

I went to see a slimming person behind his back because I'm so desperate now. I was told to eat lesser than what I already am. I don't even have dinners anymore even after cutting carbs n sugar completely. she told me, as a matter of fact, some women r meant to be bigger.

Whoever you are seeking advise from for slimming is a quark. You are doing very serious mistakes in your diet. Why are you skipping meals? You are putting your body in a starvation mode, you will drive your BMR in the opposite direction, making you fat even with what you used to eat ! You need to find a diet that do not need you stay hungry. Please share with me on what do you eat?

I used to exercise and run alot like Ayataka, it takes alot of commitment and time for that. I was in the gym twice for 4 days in a week. One session for run of at least 5km run and another 1.5 hr sessions of intense bodybuilding with high repetition till failure. With that, 10 years younger, I slimmed down but couldn't get the fat ratio enough to reveal my 6 packs.

Now, I only perform 20 mins HIIT each time to get my 6 packs. Not all exercise have the same results. Getting lean is about the right exercise and the RIGHT diet. You need to eat enough of the right food so that you are SATISFIED and NOT HUNGRY. You cannot be starving yourself and working out like crazy. Protein is very important to build and retain muscle, it also suppresses appetite. YOU GET ONLY around 6 grams of protein in an egg. Do you think that is enough for your activities?

Again, I ask of you to share in more details what are you actually eating.

Just to share on my usual breakfast, 3 to 4 full eggs, glass of milk, 2 green apples. If I'm hungry, I will then go for chicken porridge with additional serving of breast meat and sometimes roast pork. On those days, lunch will be light. e.g. Sashimi salad, with chawamushi and 2 servings of salmon belly. On days that I took light breakfast, I will have mixed grill of fish fillet, chicken thigh and Steak, 2 fried eggs, I will also get a gado gado with 1 egg, without the rice and crackers. Snacking 2-3 green apples in between meals.

On other days, I lunch any food just avoiding the carbs.

For dinner, I have mostly vegatables and a serving of meat. No rice.
For post workout, 1 table spoon of peanut butter disolved with warm water, 3/4 scope of my whey protein with milk.

I have a high protein meal to support my recovery. I'm not hungry, having the best fat ratio of my life! So, you can do a calorie count and restrict all you eat, or you can just pick the right food and eat till you feel good.

 

[Ayataka]

Hi Felicia,

I agree with miloice that skipping meals is a big no-no. In my weight loss journey, I never felt hungry because I ate a lot of protein and this fills me up. Yet, my body continues to burn fats and I continue to lose weight. The body fat percentage is indeed a better indicator. But of course if you are not seeking to achieve 4/6/8 packs (if there's such a thing as 8packs?), then do exercises that you are comfortable with and that you have passion for. Do include strength training in your fitness routines though as muscles do help to increase and sustain that high metabolism rate to burn fats more efficiently. Interestingly, like miloice, I also eat a lot of protein such as fish, meat, eggs (sometimes I have as many as 3 to 4 eggs in a day), peanut butter (my favourite), nuts etc. Now I've started to relax on my strict diet because I don't wish to continue to lose weight. I just want to maintain my current weight and body fat percentage (not high not low but just nice at about 20% +/-). I still do not eat rice and noodles by the way. But I do at times eat my cakes, chocolates and desserts, and I realise that as long as I continue to exercise, these sweet treats do not do much harm to my body. That said, right now, you need a caloric deficit so you can't indulge yet. You need to stay on a strict diet of high protein and low carbs and sugar till you reach your desire weight and slowly find that balance of what you can eat/indulge in while maintaining your weight. By the way, exercising not only helps you to lose weight. It also gives you a more toned body and better shape so you'll surprisingly look lighter than your weight. E.g. I'm M sized but most ppl would think I'm S sized. Last note though...if you truly want a flat tummy, then strictly consume low/no carbs and sugar and you have to train your body till you achieve a low fat body percentage.

Have faith that you can do it. Before embarking on this weight loss journey, my typical dinner would be pasta, pizzas, chicken rice etc...all high in carbs and sugar! Also, before embarking on a fitness routine, I hardly exercised and probably jogged twice or three times a month for only 2.4km each time. I also used to get backaches easily when I exercised due to my heavy weight that weighed me down as I exercised. Therefore prior to exercising, I actually spent months eating right first and from there, I lost about 8kg. Once I reached my first weight plateau, I started exercising. When I reached my second weight plateau, a colleague taught me FITT. I therefore increased the intensity and sometimes duration of my jogs and true enough, I managed to lose further weight to what I am today. HITT is another way to lose weight. It depends on what motivates you and what you want to achieve.

Feel free to pm me if you need more advice on losing weight. I may not be a professional dietician or fitness instructor but I could at least share with you what works for me and you could decide if it's going to work for you. By the way, my bf tried my method and in 4 months, he lost 10kg!

 

[miloice]

20% body fat for women is good. You want some curves, men love them this way too.

 

[energetic]

Hi ladies...

My case is totally opposite situation.... my wife is the one that is having very low sex drive.... I truly share the same sediments for the rejection times after times of initiating..... sometimes I just don't know how to make her wanting more sex....

I had tried buying sexy lingerie for her and sexy underwear for myself.....also tried watch porn together.... also bought some sex toy to try..... but all doesn't seems to work....till now we still doing it like once a week(if I am lucky) or if not, once every fortnightly....

I don't agree that sexy means having a big boobs, nice curves or bodies..... my wife is a bit bak bak type.... but I had always tell her.... she needs to feel confident and moves confidently, she will be sexy......

 

[seratoh]

Hi Felicia, if a real man loves u, even u look like one fucking fat ****, he will still sexually attracted to you. And u need to lose weight healthily, so in future when you are old,you are free of illness. Lose weight for yourself not for the man. Be confident of yourself, u are not a sperm toilet bowl. Don't need to stoop yourself to that level.

 

[seratoh]

Hi energetic, woman are sensitive to feeling. If we know that you want to make love beforehand, we won't be turn on. U see, why not make it as natural as possible like start with the ambience first.

 

[MiddleMe]

Hi Felicia, if a real man loves u, even u look like one fucking fat ****, he will still sexually attracted to you. And u need to lose weight healthily, so in future when you are old,you are free of illness. Lose weight for yourself not for the man. Be confident of yourself, u are not a sperm toilet bowl. Don't need to stoop yourself to that level.

I like the term "sperm toilet bowl", I almost choke on my dinner. Haha!

 

[seratoh]

I like the term "sperm toilet bowl", I almost choke on my dinner. Haha!

I like your style.

 

[MiddleMe]

Hi ladies...

My case is totally opposite situation.... my wife is the one that is having very low sex drive.... I truly share the same sediments for the rejection times after times of initiating..... sometimes I just don't know how to make her wanting more sex....

I had tried buying sexy lingerie for her and sexy underwear for myself.....also tried watch porn together.... also bought some sex toy to try..... but all doesn't seems to work....till now we still doing it like once a week(if I am lucky) or if not, once every fortnightly....

I don't agree that sexy means having a big boobs, nice curves or bodies..... my wife is a bit bak bak type.... but I had always tell her.... she needs to feel confident and moves confidently, she will be sexy......

Hi energetic,

Instead of sex toys, lingeries and porn, why not try seducing her in more romantic way? Plan a romantic outing, bring her to places you used to go when you both are still dating, rekindle the chase, be like kids again, play hide and seek in Botanic Gardens, buy ice-cream bread from the ice-cream uncle from Orchard Road, stroll through Marine Barrage at night and lie down watching the stars. Let sex feel like making looooove. And not wham bam thank you mam!

Just my two cents worth!

 

[seratoh]

Hi energetic,

Instead of sex toys, lingeries and porn, why not try seducing her in more romantic way? Plan a romantic outing, bring her to places you used to go when you both are still dating, rekindle the chase, be like kids again, play hide and seek in Botanic Gardens, buy ice-cream bread from the ice-cream uncle from Orchard Road, stroll through Marine Barrage at night and lie down watching the stars. Let sex feel like making looooove. And not wham bam thank you mam!

Just my two cents worth!

Make her feel that her vagina worth more than a castle #umeant

 

[Ayataka]

Hi Felicia, if a real man loves u, even u look like one fucking fat ****, he will still sexually attracted to you. And u need to lose weight healthily, so in future when you are old,you are free of illness. Lose weight for yourself not for the man. Be confident of yourself, u are not a sperm toilet bowl. Don't need to stoop yourself to that level.

Hi seratoh
I beg to differ regarding one point u made. If a man loves a woman, even if the woman looks like a xxx pig, he would still love her - this I believe. But he will not be sexually attracted to her. Even if he does do it with her, it is out of obligation. So I feel as women, let's not kid ourselves with such wishful thinking and not do something to improve or upkeep ourselves. I have an obese gf who thinks it's so unfair cos her man is out of shape but she is still sexually attracted to him while he doesn't think she's attractive and appealing. Life is never fair. Men are visual creatures and this remains to be a fact. But I do agree that women should lose weight for themselves and not for someone else.

 

[seratoh]

Hi seratoh
I beg to differ regarding one point u made. If a man loves a woman, even if the woman looks like a xxx pig, he would still love her - this I believe. But he will not be sexually attracted to her. Even if he does do it with her, it is out of obligation. So I feel as women, let's not kid ourselves with such wishful thinking and not do something to improve or upkeep ourselves. I have an obese gf who thinks it's so unfair cos her man is out of shape but she is still sexually attracted to him while he doesn't think she's attractive and appealing. Life is never fair. Men are visual creatures and this remains to be a fact. But I do agree that women should lose weight for themselves and not for someone else.

#yourargument #toostronk #confusedme

 

[feliciamay]

Both sides of the opinions on the matter have been going on in my own mind all these while as well... and it heartens me that i am not crazy in being caught in this endless loop of questioning and questioning from all different angles but no conclusive definite solution.

i have been convinced that i am a psychotic crazy person who needs medical attention for my problems that i "make up in my mind". and yet, i have also been convinced that i am very loved by him and taken care of by him for the rest of my life. everyone we know, including my parents, all love him so much and tells me he treats me really really well. our common best friend (his best friend, my good friend whom i tend to rely on quite a bit) told me he knew that my so loves me very very much.

i am battling thyroid problems that cause me to gain a lot a lot of weight while at the same time told that my chances of getting pregnant is very very low. my SO always wanted to have a child. when i went to see the doctor a few weeks ago, i was given that news about this. so i held back my tears at the clinic, cried alone, and then decided to pluck up the courage to tell him the news. he was smiling at me. he said, "don't be silly. i will never leave you. i made that promise to myself the first time i met you, and i want to be with you for the rest of my life. whatever happens, through thick and thin, i will always walk with you. so what if we have trouble conceiving. there are other options like adoption or surrogacy. we will find a way together."

so you see the conflicted messages i am getting from him. on one hand, he is this guy who has absolute no sex interest in me but then tells me i'm beautiful everyday, wants to be with me, and tells me things like this to reassure me of the future and his love.


i tried my best to dress up. no. correction. dress differently. i have always looked good. everyone i know, strangers even, praise my sense of style which is something i always take pride in. but i realise, it might not be what he likes and therefore hurting his attraction towards me. so i bought things i'll never wear - tight shirts and stuff. crap so freaking uncomfortable. men were looking at me. men walking next to their girlfriends and wives were staring. on one hand, it felt strange to me that men were staring. on the other hand, i felt angry. i was angry because of many things. one of which is i am so freaking uncomfortable showing off my cleavage and what not. and another, no matter how tight my shirt is going to be, or how push up my chest is going to be, there will always be another younger skinnier hotter girl with shorter shorts and skirts walking ahead of me for him. i realised, i can never win. its a stupid thing to even try this way.


I have reached a point whereby i am so thoroughly unhappy and yet, "happy", or more like comforted, whenever i am with him. i just want to throw myself into his arms and have him hold me and feel that warmth and oblivion of the world and its problems. and yet, i have recurring nightmares, i have fears, so many fears, i have so much doubts. in the end, we are still fighting everyday, arguing everyday about this. because i have lost my smile. he tries very hard to make me smile, but i have lost it.

i find myself wanting to seduce him. i try and i try and i try, but i always keep failing. and even if we do make love, its terrible. so horrible. and its not like i don't want to - i always always want to and i have never said no in the duration of our relationship. i am always the one initiating. i have put myself out there for him, tried to do sexy things, but always left cold. humiliated. and when i try to tell him, he gets mad at me and says i am trying too hard. too desperate and it ruins everything for him. i'm left in a limbo.

he gets so aroused and excited when his stupid best friend shares his one night stand excapades with him. once, i caught him getting excited over it (his friend texted) and he couldn't hide it so he hugged me and said he wanted it too. in my mind, i'm like "huh want what?" "which part? the novelty (as in the different new girl) part? or the making love part?" "is it the making love part? i am trying, no? but he's not interested? he says he is tired, he is stressed or he is sick".
has he always been like this all these years? thinking this way? or just recently? maybe, he is really just not interested in my body and how i look anymore.

maybe variety is really the thing men are looking for (i don't want to generalise. just making an assumption which could be wrong). after all, we are each other's firsts. i believe, or rather i want to believe, mine is the only body he has seen or touched in real life (not reel life). maybe, he needs to go out there to see other women before deciding if i am the one for him, and i must wait patiently and cross my fingers and hope that he will pick me. pick me! pick me! thats all i can think of.

i read in cosmopolitan for next month's issue about men and cheating. that ATTRACTION X OPPORTUNITY - TRUST = CHEATING.

i feel like a desperate whore trying to seduce the man i love because i am losing control of my life and the meaning of love.

maybe, its harks back to this image of the girl peeling the rose petals, i find myself asking he loves me? he loves me not.

can love really work without physical attraction? or is that bull?