Petite Partner Perspective

Do you know how hard it is to get your non-petite partner to understand your petite portion sizes?!?!?!⁠😰

>>⁠Does it feel impossible to agree on dinner with your partner?

>>Does he roll his eyes when he see’s your small plate of food when you try to be healthy?

>>Does he sometimes give you portions that would feed a family of 4?

>>Does he get offended when you don’t want to eat what he wants to eat?

>>Do you get jealous of how big his meals look compared to yours?

>>Are you frustrated because he has a much easier time losing weight?!

Well, my boyfriend is 6’1″ and I TOTALLYget it.

I found a way to get my boyfriend to UNDERSTANDand ACCOMMODATEfor my needs around food.
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But it didn’t just happen overnight.

After having experience with prior boyfriends not working out, I’m sure you know as much as I do that COMMUNICATION is EVERYTHING.

Talking about food and your petite needs is just as important as talking about finances and marriage and babies and sex and the list goes on!

Your body is a vessel and should be able to talk about the food that you want and need to put in it with the one who supports you.

My boyfriend, Justin, and I recorded an entire podcast episode about how we’ve been able to better understand each other’s needs.

You absolutely NEED to check it out because it’s GOLD.

But in summary, here’s a few things you can do to communicate and get him to understand your petite needs!

TALK, TALK, TALK! One talk is not enough. Constantly talk about this subject and why you do the things you do. Don’t just expect him to pick up on your habits because he probably won’t until he understand the why.

Go through the journey together. Even if he’s not trying to lose weight, it will be an eye opening experience for him to track macros and understand how different foods and different portion sizes have different amounts protein carbs and fats. Maybe having the number visual will be more helpful than just the plate of food.

Cook together. This is actually really fun and a great way to develop patience with each other. Oh and you’ll get quite a few laughs out of the experience if you go in with zero expectations. Remember, whether you succeed or fail, you learn!

Go grocery shopping together to learn about each other. Practice going up and down the isles and talk about the foods you like and don’t like and WHY. Tell stories!

Explain why you don’t want a certain thing. Don’t just say “I don’t want butter” say “I don’t want butter because [it has more fat than I need right now and I rather get my fat from this piece of avocado over here]”

It’s okay to eat different things at the same time. Sometimes my boyfriend will have bread or tortillas with dinner and I’ll skip them. He always asks if I want them or not first. I try not to let it bother me but sometimes if I do, I tell him it’s bothering me and we talk about it rather than me just sitting there with a puss on my face. I don’t want him to not enjoy foods he likes in front of me for the sake of making me happy because I know in the long run it will make him unhappy. It’s all about compromise.

It’s okay to not eat at the same times. We are on our own most of the day. The only meal we plan to eat together is dinner. Occasionally, we will eat lunch at the same time but I’m perfectly fine having my chicken and rice while he eats a sandwich. To each their own!

Understand that he can get away with a lot more than you can. It’s easy to get jealous when he can down an entire bag of chips and still keep his sick pack abs. Coming to terms that this might just be the way that it is helps to overcome that jealousy.

Plan out your meals (together) for the next few days. You don’t have to eat the same thing every night. We have 2-4 different meals for the week that we cycle through to keep it interesting while still keeping on track. When we had dinner decided, it’s easier for me to plan the rest of my meals to make sure my macros are met. For example, on Sunday we might make a big crockpot of barbacoa (shredded beef) for dinner that night and to save for the week. Monday we’d might have steak, potato, and veg. Tuesday we were super swamped with work so we reheated barbacoa and slapped it on tortillas. Wednesday: steak, potato and veg. Thursday: chicken, sweet potato and veg. Friday: didn’t feel like cooking so we had barbacoa, rice and veg and he added a poached egg. Saturday: date night or outing with friends!

Use refeed/cheat meals. We use date night or outings with friends as our chance to ‘diet break’ about once every 1-2 weeks. It’s my time to have what I’ve been craving or I’ll “have whatever he’s having” so that I don’t feel deprived or restricted. Having these days planned and lined up gives me something to look forward to and makes it easier to stay on track on ‘regular days’