Supportive boyfriend, BUT... he's underweight

This has got to be one of the most frustrating situations, EVER. I've been trying to lose weight for about a year now, and I somehow managed to drop 25lbs without ever trying too hard. (195 down to 170, I'm also 5'8" - just 10 more pounds or so until I'm a healthy weight!) I met my boyfriend and started dating him at my highest weight, and he has NEVER complained that I was "too fat" or "needed to lose weight," no negative comments at all, always positive from him... I am the one who made the decision to start losing weight, no one else decided for me... but he himself is a good 30-35 pounds underweight. (He's 6'1" and only weighs about 110lbs.. with clothes and shoes on.)

I seriously don't think that he has an ED or anything, because he does eat, A LOT, and also drinks plenty of soda and eats junk food throughout the day. I'm also pretty sure it's just one of those weird (and unfair) genetic things, because his entire family is probably 10-20lbs underweight. I also don't believe that his entire family has developed some sort of ED, because we've been together for about a year now and we visit his family on a daily basis. 98% of their meals are healthy, home-cooked meals as they eat out maybe .. once every two months or so? His mom is also into baking and so they get plenty of sweets and things as well, but somehow they are all still underweight. (My only explanation for this, besides genetics, is that they have always been an underprivileged family.)

I guess the frustrating thing here is that we're striving for two completely opposite things: he wants to gain weight, I'm trying to lose it. He of course doesn't mind eating healthy, low-cal foods, it's just that it's incredibly hard for him to eat enough of those kind of foods to meet his calorie goal, and here I am desperately trying not to go over everyday. Basically it seems that the only way for him to get a decent amount of calories is to eat fast food, you know, pizza, fries, all of that bad-for-you-high-cal stuff. It's not like he forces me to eat the fast food or anything, and if I do choose to eat it, I've learned to always, always choose something on the healthier side, like a yogurt parfait instead of a combo meal. It's just, INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING. I am seriously worried sick about his health because he is so underweight, and I've actually cried a number of times out of the fear that he's just going to waste away to nothing if he can't gain any weight.

I guess... I just really don't know what to make of this situation. It's hard enough to know that you need to lose weight... and even harder to do it... and it makes you feel worse when you know there are people out there who can eat anything and everything they want and not gain an ounce... and even worse when one of those people is living with you because he's your boyfriend... and still worse that he's so underweight and needs to gain when all I'm supposed to do is lose! Any words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated... I have absolutely no idea how to deal with this situation... it really is more than I can take...

he can work out and drink protein shakes or weight gainer shakes. And you can make healthy lose weight shakes! Has he talked to a doctor about tryin gto gain weight? that is ridiculously low for a 6 foot guy's weight.

Your boyfriend has a BMI of 14.5. This is absolutely shocking. If he has not seena physician regarding his weight, he should do so very soon.

His doctor hasn't ever said anything to him about needing to gain weight or encouraging him to gain weight, but the doctor did test him for thyroid problems -- there were none. His health insurance is also a public program, so I'm not sure if the doctor is actually concerned about his health or not. (It's also unlikely that he'd be able to switch doctors.)

He has tried a few protein shakes, but says he can barely stomach them. As for weight loss shakes .. ?? I'm not sure what I could put into a "shake" that would help me lose weight, unless it's just a fruit smoothie maybe? A recipe would be lovely! :D

For some reason, whenever he decides to do some sort of gym-type-thing, he chooses to jog. I'm not 100% sure on this, but shouldn't he focus on building muscle instead? I know that they're both good for you, but I keep trying to discourage him from running because I don't think that's best in his particular situation. Can anyone say why it's better/not bad for him to just run? Thanks.

Yep, sounds unfair to me!!

Personally I'd forget the BMI thing, its a numbers calculation and takes no personal attributes into account.  If your boyfriend wants to gain weight (and remeber that he deserves to be loved for how he is too) then he needs to do it the healthy way, fast food etc will lead to health problems in the same way for him as it will for anyone of any size.

What about if he eats all of the "healthy" stuff with you, but bigger portions? Nuts and seeds are a great way to bulk up a meal, add vegetables to every plate.  Weight gain shakes are available but I don't know how safe or nuritional they are.  Malted millk drinks (Ovaltine etc) are supposed to be a good alternative.

Lower fat alternatives of his fast food could be used if he needs more calories, low fat yoghurt, a couple of pieces of fruit, some cottage cheese with raw vegetables, turkey burgers, try your own falafel, thats lovely!!

It is so hard living with a thin tall guy... !  My fiance is 6'1" and needs 2000-2300 calories a day to maintain a slim healthy weight.  I only need 1200-1500.  We like to eat together, so it can be hard because of our different needs.

Now that we are more conscious of this, we still eat healthy meals together, which gets me to my calorie-goal, but he has started adding snacks throughout the day -- things like peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread (we get that "healthy" kind with tons of calories), egg and cheese burritos etc.  -- and that has helped him to reach his calorie goal without disrupting my diet.  We still eat fast food occassionally, but I will save up calories earlier in the day for that, and take a long walk after it.   So basically, his diet it mine plus a couple of high calorie snacks.  It has worked out well for us -- maybe it is something you could give a try, if it is something that you and your b/f would benefit from.

Wow. And I thought my BF was skinny. :o!

You should work out how much he needs to maintain, then go over that by about 400 calories a day in order for him to gain muscle. He should also do weights at least 3 times a week. You can't lose weight and gain muscle at the same time as a general rule, so he should cut down on the running (do very little, if at all) and focus on weightlifting. Some people just have crazy metabolisms, so the 400 over might not be enough... Keep adding until you find something that works.

Forget the junk, like amadeus said there's plenty of high calorie healthy food that he can eat. Eat proper meals with lots of protein, often, throughout the day . If you can find a decent protein shake that would be good, as he'll probably need at least one a day! With milk I personally think they taste nice.

Most importantly though, he needs to want it. Gaining weight can be as difficult as losing it! :)

Are you sure he doesn't have any type of health problem?  I am asking this only because I dated a guy a long time ago that's 5'11 and 115lbs with clothes and shoes on.  His BMI was bordering anorexic.  The health problem he had was some type of heart condition.  It caused him to be extra lethargic and so on.  The guy did eat a lot as well, but  never gained a pound.

With a lot of men, it is not that they don't gain weight, but the fact that they Can't gain weight unless it is muscle tissue.  My husband is this way.  He can eat 15000 calories a day everyday(One of his friends counted for him) on mostly cakes, coffee, etc. Yet, he wouldn't gain a pound.  What's scarier is that he has a healthy BMI with only 12% body fat and he doesn't exercise at all now.  But once he started working out, he gained muscle mass in bulks. 

ibii, I have a similar problem. My BF is 6' 5" and weighs about 160, that's thin for someone that tall. Of course, he is always trying to gain and I am always trying to lose (I weigh almost 25 lbs MORE than him and am 7 inches shorter).

We've solved the problem quite nicely. It's almost like a game- we cook together at nights and play around with the meals. For example, we take half the vegetables and saute them in olive oil (for him) and then mine get steamed! Or, if we have a frozen (healthy) pizza- he gets 3/4 of the pizza and I only get 1/4, or with chicken breasts, he gets half of mine in addition to his. We divide up the portions extremely unequally at every meal, this way, he eats more and I eat less!

So far, I've lost 5 pounds and he's gained 3. It's been an entertaining game as well.

Good luck and don't despair!

Thanks to everyone who replied, I'm feeling a lot better about all of this now :)

I do always, always serve him bigger portions when we eat meals, but he's also pretty reluctant to eat more than one or two times a day.. which is bad, I know. Especially when here I am eating six times a day on limited calories!! I think he sees sitting down to eat a meal as sort of a waste of time, although he also claims that he is usually not hungry either.

In the past it has seemed like he doesn't have any health conditions, but I think I'm going to urge him to get some more tests done.

Thank you babyangie!! After mentioning to him that it's easiest for guys to gain muscle, he seemed much more inclined to hit the gym. Thank you everyone for your support, it's been greatly appreciated!

My husband would have given your guy a run for his skinny money for sure.  The only thing that has finally caused my husband to gain weight is age - he's now 54 years old and finally has some meat on his bones.

I truly believe that some people are genetically geared to be thin.  I was that way too until I developed hypothyroidism - hence here I am. 

I have two teenage sons who take after their father so I know how worried you are about your bf's weight.  overcastkid is right - I think you should figure out how much he needs to maintain his weight and then add about 4-500 calories to that.  I would suggest that he up his protein intake so you could make the same meal for each of you - just make sure he gets at least double the meat and I would also try to up his carb's - you can stick to healthy whole grains but just make sure he eats more of them! 

Good Luck!

Yikes, that's one skinny guy! :-)  But there might not be anything wrong with him.  My dad and one brother have always been that skinny. My dad finally put on some weight after age 60, while my brother coasts along at 3 percent bodyfat, while eating everything in sight! I've always said we should have switched body-types; that way I could be a 6'1" supermodel, and he could be a naturally sturdy body-builder!

"but he's also pretty reluctant to eat more than one or two times a day.. which is bad, I know"

Yep that's really bad. Three meals is a minimum.

If he doesn't eat more than one or two MEALS a day, I would try to encourage him to eat LOTS of snacks.

My boyfriend is about 6'3, 6'4. He's convinced he's only 6'1 (my brothers height) and he TOWERS over him. lol.

Somepeople can just eat loads and not put on the weight. My boyfriend has breakfast (when he can be bothered) lunch and dinner. So, thats two meals usually. However, throughout the day he'll get eat lots of snacks throughout the day. He eats twice as much as me and doesn't put on any weight. In fact, he's lost half a stone.

I really feel for you, I do. My boyfriend is only 140lb (MY WEIGHT) and I totally understand what you mean by him having to put on the weight whist all you want to do is lose it.

I wouldn't recomend him eating lots of unhealthy food. (I know how hard it is too when they walk into a fast food place and you sit and watch him eating it) Seriously, ALL my family but me and my dad are underweight. My sister is tall and very slim, as with my brothers, my mother used to be very slim. So... whist they're all underweight I'm touching the unhealthy side of my healthy bmi. However, my sister used to eat junk all day long and when she went to the docotors for a check up, they found of that her blood pressure was very high. So... as skinny as you may be (or not be) eating crap only does one thing, ruins your body, it just happens to show as fat on some people as well as doing all sorts of nasty things to your insides.

Regarding your boyfriend. Give him bigger portions. Ask him to get some tests done, simply becuase you're worried about his health. Explain that you know he eats, and that you don't think he has an eating disorder (I seriously doubt he has one if the family are underweight, becuase mine are all but me... he could simply have a really high motabilism)

He needs to focus on gaining LEAN MASS, not on gaining fat. He probably already has a high percentage of body fat (see the 'skinny fat' post in the weight loss forum); remind him that you don't have to eat pizza and junk food to gain weight, because that's not the kind of weight he should be trying to gain.

I know you see him eating a lot, BUT unless he has several tapeworms or a serious metabolic condition related to a chronic illness such as cancer, he can't be eating as much as it seems like he is and still maintain that low of a weight. Unless he's a teenager, or just hit a growth spurt?

A lot of underweight people who seem to be able to eat absolutely anything do just that, but they do it very irregularly or infrequently. Every time you see them they're eating something fattening, but what you don't know is the only time they're eating is when you're watching. Not saying it's intentional on his part; but he's probably unaware of what he eats on a daily basis and thinks he eats a lot more than he does. For instance, he probably says he ate a cheeseburger when in reality, he had three bites of it then forgot about it/got distracted by something else. In his mind, however, he 'ate a cheeseburger.' And someone saw him eating those three bites, and they're thinking 'wow, he's so skinny and he's eating a cheeseburger, how does he DO it??'

my bf is one of those naturally thin people too, but he does eat reasonably healthy and is active in martial arts, has a physically active job and stuff.  He can eat a LOT of calories though and not gain weight and it can be difficult at times because we go out to eat a lot and I get worried I'll gain and stuff.  He is very supportive of me though and the other day was joking and told me I'm getting so strong Im going to be able to beat him up soon lol :P  He is 5'9 and 130 He'd like to build up some more muscle himself. 

It's rather funny to be in a relationship where one person is afraid of gaining and its hard to lose and the other person would do anything to be able to gain some more..... don't you wish you could just hand the extra over? lol

Oh and by the way, people usually throw around the word 'metabolism' for cases like this, but metabolism is basically the process through which your body uses energy, and can refer to your body's energetic needs; in order for someone to have a high metabolism, they must have a high amount of lean mass, and at 110 pounds, I don't think that's the case with this guy. As I said, the only other factors that would freakishly raise a metabolism enough for him to be able to consume what he thinks he's consuming and remain the size he is would be tape worms or a disease that causes metabolic side effects, OR  a period of extreme growth, if he's young enough for that.

shakti: You sort of scared me with that tape worm and disease stuff, I'm super paranoid about that sort of stuff... I don't think it could be some weird disease though since his entire family is also under weight. Also, when he eats he usually does well, eat. That is, he rarely leaves food on his plate and drinks a ton of soda everyday.

 When I weighed 195, (my highest weight) he could easily eat as much as me, if not more, plus about 4-5 cans of regular calorie soda, and I was EASILY eating around 3,000 calories a day. He did have to calculate his intake of calories for a nutrition class recently, and he eats/drinks somewhere around 3,000-4,000 calories everyday, though probably more often towards the lower end. I obviously can't say if he's growing or not, but he's 18 turning 19 in May, but he's already 6'1"? So I don't really know. I've never considered it before, but he actually might have more lean mass than just skin and bones, but again I'm not sure. You can easily see muscle on his stomach area (but it's still flat muscle, it's not bulging or huge or even well-defined or anything) but at the same time I could count his ribs, so I really have no idea.

As for the "skinny fat" thing, he too is worried about his health... that is he doesn't want to have a heart attack and high cholesterol etc and die by the time he's thirty, so he's making more of an effort to watch what he eats. Thanks shakti for the info.

HI ibii,

  I am so glad that my advice helped in any way at all.  I do remember watching this show on TLC "Honey, we are killing our kids" the parents ate very unhealthy and one of the kids was overweight but the other was very underweight.  They mentioned that the underweight child drinks too much soda and eat too many sugary candies.  I don't quite remember how they explained it.

  I think your healthy eating habits should start affecting him at least a little.  Also, strength training should help him tone up some.  Ask him if he would be willing to cut back on soda and adding milk/natural juice into his diet instead. (Things like Izze would make it an easier transition for him.  Juices from concentrate have way too much sugar.)  A little more protein (not atkins style) and a little less soda might do him good. 

  So far, I have gotten hubby to cut back on coffee.  Also, he hasn't had as much junk food since I don't leave much around the house but healthy whole grain snacks like regular puffin.  :)

Oh, honey don't be scared about the tapeworm/disease thing! That was totally not my intention! lol! I'm a paranoid person, too, so I know what you mean about the worrywart thing.

If his whole family is underweight like him, he's probably learned to eat that way from them! They all probably have a skewed perception of what a portion size is, as well; and they all probably think they eat a lot, too! The 'phenomenon' of sorts I've noticed with 'naturally skinny' people eating a little and thinking they eat a lot usually happens in families; it's a familial enculturation, of sorts.

As far as seeing his muscle, of course you do, if there's no fat to cover it! We all have muscle, he just probably doesn't have a lot of it ('flat muscle'). You know, being 19, that's pretty normal for a boy. That could still be growing boy metabolism going on. When he's thirty, you'll notice a nice slow down and a little stomach paunch, if he doesn't change his eating patterns to accomodate his age. That's what happened to my fiance; he was practically a skeleton when I met him at the age of 25; now he's 28 and he's gained some weight and his body has slowed down.

Don't worry about it too much! But do stress healthy eating and healthy portion sizes.

Good luck!

um amadeus533. It doesn't really take many high calorie snacks to eat 2000-2300 calories a day. I consume atleast 4000 calories on a daily basis. That takes many high calorie snacks. 2000-2300 calories is really not very much when you think about it. And 1200-1500 is starvation.. how do you live? But you must be like only 4 feet tall so i guess you don't feel it.