When she started her weight loss journey, I told her, “There’s nothing wrong with your size and you’re not going into modeling so I don’t know why you’ll like to go down in weight.” She said, “It’s my body and I know I’m Fat. I wasn’t like this when I was twenty years old. It’s because of wrong dieting and poor habit that has led me to this point. I need to get back to when I was twenty.”

So, she started. She started from skipping, running, and doing some normal workout routine. She posted videos on her WhatsApp status and Facebook timeline every day and even encouraged other people to join her in reducing weight. Two months later, she was still looking the same. She’ll waste forever in front of the mirror asking why she’s not reducing weight. I told her, “I don’t understand your obsession here. You’re beautiful the way you are. Don’t allow what you see online to shape your perception of what beauty is.”

She’ll brush my opinion aside and say, “Enemy of progress. You’ll see me shy.” When the workout didn’t work out for her, she resorted to dieting. She’ll visit me and come with her own food because she had stopped eating a lot of things. I looked at her and felt sorry for what she was going through but she didn’t see it that way. She won’t eat from the outside because “I don’t know what they put in their food.” She won’t go to her favorite restaurant to eat because their food had something that was poisonous to her health.

Three months later, all that she had left was her head on her shoulder. Everything is gone. Her legs look lankier and bonier. She has no flesh on her face. Her cheekbones are sticking out and make her look like someone who had been sick for too long and now getting better. She used to have flesh around her hips that I enjoyed holding on to each time we hugged. That flesh is also gone. You hold her hips and your hands fall flat on bones. She didn’t have a lot of butts but the little she had is also gone. She looks bustier though she doesn’t have a lot of boobs

She no longer has that appeal that made me want to hold her. I look at her and I feel like I’m looking at a total stranger. But she likes it—she likes who she had become. She posts a lot of photos now and writes a lot of motivational stuff to support her weight loss journey. A few days ago, she posted her before and after, and most of the guys who commented said, “I like the before than now.”

She was hurt. She came complaining. She linked their comments to cyberbullying and blocked those guys who said they liked her before. I wanted to tell her, “Those guys didn’t lie. I’m like them because I like your before than now.” I couldn’t say it. She was already down so there was no need to add more salt to injury. I want my girlfriend back. The one who smiled and I saw flesh around her cheeks. A friend called me one day. She asked, “It’s everything alright with your girlfriend?” I said, “Yes, why?” She said, “The way she looks. Was she sick?” I said, “Nooo she went on a weight loss program to get back to her former size.” In front of people, I defend her choice but deep inside of me, I don’t like her new look.

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I can’t even look at her for a second without thinking about how awful she looks. I love her. What I have for her it’s beyond physical. We’ve been here for four years and it’s no accident that we’ve lasted this long. I see her in my future because she’s the one. We started planning marriage a year ago. We haven’t put a date to it but we know that’s the destination. So, one day, she stood in the mirror and said, “I hope I wear my wedding gown looking like this.” I said, “No you won’t look like this. You’ll add on a little weight because whether you like it or not, this weight you’ve lost will come back to you.”

She said, “This is me. I’m not going to change it now or later. I suffered to get here and I will do everything to maintain it.”

Fine. That’s her choice but now she’s trying to project her eating habit on me. I eat my kenkey and fish at night and she’ll be complaining. She comes home to cook for us and the food tastes bland. You complain and she tells you, “You don’t need all that in your system. It’s the reason people are dying early.” I don’t mind dying early if I have to stop eating my favorite food. What’s the point of life if one cannot enjoy the things he enjoys. So we fight every now and then and out of anger, I will tell her my mind.

Last time I told her she looks ugly. Another time I said She looks like a Kumawood god. She got angry and didn’t talk to me for days but this is me telling her that I hate her new look and thinking she would do something about it. She calls me selfish for trying to make her look the way I want and not the way she wants. At this point, it looks like she’ll rather lose me than gain weight so I have to tread cautiously

It doesn’t change the fact that I’m not happy with the way she looks. I can’t look at her the way I used to but what’s love if you can’t look at her and tell yourself, “That’s my girl?” I want her old looks back. I want to touch her and feel the warmth of her skin and not the crashing invite of her bones. I want to hold her hips like I used to. I want to see the flesh around her cheeks when she smiles. Those were the signature look I fell for.

What do I do or say to make her understand it from my point of view? Or I’m simply being selfish for wanting her to be who I like her to be? I wish I could post her before and after photos here so you can understand the depth of my worries but I can’t. Words alone can’t let you see the clearer picture but the way she looks now isn’t glorious at all.

–Yoofi  

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