Dr. Ramani's Blog

“Let’s go out for cupcakes,” he said.

Seems innocuous, in fact, downright sweet.

However, my friend was getting pretty bummed out.

She likes the guy, it’s a new relationship, but she also has been working hard on a physical training regimen, and on losing weight. And it hasn’t been easy. She likes him, but would like to take a pass on the cupcakes. And he keeps insisting.

When you are in a new relationship, is it ok to say no to sweet nothings like dessert?

My friend is caught is a classic stakeholder food battle. In You Are WHY You Eat, I talk about the power of stakeholders at the table – in fact I would argue that we easily put away an extra 1000-3000 calories per week (and some people even more) because we eat for other people. We often agree to second helpings, dessert, and high calorie entrees because we don’t want to “hurt feelings.”
This is a dating dieting disaster in the making. When we first meet people and we like them, the last thing we want to do is to hurt their feelings. Enough of our friends are having trouble getting that first date, it feels like hubris to kaibosh the whole thing over a red velvet cupcake.

So what’s a girl (or a guy) to do? This isn’t just about sweet guys trying to push sweet stuff our way. Lots of men trying to lose some of that holiday weight may also find it hard to tell a new partner who made a multicourse dinner “I really like you, but can you pull back on the pasta?” Those first few weeks are so delicate that small stuff matters, but then you set some high calorie precedents.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, and love fests and feasts amping up – how do you say “no” to the cupcakes/pasta/burgers/calories but “yes” to the date?

Dr. Ramani, author of You Are WHY You Eat, authenticity doctor and master of saying no and letting go, and Jess McCann, dating coach extraordinaire and author of You Lost Him at Hello: From Dating to I “Do” – Secret Strategies from one of America’s Top Dating Coaches take on the minefields of new dates, full plates, and Valentine’s Day in a tweet chat on Thursday February 7 at 12 Noon Eastern/9 AM Pacific. Our hashtag is #dietsanddates – just type that in and join the conversation.

By the time we are done with you – you will either have figured out how to have a healthy but highly satisfying Valentine’s Day – together or alone. Either way, this is a chance to honor yourself in a relationship – new or old, and learn how to say yes to love, but no to seconds.