Here`s a tough one for you: How do you tell a girl you’re dating that she needs to slim down a little and work a few sizes off her butt?

I can`t figure out how to put it in a nice way. Thanks for your time and your work – your efforts are greatly appreciated!

Hello,

Well, there are a number of ways. For instance, you could try humor. Tell her: "Hey, the post office just called, and they`re assigning your ass a new zip code!"

Frankly, you can`t just come out and tell her that she`s become twice the woman she was when you met her! Not only are you going to get yourself into trouble; it`s not very likely to have the desired effect. She probably already feels badly about ballooning up, but she`s not truly motivated to do anything about it, assuming of course that there`s not a medical reason for it.

A much better approach is to take it in a positive direction. Find some new hobbies or activities that you both enjoy that are exercises at the same time, and do them together. For example, go out one weekend and rent some bikes. This can be fun, and if she and you like it, you might want to invest in two of them, then schedule regular rides.

You can also start exploring your local mountains and go hiking on Sunday mornings rather than hitting that omelet bar, or start taking dance classes together, or start taking nightly walks together, or try rollerblading. There are a thousand fun things to do out there that will also help you start shedding the poundage.

One problem with getting exercise is developing habits that will stick with you in the long term. Going to the gym might be fun for the first week, (or not!), but it`s going to lose it`s appeal pretty quickly. The only way to get into the gym regularly is to establish a pattern. If you go every other day for two months, you`ll have developed a pattern of being at the gym regularly. However, when you`re there, you have to actually DO something rather than visiting the juice bar.

Another thing you can do is to start helping to improving her diet. Interestingly, when you start doing aerobic exercise, your body starts craving things that are good for you, but you can help this along. Instead of eating pizza, why not try a salad? You can even make this an event. Go shopping for all the things you want together. Then, make the salad together and then, go somewhere fun to eat it. When you combine good food with good times, you`re also establishing patterns that become easy to repeat.

The bottom line is this: get involved with her weight loss, don`t just complain about it. You`ll either spend your time helping her, or hurting yourself!