Why Your Sex Life Matters If You’re Trying to Lose Weight

Published July 29th, 2008

by Christine Sutherland

Weight loss is not just a matter of energy in, energy out, as most diet companies would have us believe. Just as important as these 2 factors is our metabolic rate, but few people understand how lifestyle factors, including sexual relationships, impact on metabolic rate.

There is no doubt that a healthy metabolic rate requires a healthy lifestyle, and a healthy sex life is part of that for almost all adults. If you are working toward weight loss, it’s sensible to consider that this area of life might also need improvement.

The problem with “diet and exercise” approaches to weight loss is that they fail for nearly 100% of people, and that’s because they don’t even touch the reasons for the overweight in the first place. By attending properly to lifestyle issues, you won’t ever have to worry about overweight again!

When it comes to weight loss other lifestyle factors are just as important as the topic of this article, but I’ll be writing about those separately. For now let’s just focus on your most intimate relationship, and see what we can do together to improve that and ensure it supports your sense of wellbeing.

The Role of the Intimate Relationship

Although intimate partners experience different kinds of sexual expression together, ranging from “fast-food” sex to “perfunctory” sex to “gourmet” sex, in every case they are communicating to each other their state of wellbeing, and the state of wellbeing of the relationship itself.

Sex is as much about communication as is any other interaction that you, as intimate partners, could possibly have. And the same considerations apply to sex as apply to purely verbal communication!

Being on the Same “Wavelength

Do you and your partner share the same sexual “language”? If you don’t you may be mis-communicating, or misunderstanding each other, leading to disappointment, hurt, or resentment.

In sex this isn’t really about technique (although of course that’s important!) but about the non-verbal communication that you both engage in. When are you silent, what sounds do you make, what eye-contact do you have, what facial expressions? Are these similar, or is there a big mismatch?

What happens when you take the time to really notice your partner’s non-verbal expressions and mirror those back? What difference does it make to the quality of the experience for both of you?

Compatibility

Obviously not every partnership is between people who are naturally compatible. Different body clocks may have libido rising at completely different times and there’s not much you can do about that if your libidos virtually live in different time zones.

If she likes wearing flannelette to bed because it keeps her warm and toasty and she sleeps better, and he is revolted at the sight, barring therapy there’s not much you can do about that one, not if he also refuses to have an electric blanket!

Perhaps she needs verbal interaction to feel relaxed enough to become aroused, but he needs deathly silence.

Or perhaps he likes to wear women’s clothing but she perceives that as being unmasculine and not in any way sexually interesting to her.

These are examples of “barriers to bonding” that occur in even the most loving couples. The extreme the mismatch, the harder it is to do the work to overcome it. I’m not saying this is impossible, just that each partner must be prepared to put in some very hard work.

However if these types of incompatibilities are not worked on, or are left unspoken, they can and do eventually undermine the relationship. The best thing to do is to admit the mismatches openly and honestly, maintain respect in relation to each other’s differences, and if necessary elect to work with an experienced therapist to get help to resolve them.

I do wish that society were healthier so that people didn’t grow up so ignorant about the variety of human nature, and so that people didn’t feel they have to hide these things from others, or even from themselves. We’d avoid a lot of damage to individuals and families if only that were the case.

And of course that leads to …..

The Vital Importance of Honesty

There is so little sexual honesty in so many relationships. I’m not referring to outright lying or cheating here, but a betrayal just as insidious: the holding back of true feelings, the silence in the face of inadequacy, the “giving up” on the whole deal. Sadly, after years of “settling” for fairly lousy sex, it can be enormously difficult to now be open and honest.

Nevertheless, that’s what is necessary in order to build a truly fulfilling intimate relationship.

Have you heard the old joke about women faking orgasms but men faking relationships? Well really they’re one and the same when it comes to unsatisfactory marriages. A faked orgasm is a lie, pretending that an encounter is fulfilling when it is anything but.

The sad consequence of this faking is that it can eventually become so habitual that the woman may lose the ability to experience it for real.

So “settling” for unsatisfactory sex, and particularly faking satisfaction, is good for neither the relationship nor the individual.

One of the best ways to deal with this is to take courage and actually write down (because it can be more comfortable to write it than say it):

1) What is not happening during sex that you want to happen, 2) What is happening during sex that you don’t want to happen, 3) The words you might actually speak to your partner, or the things you might actually do, to clearly communicate your wants

In order to make it easier for partners (or individuals in partnerships) to accomplish this, I wrote the book “Intimate Partners”. This book explains how to pre-frame requests, how to deal with criticism, and how to be more direct, at the same time maintaining comfort and ease in the discussion.

Time Out Alone

An intimate relationship IS intimate because of its exclusive and private nature. Without privacy and exclusivity the experience of intimacy is drastically reduced, and so is the quality of the relationship.

It can be challenging to get exclusive and private time together with the busy-ness of modern life, especially if working hours are long, or there are small children, or elderly parents living in the home. But in all cases your household must revolve around the intimate partners, especially for the sake of the children. The quality of your relationship together is the foundation of their wellbeing, growth and development, and you have a responsibility to keep that foundation strong.

Help for Sex Issues

Human adults need a deeply satisfying sexual relationship in very much the same way as they need good, nutritious food in order to be healthy both physically and mentally. However many couples “settle” for a relationship that is not at all satisfying - sometimes because they don’t know what to do, and sometimes because they’ve given up hope. This situation is damaging for the relationship, for the partners, and for others who depend on them for their own wellbeing.

Please do have hope; please do make the effort, and seek out any support you need in order to make this part of your life everything it can be.

With your sex life sorted, that’s one lifestyle factor you can “tick off” as you work toward the greater health and wellbeing required for permanent weight loss.

About the Author:

Christine Sutherland is an Australian expert on weight loss, especially in relation to lifestyle factors that are crucial to easy and permanent weight loss. Her free book “17 Solutions” is must reading for anyone who is looking for a permanent answer to weight problems.