Every once in a while, I accidentally make my girlfriend of 5 months think she's fat by trying to encourage her to work out and stuff. Here's the problem: I don't believe any girl should feel self conscious about their body, but I am a selfish and stupid man. I don't think my girlfriend is fat (she's about 5'3" and about 145-150 lb. which, yes, is overweight on the BMI scale, but we all know that scale is inaccurate and she also has a muscularish build). I think she's absolutely the most beautiful girl in the world. I do however, think she'd be even prettier if she lost a little weight. The problem is, I'm her boyfriend so for me to tell her that could devastate her (she is quite sensitive and she does feel a bit self conscious about her weight and she's told me that before, but she's also always said she's not going to "try" to lose weight, but if it happens, it happens and she'll be happy). I don't have a perfect body either. I'm far too skinny (aesthetically) at 6'4" 163 lb. So I have no right.
So whenever I upset her this way, I try to convince her she's not fat and also most of the time, she just stops talking to me for a bit (I hate it because I really like her and I want to talk to her and I get lonely when she doesn't talk to me because she's upset. It would kill me to lose her). Today, I upset her, and I thought to myself, if I was just perfectly honest, maybe we'd stop getting in these awkward arguments where she thinks I think she's fat and I try to convince her I don't because she'd know exactly how I feel about her weight. I'm just worried that this would cause her to leave me or worse totally destroy her emotionally. I don't like fighting with her about her weight. I'd appreciate it if she lost weight. If she didn't lose weight, I wouldn't think she wasn't pretty or leave her or be upset. I just think that if she started watching what she ate and exercising more regularly, she'd be prettier, happier, more energetic, she'd live longer, and she'd have an easier time when her metabolism really slows down (she's 18 and I'm sure her metabolism is gonna suck in a few years). So I want her to do it, but I don't know how. Normally, maybe a family member or close friend would tell her, but it hasn't happened yet, and I doubt it will. So what should I do?
And I do realize that a great deal of all of this is a problem with me. I shouldn't care what she weights. She's an amazing person. But sometimes I feel self conscious about how close our weights are because I mean just look at our height difference. I mean she'll probably weight more than me when she's pregnant at this rate. I'm trying to hold up my end of the deal by gaining weight, but it's not easy and I'm not making great progress. My goal weight is 180, but I'm either not making any progress or I'm moving at a snail's pace.
I've tried to get her to work out with me, and sometimes we go to the gym together, but the thing is, I'm trying to gain so it gets in the way. Also, I can't MAKE her go and sometimes she just doesn't want to. Lastly, we're in college, but we're currently 300 miles away from each other so we can't go to the gym together. And I've told her the health thing before, but she just won't buy it because doctors have told her she's not overweight (and they're right). The thing is, she sometimes exercises, but not very often. She also does eat quite a bit, I think.
I also have no way to relate to her feelings since I've never had an issue with excess weight. I don't know what it feels like to be called fat seriously. She told me she was really fat as a child. She also said her mom called her fat (an alcoholic who cause all sorts of emotional scarring and is no longer in her life). She's definitely really sensitive on the issue and I have no way of knowing how it feels (although I've felt self conscious of other things before).