D/s for Weight Loss? Well, Maybe You Shouldn't, But I Am.

Posted on February 02, 2025
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So, content warning if the title wasn’t enough, this is about weight loss.

This is what works for me and I’m not suggesting anyone do the same, but to figure out what works for you, probably with some health professional, even though I didn’t do that.

So while I preach to not rely on BDSM for weight loss, I’m also absolutely doing just that. However, the fantasy for most seems to be “I wish I had a dominant who would control what I eat, when I eat, and force me to exercise.” It’s a wonderful fantasy to give up all responsibility for your own health and weight. And there’s no way in hell that Tim would ever agree to that, nor should he.

(Plus if you really want that I’m under the impression that there are weight-loss boot camps for just that sort of control. I’m also under the impression that they are unhealthy and generally will fail you, so don’t do that, either.)

Tim’s background is in psychology, and mental health is extremely important to him, and he’s made it very, very clear that adding eating and exercise to a dynamic can be really dangerous and create or exacerbate eating disorders — especially in punishment dynamics (which we do not have). I’m also aware from others in the community that even if it doesn’t do that, you’re still risking your health if/when the dynamic ends, because if you’re relying on another person to ensure you’re healthy, what happens when they leave (or in the “they never will” scenario, what happens if they die)? Not usually anything good. In normal dynamics, submissives often feel completely lost and have a period where everything falls down, including their health. Now consider if they were only taking care of their health because it was part of their dynamic. That leaves a sub in an extra bad place.

So, when I suggested bringing anything about food/exercise/weight into the dynamic the first time, relatively early in our relationship, he more or less told me “absolutely not.”

Like. I get it. Watching things from the sidelines, I’ve seen some people make it work with zero-to-very-minor punishment dynamics where it’s for limited infractions with limited consequences. Just adding spice to something already going on and looking for a little accountability. But…

I’ve also seen subs with eating disorders who refuse to get treatment, opting instead to seek out dominants who were willing to control their eating. They end up in a really bad place when the dynamic ends because the dominant realizes how awful and toxic the situation really is. It’s not a good place to be. Most often they were looking for a strict punishment dynamic, which first, can really, really fuck up your head when it comes to eating disorders, and second, is a ton of work for the dominant because it’s kind of a big and constant struggle between sub and dom for the whole relationship. The sub, who already struggles with self control, is now struggling against the dom and breaking rules. Then they get upset if they aren’t punished well enough to prevent them breaking rules further because it’s totally the dom’s responsibility to keep them from eating. And I’ve only seen this as an online relationship which I don’t even know how they expect a remote person to control them how they really claim to want. It probably even works for the first few weeks to months, depending on how long the NRE / sub frenzy lasts, but it always falls down and it’s always the “dom’s fault” of course, because in this situation the sub can’t take any responsibility for their own choices. I don’t know… the whole thing is just setting themselves up for failure.

SO yeah.

I wasn’t upset when he turned down the idea, although I was of course disappointed. I just kept doing what I was doing and left him out of it. Over time though I continued to see potential in using the dynamic for what I was doing and I was pretty sure we could work something out. So, some time later I suggested it again and he actually agreed. However, that time I approached it better. The first time I was dancing around what I wanted, so without details it could have been anything that I was asking for, including complete food control. This time I actually laid out what it was I was looking for from him – “I know you said no before, but here’s what I’m proposing,” and with actual details of what I had in mind, he went for it.

So, yes I’m using my dynamic to progress in my weight loss / health journey. But here’s the thing, Tim does not control what I eat, or mandate exercises, or tell me not to eat, or anything like that. In fact, if I say anything about being hungry he’s telling me to eat. And we sure as hell don’t have any “punishment” aspects to it. If I slip or break rules, we have a discussion, and that’s about it. And it’s usually a pretty light discussion with him saying things like “it’s been a little stressful lately, it make sense that that happened; you’re doing great though.” The rules may need to be adjusted, or something approached a different way, but I’m not ever in a situation where I will be punished for making a mistake, giving in to an urge, or simply not making a healthy choice. He encourages me with positive feedback regularly and works to boost my perspective when I’m not viewing my progress in the best light.

Our rules are minimal, simple, and sustainable long term. And, if for any reason the dynamic ended, it wouldn’t throw me off long-term. Yeah I’d be in a bad place for a while, but I’m not relying on the dynamic for my health (or at least not this aspect), I’m using it to support the journey I’m already taking, with or without the dynamic.

The Rules

• “Ask me when you want to have extra sugar/desserts.”
• (Daily) “Eat a vegetable.”
• (Daily) “Get some exercise (6x week).”
• “Keep me updated on your weight.”
• (unwritten) Provide calorie logs, when tracking

Sugar Restriction

So, after I was already trying to reduce my sugar intake, the first major rule I remember setting with Tim was to officially limit my sugar intake in a way that was reasonable but still help me continue my limiting. I could eat whatever I wanted, as long as it wasn’t full of sugar. I wouldn’t need to worry too much about sugar in normal foods as long as it’s not trying to skirt the rules like I’m not spooning sugar onto a sandwich or something, not that I ever thought to do that. Too many things have sugar added in them, and while I keep rough tabs on them, they aren’t generally part of this.

• I’m allowed one reasonable dessert or overly sugary item per day.
• If I want more than one per day I need to ask for permission first.
• If a social thing happens, such as Sam wants to go out for ice cream or one of our friends brings over a cake, and I’ve already had my sugar for the day, if it’s reasonable to ask I can ask permission, but if it’s not I should just do the social sugar and tell him later, doing my best to not over-do it.

What is “reasonable” is intentionally not defined, which leaves me sometimes having 150 calories full of sugar, or 400ish. It depends on the dessert and the situation. As long as I’m doing my best not to overdo it, it’s fine. Most often it’s a 150 calorie ice cream sandwich (11g added sugar) which I like to have after dinner daily, but I will occasionally give that up for something else. It has set me a line in the sand though: am I willing to give up my ice cream sandwich to eat this? Do I like this more than I like my ice cream sandwich?? Surprisingly often the answer is no, I’d rather not give up my evening treat for whatever it is in front of me, which often has more sugar/fat/calories in it to boot.

While there are times I do struggle with this, this has actually broken the constant sugar craving I was having. Without the accountability I would easily justify additional sugar for myself with the best possible reason: fuck it. Now that I have to ask, it takes a lot more to justify it.

I only rarely ask for additional sugar because the need to ask is in itself a deterrent. As such, he also rarely tells me “no.” For certain big events I do request (and so far always have had granted) a removal of restrictions for a limited time period so I can indulge, and honestly I rarely go too crazy with it, even when I’m like “yeah no restrictions!” I’m mostly just excited about the fact that I have restrictions at all, so having them lifted for a period of time is doubly exciting.

Fruit doesn’t count at all in this restriction since it’s not about natural sugars but about added sugar, so when I start to struggle, at Tim’s suggestion, I try to make an effort to have fruit that I’ll actually eat in the house and that’s helped a lot, too.

Tim has been extremely supportive of my efforts and while, like any American, I probably still eat too much sugar because it’s in fucking everything, it’s a hell of a lot closer to something reasonable. I might even be under the recommended maximums! I don’t know; I don’t track it that closely.

Vegetable

• carrots
• broccoli
• cucumber
• lettuce with dressing
• jícama
• not a whole lot else

The struggle I had that made it something I asked for as a rule, was that I wouldn’t eat vegetables hardly at all. I understood the value but it was so much effort. Effort to buy, wash, prepare, eat, get to before it turns to mush in the fridge… vs just grab whatever snack is on the shelf.

My biggest struggle was finding what I would eat that only required minimal effort. I like broccoli but it requires prep. Washing, at minimum, and it’s so waxy and hydrophobic it never feels like it’s actually washed. I tried broccoli for a while and after ending up wasting a few heads I stopped buying it.

I tried jicama for a while and that was going well, except then suddenly I started getting stomach cramps when eating it. I want to try it again because I think I may have figured out what was going on, but … some day. I’m in no hurry to risk that pain again, lol. But they are very tasty, so it’ll happen again at some point.

What I finally landed on was carrots. I started with just trying to eat one full-sized carrot per day. After a while I stopped bothering to wash them because that took too much effort. After a long while I swapped over to baby carrots and once I landed on that it’s been going pretty strong. Going to the carrots right at about 2-3pm when I’m hungry but dinner is still a ways away is exactly what I need. Not only does it satisfy the rule, but it gives me a few hours of feeling satiated on very few calories… 150 calories of carrot is a lot of carrot.

So this has actually been really easy overall, once I figured out a habit. I miss some here and there, but it’s become increasingly rare that I miss a day. The carrots weren’t enough to guarantee me an every-day vegetable, but I eventually added nori in as a mid-morning snack. It feels like I’m eating paper, but I kind of like the texture and the taste. It’s a super-easy go-to snack. It’s shelf-stable so I just have it right behind my computer desk and even on days I miss the carrots I almost always have a nori snack. Adding nori in was really what I needed to ensure I hit the veggie-every-day requirement with near perfect record.

I’ve also been making kale chips, but since they take kind of a lot of effort to make any volume of them and I end up eating most of them in the process they haven’t been very helpful for getting through a week. But seriously, kale chips made with a little bit of BBQ sauce is pretty fucking good.

It was a struggle for a while, and I still miss days here and there when things happen. But this has been a huge positive thing for me. Being able to binge on carrots in the afternoon where I genuinely just want to eat everything because dinner is too far away has been a big plus for me.

Exercise

Exercise, in some form or another, once per day (later reduced to 6x per week, and while it hasn’t officially been updated, I think it may just be “when possible” now?? A conversation to be had. Probably after he reads this.)

Tim and I walk together on our lunches. On a normal week with nothing getting in the way, we walk together for about 15-20 minutes 5 days per week. Sometimes things happen like someone gets sick, or work gets in the way, or one of us is hurt and should take it easy, or on rare occasions he decides that he’d rather spend lunch playing with me, but all in all we walk together 5 days per week. And for a time we were managing to walk once on Saturdays as well.

Exercise is miserable for me most of the time. I fucking hate the feeling of my muscles feeling weak from use, or being out of breath. In fact, I’ve actually got shame over breathing hard… if I’m breathing hard, well that indicates that I’m out of shape and that’s something to be ashamed of, so I should hide it or not do anything that causes it. Additionally, there’s a lot of shame built up around exercise in general and doing anything beyond like … walking with other people around is extremely hard for me. It’s really fucking hard to exercise when you feel shame over it; it’s way easier to just never do it.

Growing up overweight can really fuck someone up.

Anyway.

I have a really hard time making time and energy to do any sort of exercise, so going out with him makes it work. And I more or less just leave it up to him when we’re walking.

I intended this to be a way to force me to actually exercise more. Add accountability. Yeah no. Mostly it’s just encouraged us to keep walking. I almost never do anything on days we don’t go walking.

So this hasn’t worked out quite how I imagined, but it’s encouraged better habits than if it weren’t part of the rules, so I’m taking it as an overall win. But yeah. No. This is still a huge struggle. And I’m generally too busy to care, and Tim too busy to push it.

Weight Tracking

So the rule is just that if I weigh myself, I’m putting that in the discord channel where he can see it, not keeping it private.

I weigh myself almost daily. Doing so works well for me because first off, I love looking at the graph and seeing the overall trend of the data in spite of the daily ups and downs. This has helped me with plateaus and small increases. I may not like watching the number go up or refuse to budge, but I don’t stress over it and I don’t act on individual numbers, only trends.

I mentally write off the high days (although I might kick the scale back underneath the shelf a little harder those mornings), and celebrate low days, but the trend is the overall goal. Individual days don’t matter, which I know can be hard for some people to internalize. I like data way too much to only take samples once per week; think of all the graph I’d be missing!

I do skip some days, intentionally or unintentionally. Watching the numbers like this has taught me to never weigh myself after losing sleep or doing stupid sleep shenanigans for con because it’s always artificially high the next morning. I don’t know why but it happens very consistently. Also, if I’m trending upwards or in a plateau I’ll skip more days because I don’t care to watch that much when I’m on my way up, usually in the winter.

All in all, I just like to watch numbers and I do it where Tim can watch, too. He’s never pressured me to weigh myself and he’s never commented on or shown any judgement about my weight in this process. It’s just another piece of information about me that he gets to see.

Calorie Counting

So, this isn’t really a rule but a promise I made to him, that if I was counting calories, I would do it where he could see it.

After two years of just trying to make better choices, and not much else, I finally decided in early-to-mid 2024 that it was time to start actually watching my calories. I held out kind of a while because I was a little nervous about sharing that record with Tim, but finally one day I just started doing it in a spreadsheet and the next day I sent him a screenshot like “welp, I said I’d send you this if I ever started counting calories, so here this is for as long as I keep it up.”

I made my spreadsheet, I made my plans, I decided how I was going to do it, and I just sent him the screenshots as I went, along with occasional explanations of my plans. For the most part when we would talk about it he would respond that what I was doing was reasonable and would encourage me in general while neither encouraging nor discouraging calorie counting itself.

Sharing the data definitely had me feeling self conscious on days that were too high, even though I knew he didn’t care. What he was concerned about were dangerous choices that counting calories can lead to. However, it was a trap I had fallen into before that I have no intention of falling into again.

Way back in 2006 I counted calories and very quickly found myself in a trap where I had cut my calories way, way too low. I was regularly below 1200 calories per day, and I was losing weight at a pace I was so happy with… until winter caught up to me. I lost 34 lbs in 5 months. I made it through December and then suddenly stopped. And never did anything again. I struggled against myself. My next weight record in 2015 was higher than when I’d started counting calories in 2006. It ruined me for such a long time.

With my slower, healthier pace, I’ve lost 40lbs over 3 years (26lbs and counting specifically since I started counting calories 8 months before writing this). But 34lbs in 5 months… that was a crazy pace for me and my body, and I cut myself way too low to do it, and it all just fell apart. I should be grateful that the only thing it affected was my head and willpower. There are more risks than just having my brain decide for me — you know what, no, we’re not doing this anymore — and take away my self control for years to come.

So I refuse to have a repeat of that. If my calories are too close to 1200, or worse, below that, I can expect a question about it and had better have an explanation and not go that low the next day. Since individual days don’t matter all that much when it comes to calories, my personal limit is an average of 1427 calories per day over a 7-day period. I picked that number after having ChatGPT calculate some things for me and more or less decided shrug, that’ll work. So any day can be lower than that, or even lower than 1200 if that’s how a day works out, but the week average needs to be at or above 1427. This has resulted in end-of-week increases once or twice to ensure I’m not below that line, but most weeks it’s no problem at all to ensure I’m over that amount. Most weeks I do it without trying.

This is my personal line in the sand that should prevent me from shooting myself in the foot, and so far has done quite well for me. Tim does not enforce anything to do with this, it’s just what I’m doing for myself.

My Journey

1. Winter is genuinely hard for me. I never realized that when I was trying to lose weight previous times. I would just stop trying and never really knew why. Turns out, winter is just hard. I don’t like going out in the cold. I’m spending more time sitting at my computer. It’s not even the holiday foods; I actually struggle a lot not to just eat and keep eating fairly constantly in the winter, holiday foods or no. And recognizing that, I do my best to be kind to myself, control what I can but not to the point of making myself suffer, and just wait it out until spring. So what if I gain some weight over the winter. Over the whole year I’ve still lost weight, I’m still healthier, and I can pick it all back up again in the spring when I can start gardening again and getting outside more.

2. Stress is my enemy. I feel like 2023 was largely a waste of time because the stress from the convention put back all the weight I’d lost. The hard numbers do show that I lost some that year, but looking at the graph, I can see a clear dip, then rise, that went pretty much back to where I started for about a year’s time, and I can easily point at the con stress as the cause. So this is a tangible reason to manage my stress levels.

3. Tim will never judge me for any of this. And neither will Sam. I’ve grown up feeling judged for my weight and trying to hide from people. I have a real problem with fat, and it’s all I see when I look in the mirror. I can know in my head that I’m actually not that overweight, that I’m actually kind of average, but I don’t feel that way. I struggle against my own judgement. But it’s nice having partners who compliment me and just want to see me how I am. It doesn’t actually help resolve my own issues. But over the years it’s softened the edges a bit. I still judge me. But I rarely have the “how can anyone look at this” thoughts anymore. To be fair, I’ve never attempted to work on my perception of me with any frequency or consistency, so any softening here is actually kind of impressive.

So yeah. I’m totally using BDSM to support my weight loss journey, but it’s done reasonably with slow sustainable changes and not a fantasy forceful dynamic so many people seem to crave. I’m deciding my goals and what I want to be doing with my journey and discussing that with Tim, and requesting his help and some accountability to ensure I stay on track. He could always step in and change what I’m doing if he wanted to, and that’s especially important if I slip and start doing stupid dangerous things, but he has mostly just supported me without judgement and that’s meant so much and helped me immensely.

You very much should not rely on a dynamic to force you to take care of yourself. But using it to support the things you’re already doing is something to consider. Many people do this without dynamics by making pacts with their friends and supporting each other. Same basic idea. Having someone along the journey to provide support and accountability can really make the struggle way easier, but you still have to make the decision yourself and be ready to do things for yourself. And while my dominant doesn’t push me here, there are some who might for just a little added excitement ;)