How to be supportive without being a pain in the neck...

 

Is someone you love battling the bulge, and you feel helpless to help them? Or maybe you're the dieter, with a partner, best friend, sibling or parent who just can't seem to understand what you need to succeed?

Either way, it's a big club, experts say.

"It is always a difficult situation when one person in a family or relationship is attempting to change the status quo by … changing the way they always did something in the past," says Barrie Wolfe-Radbill, RD, a nutritionist with the New York University Surgical Weight Loss Program.

Whenever someone changes their behavior, she says, the dynamic of a relationship can change. That, she says, "can make it hard to know what the other person wants or needs in the way of support."

But getting—and staying—on a dieter's good side doesn't have to be hard. In fact, experts say, the best way to know whether you're doing the right thing is simple: Just ask.

"It sounds like such a simple concept, but everyone has different needs when they go on a diet—some people want you to stay on their case, others need the opposite—and you won't know that unless you ask," says Jennifer Waugh, RD, LDN, clinical nutrition manager at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.

It's also important to realize that a dieter's needs can change as his or her weight loss plan progresses.

"As a person begins to assert more control over their eating habits, many people need and want less input from others, so be sensitive to the signs that they want to assume more control," Wolfe-Radbill says.

How you can help them lose weight.

…and what you should not do.