The last time I lost a significant amount of weight, I found I had some people in my life that would constantly try to undermine my efforts. They would constantly invite me out to dinner even though they hadn't invited me out for months prior, or would constantly say "It's only one peice of cake...have some" and wouldn't take no for an answer. And then there was my aunt. She would constantly ORDER me to stop dieting because she said I was TOO THIN...ok I am 5'9" and weighed 185...hardly too thin. Or tell me jogging would ruin my chances to have children one day.. I'm only 14 pounds in this time, but do you have people like that in your life? How do they try to undermine you?
heart, one of my "frien-amies" used to do WW...she would love to sit and tell all of us about all her success--although she was still overweight..she would go on and on with unsolicited dieting advice to me and my friends..and sometimes give it to complete strangers..OMG!
Fast forward to last summer, she began to notice I was losing weight--I didn't tell her I was doing anything...she went with me to a WW meeting when I told her I might be interested (I had never been to one) and before I arrived she completely told the women there all kinds of falsehoods about my weightloss..I walked in unbeknownst and it was a horrible experience...it was a horrible facilitator anyway but on top of it all I think she sabotaged me from NOT joining..
A few more weeks pass and my weight continued to drop..she shows up at my house one morning (with me having two little kids) holding a gigantic icing topped cookie cake...when I opened the door I told her, "you are welcome here but that has to go back to the car.." she acted all huffy and left..
Now, when I see her she tells me how I am too thin and that she worries I have developed some weight issues and blah, blah, blah...
SHE is the one with the issue..no matter what I do she will find a way to put herself on TOP and me on BOTTOM...and I really don't care anymore..what I do care about is being healthy and bringing myself (the person I used to be) back from the grave and getting my GROOVE back!
Oh yeah pft- at work they have potlucks and stuff ALL the time. And I don't eat any of it anymore. Now they are always like "oh just one bagel" and I'm like no thank you I don't like bagels anymore. And for St. Patricks day they are having ANOTHER potluck (they have had FOUR potlucks in the 6 months I've worked there) and I said I'm not going to be in that day and they acted like "you don't have to not come to work cuz we are having a potluck" I'm like DUDE I'm not coming in cuz my husband is having a procedure done that day!
The people who seem to push are the ones that want you to stay fat like they are.
oh for sure lol .. my grandma is also one of those type who will tell me at 180 or so that im too thin & either way is always bringing her food over whether I want it or not ... and Im not sure, but I think my hubby might feel threatened at my weight loss..(he is thin though .. maybe with other men?) he would bring junk food & whatever else he eats in front of me when I lost weight before even though I ask him not to .. and even now he still does it lol ... I "know" that he would like to see my healthier too, but just something I can almost easily tell .. people seem to try to be subtle about it to me
My husband buys a LOT of stuff that bothers me. A lot. Chocolate chips, CASES of candy bars, once he bought EIGHT half gallons of ice cream at once. Why? I dunno. I explain, I have heart to hearts. He either says ok and stops buying *some* of the junk (like he no longer buys flats of giant muffins and brings them home) or else he says, "You cannot dictate what I eat!" He's right. But cases of candy bars??
I had another friend who weighed about the same as me 3 years ago. She was always talking about diets, trying some new diet, telliong me about how it works etc. But she gained weight and I lost. I didnt mention weight or diets at all but it was obvious. She brought candy bars for me and her when we got together once and I said no thanks, and it pissed her off. She was eating candy bars and I wouldnt. She got huffy and told me I was making her feel bad, and "next time I see you, DONT BE THINNER THAN ME!!" (Uh, I think she has some reality issues because I was already a good 50 pounds thinner than her). After she saw me again and I had lost more weight, she never called me again.
Spring Break is next week for my family (my husband is a teacher) and I'm still participating in my Y's Biggest Loser competition (at the half way point, my team is currently waaay in the lead at 8% loss -- our closest competitor is 6.9% -- and I'm winning the individuals at 11.85% loss). But my dh and dds got to have some fun, since they're off.
So he's going to take the girls to his folks house for three or four days for some Grandma time while I keep up with my workouts and my diet (my mil doesn't accommodate anyone -- when my dh became vegetarian, the meals at the next visit were almost entirely meat based -- so I'm afraid we'll spend the entire trip eating out). When he started talking to her about specifics (specifically I wasn't coming), it suddenly became "well, why don't we go to Branson for a couple of days?" And he's wondering why I'm ticked.
A long time ago, when I was starting my *first* Optifast, he would drive through McD's and get hamburgers and fries while we were travelling. Then ask if I minded. (No, no, I'm just starving, I'm sure my little vanilla shake will overcome any desire for melted cheese and salted fries...).
Barb
Last edited by Keillynsmom; 03-16-2009 at 10:22 AM.
I let this happen to me, at first I enjoyed it because it gave me the power of control. To say NO I don't need or want that but I did eventually give in. Here I am 9 months later getting back on track and finally finishing what I started last year
I've got a workout buddy who is a little bit bitter about my weight loss, I think. When we started working out together in October of 2008, I outweighed her by almost 30 lbs. Both of us have worked out together the same amount of time, the same exercises, every week. It started out that she was a lot more at ease with the exercise, didn't get winded as fast as I did, could do more reps with more weight, etc. She'd been in the military and was somewhat more accustomed to rigorous activity and I had not yet quit smoking, which I have in the last few months.
Fast-forward to today: I am now only five or six lbs heavier than she is, and am doing way better at the physical activities prescribed by the Wii Fit due to better balance and being a little better coordinated. Having quit smoking, I have way better endurance, and I have cut my fastfood consumption out completely, and other takeout indulgence by probably 75%. I have lost almost 25 lbs, and she has lost and gained the same three lbs several times in the last three months.
Suddenly, she's a lot less supportive. Suddenly, several of my coworkers know how much I weigh, and what I've eaten for lunch on days when she and I ate together. Suddenly these people are staging mini-inteventions about my eating habits, and how they're concerned that I must be using unhealthy tactics to lose weight, because otherwise, how could I be losing weight so much faster than my workout buddy? I hate to tell them that I go to her house four times a week and every day there's a different McDonald's bag or pizza box in or by the trash can. I've also given up alcohol for weeks at a time, while she has not. She has said things to me like, "I'm just concerned that you're not getting enough nutrition because you're so obsessed with losing too much weight too fast." This was when I ordered a veggie burger at a restaurant. I was particularly upset when I found out that she revealed my actual numbers (current weight, starting weight, goal weight) to a group of my coworkers at the bar one night when I wasn't there and she told everyone I was absent because I didn't want to sabotage my weight loss with alcohol. I was absent because I had a headache and didn't feel like hanging out at the bar two nights in a row, as I had been there the night before with a guy.
The only thing I can think is that she's channeling her frustration with her own lack of results onto me. When the WiiFit scale shows progress for me, she says, "Yeah, that's great, as long as you can keep it off. You're losing it all way too fast." Not quite 25 lbs in three months is not too fast, IMHO.
I have a friend, she's awesome but a spanner in the works, to be sure! she's heavy too, she's lost weight and gained some back and she's great to have lunch with because we LAUGH about the craziness of being fat and trying to lose weigh. She'll mock my choice once in a while, but all in all she's not too bad. I'm a crazy person, so if someone tries to force food into me i'm very "Wow why don't YOU eat it" in a joking way -- but no one forces food in my mouth, ever. That's all ME
I lost a good friend, partially because of weight loss but also because of other things. At one point, I weighed 100 lbs more than her but then I lost and she gained and she weighed more than me. Overall, she just wasn't happy and I tried to salvage the relationship that had lasted many years but there was nothing I could do when she pushed me away.
I was fine and had tons of support when I started. As I ventured into normal weight territory my people expected that I would slack off and allow crappy foods back into my diet. I've been offered tempting treats more times in the last 5 months than I ever was during the big time loss.
It's hard to make understood that no, I still need to keep on being healthy and eating healthy most of the time in order to stay this way.
Forgivable misconception though - I think most people believe you can return to 'normal' once the weight is off. In my case, this is the new normal and I refuse to go back even a inch to where I started 150 pounds ago.
People can be very pushy. All I can do is say 'No thank you' very firmly and move on. It works, no explanations necessary yet.
ETA: Oh! I do have two people in my life who are VERY much against my weight lifting. They keep warning me that I'll bulk up and never be rid of the muscles. As if. They need to get a clue.
For me my DH is not helping at all. When we go to the store when I get to the check out I find things he has hidden in the cart. All junk. I've talked to him about losing weight and how I want his support. It's not that I want all the junk out of the house, but do we really need 3 bags of potato chips and cookies and all that crap in one week? What really bothers me is that he was in the military for sooo long and for him working out is easy. I've asked him to help me with a routine and maybe we could work out together and alls he tells me is to walk on the treadmill...
People who try to undermine your efforts.
I'm only 14 pounds in this time, but do you have people like that in your life? How do they try to undermine you?
