It is so hard to talk to my friends about weight loss!
I am the thinnest of most of my friends. My friends who I am refering to all say the want to lose weight. My friend "S" actually started meeting with a nutritionist and at first she was doing great but I'm not sure anymore we have been out to eat a few times(all her idea) and she ordered a very fattening thing. I want to talk about weight loss and support eachother. But I don't want to come off as a nag! Since I am the thinnest(I know I am still overweight but they have 100 lbs on me) I don't want them to think "you don't need to lose weight" or "you don't understand". Its dissapointing when they talk about wanting to lose weight but they don't make changes. That is the reason I joined this forum because I know everyone here takes it seriously. Should I just not try to talk to them anymore about it?
I'd just let it go and get your weight loss support here.
It sounds like you are at the action step and they are still over in contemplation. They will get there when they are ready, but in the meanwhile... you are there and probably would get better support here.
Totally agree with above posters- talk about something else. I was the same way as your friends were- wanting to lose weight but doing nothing about it until one day, it just clicked and I was ready to do it. Maybe when you get to goal, they will be inspired to do the same.
I was going to mention the stages of change, too. That is such a helpful concept. Especially if you are feeling frustrated with yourself for not taking action. You can just say to yourself "hey, I'm contemplating, you can't rush me!"
Just wait - pretty soon you'll be really thin and your friends will want to know how you did it. As the saying goes ... "When the student is ready the teacher will appear"
I had a BFF who was much larger than me, but she was always saying she wanted to lose weight, but never would honestly try. I actually started trying just to be supportive of her, so she would have someone as a buddy. It is hard to know what to say, I would always just say "so, ah, hey... are we doing this weight loss crap or what?" lol she was a major excuse maker and it was one of the final nails in our friendship coffin. They were always completely broke, yet she would blow money of diet fad and equipment she never used. She couldn't just buy A treadmill, it had to be almost top of the line, and of course it was worth the extra because it had a place to set her ipod (which she also had to have before she could start losing weight). Last I knew she had had the treadmill for a year and never used it. She claims since she is so tall (5 ft 8) that her stride is too long for your run of the mill treadmill. She needed a stationary bike, but not just any bike, one that was on the expensive side with a reclining seat and all the extras. She used it once while I was on the phone for about 3 minutes and then only ever touched it again to move it outside into the dilapidated shed/garage thing they have in the backyard. Her 11-14 year old girls jumped on it till they broke the seat. She had Bosu Balls, a bodybugg, Tons of wii games, and it's never enough... some people just can't be talked into doing what THEY themselves say they need to do.
She was always very judgmental of my method of weight loss which I never could understand, when she had some of the craziest ideas I'd ever heard! She went for a couple of weeks living off 350 calories a day until it almost killed her. She would eat tuna on lettuce with a couple spritz of salad spritzer and coffee. Then there was the low carbing...no bread, no starches, no sweets, no dairy and only half the veg... I mean, it might work for some people, but when she said you couldn't even eat tomatoes, lol that was out the window for me! lol She could (supposedly) lose a ton of weight really fast, like 20+ a month with low carb, but that seems a little unhealthy and when she stopped (the most I saw her lose that way was 15) she would balloon up even bigger. She even tried shooting up some sort of pregnancy hormones when she dropped her calories to 350 and they were horribly expensive and did absolutely nothing.... It was all finally too much for me... last I heard she had decided she was allergic to gluten and that's why she was fat. I can't handle excuse makers and it makes it very difficult to discuss a subject when them, when they are in total denial and in full excuse making mode. My advice is to just say what you need to say, kitty footing around gets you know where, I know.
I agree, you're totally better off seeking support from forums like this one. Talking about weight loss with your friends, especially when you're not on the same page with it, can lead to resentment along the way.
Lack of serious support is what helped me to find 3FC. I was the Biggest of all my fat friends, and I was like your friend who wanted to do something but never did. I was also a little jealous of people when they would lose a few pounds, and cry the blues that I couldn't/wouldn't. Well...one day I just decided to do it. It clicked and I was ready. I started down the healthy path. I quit drinking alcohol, smoking and eating healthy almost 3 years from today and never looked back.
Over the course of the last 3 years many of my co-dependant fat friendships have ended. The tables turned from me being the absolute fattest to me being the thinnest by far. I have changed in many ways and I am no longer interested in going out drinking, smoking and over eating with these people who mock me. They feel threatened being with me and I feel depressed and alone when I am with them. I have been on both sides of the coin. It sucks either way. It was time to move on.
Sometimes in life you just have to change your playgrounds and your playmates.
I think that when we are ready to lose weight or change our lives we tend to assume others want the same thing or are at the same mental place we are. I want to also say that there is nothing wrong with choosing to remain overweight. No one should be made to feel as though they need to change just because we have taken on the process ourselves.
My husband is 100 pounds over weight. He talks all the time about wanting to lose it. He is not, however able to give up overeating in order to do it right now. He can cut down for awhile, but has not been able to stick to it 100%. This makes it harder for me, I deal with his eating junk when I am very hungry, I deal with feeling I can't be overly talkative about my successes, I deal with the changes I am going through alone. But I respect where he is right now with all this, because I have been there most of my adult life. I always hated when anyone tried to get me to diet and felt it was none of their business what I ate. I still do. My support to him to listen when he wants to talk about it and ask him what does he want to do about it. In the end, his decision is his own and has to come from within.
Yeah. I’ve apparently become a downer to quite a few of my overweight, non-dieting, friends. And my non-overweight friends too now. I turn down about half of all invites to dinner. I try to explain to them that I am still in recovery from my bad eating & binging days but they just don’t understand that if I fall off the wagon just once right now, it’ll happen again. I ask them if they would invite an alcoholic with them to a bar. They say no but they don’t see the similarity. Or maybe I am too weak and feeble minded to see the difference? But either way it’s very hard when they aren’t supportive. I agree with the posters that say just don’t talk about it with your friend.
I am the thinnest of most of my friends. My friends who I am refering to all say the want to lose weight. My friend "S" actually started meeting with a nutritionist and at first she was doing great but I'm not sure anymore we have been out to eat a few times(all her idea) and she ordered a very fattening thing.
You've gotten a lot of good advice here. But here's another thing to consider... Depending on what she ordered, she may have been "on plan" for her. If you're working a low-fat/low-calorie plan, and she orders a cheeseburger with mayo, you're going to think it's "very fattening". Whereas if she's eating lower-carb/higher-fat, she may think your green salad with croutons, candied pecans and dried cherries with sweet raspberry vinaigrette is "very fattening".
For her it would be.
Or she could be doing an intermittent fasting plan, where she eats the majority of her calories during a two-hour window of the day. She can eat a LOT of food during that time and have it all be "on plan", and not eat much of anything the rest of the day.
If you're not talking to her about her plan, it can be kinda hard to judge it.
It is so hard to talk to my friends about weight loss!
