​Are Your Friends and Family Sabotaging your Diet?

Posted by Chris Adams on January 14th, 2021

One of the biggest problems many of my clients have is their friends and family try to sabotage their attempts at losing weight or improving their fitness. They might not mean to, or even realising they are doing it.
There are many ways people do this such as, pressuring you to have more to drink, offering you an extra bit of cake, make you feel like you're ruining their evening by not eating or drinking what they are, leaving treats out at the office for you and bringing a takeaway home are just some of the many examples.
There are many reasons people do this, such as: 

They think you're not happy or enjoying yourself
Many people associate food and drink with having fun, and they might worry that you're not happy, or enjoying your night if you're not eating or drinking as much as you used to, and think they are helping you by offering you that extra drink. 
On one night out, my then-girlfriend kept offering me another drink and was worried as I stopped drinking after the second drink.  She was convinced because I wasn't drinking that I wasn't enjoying myself. 

They feel threatened
Your partner might worry that you won't find them as attractive once you've lost weight. It's common for someone to worry they will lose their partner if they keep losing weight. For example, if a woman was overweight, she might not get much male attention, and the husband felt comfortable that his wife wouldn't leave him. When she loses weight, he suddenly feels threatened now that more men find her much more attractive.
With friends, they might not like that that their 'fat' friend is now the one getting the attention on the nights out. 
I've seen both of these happen many times over the years.

They feel bad about their own lack of success 
Your success could make them feel bad as their attempts to lose weight, or get in better shape have failed. 
Many people are very selfish, while they might be happy for you, they often bring it back to themselves and how it makes them feel about themselves.

They don't understand
If their health and isn't a priority, they might find it hard to understand why you're making all these changes for it. 
People who haven't ever had a weight problem often can't understand why you need to keep eating like this even when you've lost the weight. They see it as you being obsessed when in reality, you're doing what's necessary to be healthy and stay at you the weight you want to be. 
As strange as it might sound, they might actually fear for your health and think you're wasting away. This is especially true if most people around them are overweight. Being overweight becomes what's normal in their eyes.

They miss the old you. 
They miss the experiences you had together. They miss having their drinking buddy, the takeaways while watching a film on a Saturday night, or their "vent over ice cream friend’.
They might feel left out if you spend the evening in the gym when you used to spend it with them. Your friends might be wondering who they're going to do these things with from now on.
Nakd Wholefoods did a survey where 1 in 4 admitted to purposely sabotaging a friend’s diet. These are just people who know they're doing it and will admit to it. 
When asked why they did it,
36% of women said they found dieters irritating because they talked about their diets too much.
25% said they simply found dieters grumpy and miserable.
20% admitted that a friend's diet made them feel guilty for not being on a diet themselves.
20% admitted feeling bad about themselves as they watched the diet progress.
14%respondents feel jealous when they see a friend shedding the pounds.
10% said that they did not find calorie counting friends fun?

A good recent example was when Adele lost weight. There were loads of comments from people annoyed with her for losing weight. I saw comments like, "she has given in to pressure", "gone too extreme", "disappointed with her" and "you were prettier before". Predictably, these comments all came from people who were overweight. It's so selfish of them. People often like their fat friends, or celebrity to stay overweight like them.

What can you do to prevent it from happening

Talk to your friends and family
Talk to them at the start and explain what you're doing, and why you're doing it and why it's important to you. Don't assume they will just understand why you're doing it, and they realise how important it is to you.

Remember how important it is to you
Remember the reasons why you're making these changes, and why it's so important to you. Maybe you want to be able to play with your kids in the garden, or you don't want to be out of breath so easily, or you don't like how you look in the mirror.
It's easy to forget about the reasons when you're being pressured. Remembering why you want to do it makes it much easier to say no to people when you're being put under pressure.

Be prepared to say no when offered something
Don't allow other people to pressure you into doing something you don't want to do. Even after you've explained to them why you're doing it, there will be times that you have to say no and explain why you don't want to eat what they're offering. 
Take responsibility for your own health.
You're expected to still attend the same social events as before which involves food and drink
Just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you have to stop having a social life. You can still go out, you'll just have to be sensible about what you eat, and plan for it.

Be prepared to limit your time with people who drag you down. 
This might sound harsh, but it's often what is needed. In my early twenties, I used to drink much more than I do now. When I decided to limit my alcohol consumption, I first explained to my friends I was doing it. I would still go to the pub but limited myself to two drinks, they would try to pressure me into having more. Each time I would say no, but they never stopped. It got to the point where they would just go to the bar and bring me back a drink without asking me. I realised that I needed to limit how often I saw them if I wanted to achieve my goals as they weren't going to change. 
This doesn't just apply to fitness, surround yourself with positive people who will help you improve and grow, and remove people who are holding you back. 
If they don't want what's best for you, are they really good friends?
Once I realised, and started to surround myself with like-minded people, my life improved dramatically.
Take responsibility for your own health, it's up to you what you eat, drink, and how much exercise you do. No one can force you to do something you don't want to. You're the one who will have to live with it and deal with the consequences if you don't make the changes. 

https://www.chrisadamspersonaltraining.com/