Why your friends don't want you to lose weight...
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honsi
Posts: 210 Member
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/10819912/Why-your-friends-dont-want-you-to-lose-weight.html
Here's the article:
The Goonies had Chunk, Take That had Gary Barlow, the college fraternity of Robot House from Futurama had Fat Bot and your mates have, um, you.
Sorry, but it seems to be an unshakeable cliché that every group of friends needs a Fat One; someone to be the lovable, chubby butt of all the pie jokes; to make the other members of the group look and feel slimmer in comparison. So what happens when you decide to lose weight and decide you no longer want to be that person?
The people you work with, live with and socialise with can have a huge impact on your weight loss, because they have the power to inform everything from your diet and fitness regime to your self-esteem. This can be a real positive if they’re cheering you on, but the danger arises when this power is wielded irresponsibly. As Men’s Health Forum editor Martin Tod puts it, “Men are less likely to recognise that they’re overweight than women – and less likely to consider being overweight a risk to their health – so male friends will probably start off less than sympathetic.”
The problem may be that your mates don’t want you to lose weight. This problem tends to manifest itself in one of three ways. The first, and easiest to recognise, is bullying. Because social occasions for groups of male friends tend to revolve around food and alcohol, a positive change in behaviour for one member of the group can serve to highlight the extravagant behaviour of the rest. As Martin Tod says, “Sometimes it's easier to make a joke about someone who's trying to lose weight than to confront that you might need to do it yourself.”
It’s all too easy to chalk this stuff up as friendly banter, but as Tod warns, banter can be harmful and counterproductive. When your mates are mocking you for ordering salad at the steakhouse or struggling to do your first sit-up, they’re bullying you every bit as much as when they used to get you to perform the Truffle Shuffle back in school. As Tod advises, this behaviour stems from a psychology of hierarchy that exists in male peer groups. If the alpha male types become threatened it’s natural to respond to a threat with increased aggression; albeit that tends to be passive aggression rather than pinning you down and scenting you with their urine (if that happens, you definitely need new mates).
The second, slightly less obvious way in which your mates can ruin your diet is misplaced advocacy. This is where your friends, seemingly with their hearts in the right place, belittle your lifestyle choices by insisting that having dessert “won’t kill you”, or telling you with cast-iron certainty that you need to do P90X or you don’t stand a chance.
Registered Dietician Aisling Pigott of the British Dietetic Association explains that in this behaviour stems from social politeness, “It’s the desire to ensure our mates don’t go without,” she says. “It’s the reason we continue to offer that extra lager or bag of chips, even if they are aware that the person is trying to lose weight.”
From Tod’s perspective, the problem is that men tend to prefer to be more proactive than reactive; we prefer to weigh in with our own opinions and be problem-solvers, rather than be supportive good listeners. All well and good when we have expert knowledge of a given subject, but we’re all too happy to blag it when we don’t know what we’re talking about.
The third, manifestation of your mates not supporting you is pure-and-simple apathy. It’s unlikely that your social circle will consciously aim to sabotage your efforts (see the note about urine above if so), but the bottom line is that people don’t like change and will usually do anything to maintain the status quo, so if you find that your mates are ribbing you for the “rabbit food” on your plate, or for cutting down on the lager and pub snacks, or for the way you look in your sweatpants, it’s important that you understand their motives. Once you realise that this behaviour says more about them than it does you, you’ll be able to look at ways to combat it.
So, once you understand the negative effect your friends are having on your weight loss, what can you do about it?
Solution: Cut negative people out of your life
Let’s start with the bullies. The extreme solution would be to cut these people out of your life. It’s like your mum always said, if they were your real friends they would understand and support you. Assuming they have some redeeming characteristics, the answer here would be to accept that support isn’t their strong suit and simply put the worst offenders on the back burner for a while, until your diet is more firmly on course. If you can’t cut them out, dilute them – think of the positive people in your life and drop them a text about a game of squash.
Solution: Understand where they’re coming from
The key to this, as with all bullying, is to recognise that it’s all about self-esteem. When your mates are belting out “Who Ate All the Pies?” the object is not to make you feel bad, but to make themselves feel good. We each carry our own personal feelings of inadequacy and the secret is that we’re all pretty much as crazy as each other and they’ll have their own concerns they don’t want highlighting. When you start to lose weight the bully now begins to fear that the focus will turn to his baldness, shortness, and/or inability to pronounce the letter ‘R’.
Solution: Watch your language
Start talking about your weight loss efforts in a different way. Martin Tod suggests that some of the negative associations men hold with dieting might simply be about the terms we use. “You’re probably more likely to have the piss taken out of you if you say you’re dieting than if you say you’re getting fit. Men aren’t too keen on the ‘D’ word” - perhaps because products like Diet Coke are marketed so squarely at women, making a diet a somewhat emasculating prospect for a bloke.”
Instead, focus on your exercise regime and how much stronger and fitter you’re getting. Focus on the foods that are enabling you to smash through your personal bests. You’re beefing up on protein to increase your lean muscle mass and you’re balancing all the cardio by massively increasing your nutrient intake with vitamin-rich foods. Throw in some impressive-sounding terms and a statistic or two and they’ll be hooked.
Solution: Get honest and explain why you need this to work
Guys who have a healthy relationship with food never understand the rest of us who don’t. The men who claim they can “eat anything and never put on any weight” don’t have some kind of superhuman metabolism; they just don’t know what it means to truly overeat; habitually, without heed. Explain how you feel about it. Tell your mates that you can’t give yourself an inch without taking a mile; that allowing yourself to let the diet slip for a day can set you down a slippery slope. If you decide that placating them is the easier option all round, plan ahead so you can fit the odd treat into your lifestyle without blowing the whole thing and jumping crazed into a Scrooge McDuck-style vault full of chocolate coins.
Solution: Involve your friends in your weight loss
This brings us to the final tactic you can employ to get all of your friends onside, no matter which category they fall into, and that’s getting them involved. Martin Tod says, “Your mates can be a great support - particularly if they decide to join you in tackling their weight and improving their fitness as well.” This could be something as simple as getting them competitive and organising a kick-about before the pub, or it could be something monumental, like training together for an actual marathon and raising a few sovs for a charity close to your hearts.
Aisling Pigott explains that you might also want to find a new HQ. With 1g of alcohol containing almost as many calories as 1g of fat, alcohol is a diet-killer for many reasons. “Despite being very energy dense, alcohol stimulates most peoples’ appetites, leading to feelings of hunger. And because alcohol lowers our inhibitions, this in combination with stimulating appetite often leads to a trip down to the kebab shop.”
Man V Fat is a free digital magazine for men who want to lose weight. It's also available on iOS and on Android
Here's the article:
The Goonies had Chunk, Take That had Gary Barlow, the college fraternity of Robot House from Futurama had Fat Bot and your mates have, um, you.
Sorry, but it seems to be an unshakeable cliché that every group of friends needs a Fat One; someone to be the lovable, chubby butt of all the pie jokes; to make the other members of the group look and feel slimmer in comparison. So what happens when you decide to lose weight and decide you no longer want to be that person?
The people you work with, live with and socialise with can have a huge impact on your weight loss, because they have the power to inform everything from your diet and fitness regime to your self-esteem. This can be a real positive if they’re cheering you on, but the danger arises when this power is wielded irresponsibly. As Men’s Health Forum editor Martin Tod puts it, “Men are less likely to recognise that they’re overweight than women – and less likely to consider being overweight a risk to their health – so male friends will probably start off less than sympathetic.”
The problem may be that your mates don’t want you to lose weight. This problem tends to manifest itself in one of three ways. The first, and easiest to recognise, is bullying. Because social occasions for groups of male friends tend to revolve around food and alcohol, a positive change in behaviour for one member of the group can serve to highlight the extravagant behaviour of the rest. As Martin Tod says, “Sometimes it's easier to make a joke about someone who's trying to lose weight than to confront that you might need to do it yourself.”
It’s all too easy to chalk this stuff up as friendly banter, but as Tod warns, banter can be harmful and counterproductive. When your mates are mocking you for ordering salad at the steakhouse or struggling to do your first sit-up, they’re bullying you every bit as much as when they used to get you to perform the Truffle Shuffle back in school. As Tod advises, this behaviour stems from a psychology of hierarchy that exists in male peer groups. If the alpha male types become threatened it’s natural to respond to a threat with increased aggression; albeit that tends to be passive aggression rather than pinning you down and scenting you with their urine (if that happens, you definitely need new mates).
The second, slightly less obvious way in which your mates can ruin your diet is misplaced advocacy. This is where your friends, seemingly with their hearts in the right place, belittle your lifestyle choices by insisting that having dessert “won’t kill you”, or telling you with cast-iron certainty that you need to do P90X or you don’t stand a chance.
Registered Dietician Aisling Pigott of the British Dietetic Association explains that in this behaviour stems from social politeness, “It’s the desire to ensure our mates don’t go without,” she says. “It’s the reason we continue to offer that extra lager or bag of chips, even if they are aware that the person is trying to lose weight.”
From Tod’s perspective, the problem is that men tend to prefer to be more proactive than reactive; we prefer to weigh in with our own opinions and be problem-solvers, rather than be supportive good listeners. All well and good when we have expert knowledge of a given subject, but we’re all too happy to blag it when we don’t know what we’re talking about.
The third, manifestation of your mates not supporting you is pure-and-simple apathy. It’s unlikely that your social circle will consciously aim to sabotage your efforts (see the note about urine above if so), but the bottom line is that people don’t like change and will usually do anything to maintain the status quo, so if you find that your mates are ribbing you for the “rabbit food” on your plate, or for cutting down on the lager and pub snacks, or for the way you look in your sweatpants, it’s important that you understand their motives. Once you realise that this behaviour says more about them than it does you, you’ll be able to look at ways to combat it.
So, once you understand the negative effect your friends are having on your weight loss, what can you do about it?
Solution: Cut negative people out of your life
Let’s start with the bullies. The extreme solution would be to cut these people out of your life. It’s like your mum always said, if they were your real friends they would understand and support you. Assuming they have some redeeming characteristics, the answer here would be to accept that support isn’t their strong suit and simply put the worst offenders on the back burner for a while, until your diet is more firmly on course. If you can’t cut them out, dilute them – think of the positive people in your life and drop them a text about a game of squash.
Solution: Understand where they’re coming from
The key to this, as with all bullying, is to recognise that it’s all about self-esteem. When your mates are belting out “Who Ate All the Pies?” the object is not to make you feel bad, but to make themselves feel good. We each carry our own personal feelings of inadequacy and the secret is that we’re all pretty much as crazy as each other and they’ll have their own concerns they don’t want highlighting. When you start to lose weight the bully now begins to fear that the focus will turn to his baldness, shortness, and/or inability to pronounce the letter ‘R’.
Solution: Watch your language
Start talking about your weight loss efforts in a different way. Martin Tod suggests that some of the negative associations men hold with dieting might simply be about the terms we use. “You’re probably more likely to have the piss taken out of you if you say you’re dieting than if you say you’re getting fit. Men aren’t too keen on the ‘D’ word” - perhaps because products like Diet Coke are marketed so squarely at women, making a diet a somewhat emasculating prospect for a bloke.”
Instead, focus on your exercise regime and how much stronger and fitter you’re getting. Focus on the foods that are enabling you to smash through your personal bests. You’re beefing up on protein to increase your lean muscle mass and you’re balancing all the cardio by massively increasing your nutrient intake with vitamin-rich foods. Throw in some impressive-sounding terms and a statistic or two and they’ll be hooked.
Solution: Get honest and explain why you need this to work
Guys who have a healthy relationship with food never understand the rest of us who don’t. The men who claim they can “eat anything and never put on any weight” don’t have some kind of superhuman metabolism; they just don’t know what it means to truly overeat; habitually, without heed. Explain how you feel about it. Tell your mates that you can’t give yourself an inch without taking a mile; that allowing yourself to let the diet slip for a day can set you down a slippery slope. If you decide that placating them is the easier option all round, plan ahead so you can fit the odd treat into your lifestyle without blowing the whole thing and jumping crazed into a Scrooge McDuck-style vault full of chocolate coins.
Solution: Involve your friends in your weight loss
This brings us to the final tactic you can employ to get all of your friends onside, no matter which category they fall into, and that’s getting them involved. Martin Tod says, “Your mates can be a great support - particularly if they decide to join you in tackling their weight and improving their fitness as well.” This could be something as simple as getting them competitive and organising a kick-about before the pub, or it could be something monumental, like training together for an actual marathon and raising a few sovs for a charity close to your hearts.
Aisling Pigott explains that you might also want to find a new HQ. With 1g of alcohol containing almost as many calories as 1g of fat, alcohol is a diet-killer for many reasons. “Despite being very energy dense, alcohol stimulates most peoples’ appetites, leading to feelings of hunger. And because alcohol lowers our inhibitions, this in combination with stimulating appetite often leads to a trip down to the kebab shop.”
Man V Fat is a free digital magazine for men who want to lose weight. It's also available on iOS and on Android
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Replies
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Sorry, but the author lost me with "bullies." If you're an adult male and haven't gotten used to friendly banter among friends and some trash talk when you announce for the umpteenth time that you're quitting drinking or are finally going to lose that 25 pounds, then you need to grow some thicker skin. I agree with the author that the guys are resistant to change, but they will come around if you approach it seriously and yet can still engage in some friendly banter.0
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The people you work with, live with and socialise with can have a huge impact on your weight loss, because they have the power to inform everything from your diet and fitness regime to your self-esteem.
That's BS. No one has that power unless you choose to give it to them. If you're giving other people the power to "inform" your self esteem, then you've got bigger problems than unsupportive friends.
I had to learn early on in life that if I didn't find/create my own sense of worth within myself, I would never have any. Friends are nice. Friends that make us feel loved and appreciated are even better, but worth comes from within.
ETA: When that is found, it's easy to grow a thicker skin, and to take some good-natured ribbing from friends, rather than to see them as "bullies" that you need to stop hanging around with.0 -
I may agree with the concept of the "alpha male" to some degree, but that tends to stop mattering as much once men are past the age of the fraternity. More than one time in my life, I've watched a self-proclaimed "alpha male" be taken down a few notches when he pulls the kind of crap alluded to in this article. The psychology of hierarchy only exists in the minds of the self-proclaimed alpha males, and when they get their egos bruised and lash out, they just look like tools to the rest of the world.
ETA: And if it's good-natured ribbing, that's just the way guys are. If you want friends, then be willing to accept some smack talk once in a while. No man is immune to it, not even the perceived alpha.0 -
i don't have the attention span to read all of... SQUIRREL!0 -
I may agree with the concept of the "alpha male" to some degree, but that tends to stop mattering as much once men are past the age of the fraternity. More than one time in my life, I've watched a self-proclaimed "alpha male" be taken down a few notches when he pulls the kind of crap alluded to in this article. The psychology of hierarchy only exists in the minds of the self-proclaimed alpha males, and when they get their egos bruised and lash out, they just look like tools to the rest of the world.
ETA: And if it's good-natured ribbing, that's just the way guys are. If you want friends, then be willing to accept some smack talk once in a while. No man is immune to it, not even the perceived alpha.
QFT0 -
I think people get used to friends and family members being a certain way. Changes unsettles them, even if it means that person is getting fitter and healthier. Iif it is a friend of the same sex and you become slimmer and more attractive, jealousy might also be an issue.
I find that my mum often says I look too thin when I'm the weight I want to be. Other people have said that to me too, and I think I listened to them and I'm now at a weight friends and family don't comment on, but I feel a bit too fat. I've decided it's not up to them what weight I am, what matters is what I think since it's my body (and I'm talking about healthy weight here, not underweight).
One other thing is if someone's usually fat friend/family member loses the weight and becomes slim and healthy, then it is likely to make them question their own lifestyle choices which could make them feel uncomfortable. In the end, it's their problem. Everyone should be the (healthy) weight they feel best at.0 -
Oh! So in this thread!!
This thread has everything!
bullies...
saboteurs...
inability to control yourself...
And a giant Scrooge McDuck diving into a vat of gold wrapped chocolate coins!
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Yes I think that's true. I'm not a guy but I used to be the fat, unfit friend and people where happy to be judgmental and patronizing in relation to my eating habits and sedentary lifestyle and it made them feel better about themselves. Now Iv'e lost 56lb and have stuck to a healthy lifestyle for the past 2 years, it has made those same people feel uncomfortable. I am now fitter and stronger than them, I'm doing things that they did not expect of me and I'm doing them constantly as part of a life long change. There is a tension there because of that.
I do also think that you can get a bit boring with the diet and exercise stuff and I've learned who to talk about it with and who not to.0 -
Why does this even matter? Seriously, I don't understand why you NEED other people to approve of your decision to lose weight. What is with this new philosophy that if you don't actively and vocally support people who are doing things you don't care about, you're either jealous or you're a bully? Isn't it okay to just not care?0
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TL;DR
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TL;DR
This.0 -
someone please read that to me.0
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i don't have the attention span to read all of... SQUIRREL!
Agreed. TL; DR :yawn:0 -
I agree, I'm not doing this for anyone else and don't care what other people think about it. I didn't care what other people thought when I was over weight and unfit either. But it can change the dynamics between people esp as we tend to fit into a certain role whether we want to or notWhy does this even matter? Seriously, I don't understand why you NEED other people to approve of your decision to lose weight. What is with this new philosophy that if you don't actively and vocally support people who are doing things you don't care about, you're either jealous or you're a bully? Isn't it okay to just not care?0 -
I'm left wondering if the author ever actually watched The Goonies. Every single kid in that movie got *kitten* from the other kids about something.0
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someone please read that to me.
I summarized it in my post above.0 -
Tangential: There is ALWAYS a fat/ugly chick in any group of "hot girls". Always. It's symbiotic: the hot girls need the fat one(s) around to make them feel hotter, and the fat girls need the hot girls to get them into better social standing.
Fact.0
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