Eating with Friends & Family

Freidon

I live in the South. We love food, and we love a LOT of it. It's not unusual for my family and friends to eat as much in one sitting as I'm supposed to in a day.

It's exhausting to eat around them.

I have to hide that I'm on a diet. Every time in the past that I've made an effort to watch what I eat, the whole "shaming" thing begins. "You look fine." "That's all you're eating?" "I made this just for you." "One piece of cake isn't going to kill you." "You're on a diet and you're eating that?" "You don't have an eating disorder, do you?"

So, for the most part, I just haven't mentioned it. They know I buy lean cuisines, but they think it's just because I'm a lazy college student who doesn't have time to cook. When I'm at college, I'm fine. I eat by myself, have full control about how I space out my meals, everything works out. It's when I have to eat with other people that there's a problem.

Going out to eat is a nightmare. I had no idea how many calories were in some of those meals... I try to avoid salads and "veggie burgers", since that will immediately earn eye rolls and draw attention to the fact that I'm eating less. But the meal has to look big enough on a plate that I can eat only half without drawing attention, all the while staying in a 300-500 calorie range. And that's assuming I'm lucky enough to look up the menu's nutrition facts beforehand.

I weigh 160 pounds. My ultimate goal is to weigh 115-125 pounds. I make sure to eat 1200 calories per day, and do my best to make sure I'm getting my nutrition in. I'm just trying to eat better, to get down to a healthy weight before having kids and getting older adds extra pounds. Trying to avoid diabetes. That's it.

Do you have friends or family members that, while being "supportive", make dieting difficult? How do you handle it? Any advice?

melsinct

Honestly? You are letting the bad attitude of others ruin the healthy effort you are trying to make. I had a couple similar people in my life I initially hid my weight loss from but here's the deal..as you keep losing they will figure it out. So speak up and own it if someone asks. I NEVER talked about my weight loss unless someone asked. Eat whatever food you like, just in smaller portions. If people ask if you are on a diet, say that you are making an effort to lose weight. If they insist you are fine, insist that no, you are actually overweight and would like to get yourself to a healthy weight for your height.

It seems pretty f-ed up to want to eat a large plate full of food to keep up appearances. You will have to deal with these people and their pestering now or when you lose a noticeable amount of weight and they know what's up, so you may as well get it over with and not be in the closet, so to speak. Believe me, the naysayers will back off once you lose a noticeable amount of weight, then they will be asking you how you did it and what is your secret!

Good luck, I know it is hard to deal with those kinds of people!

Freidon

Thanks for the advice! Yeah....I'm hoping to casually lose enough weight so that when people raise eyebrows over how much I'm eating, I can point out that the way I'm eating is the reason I lost the weight. Even then, I feel like I'd still have to hide the fact that I count calories. There's this perception that calorie counting is something only obsessive dieters do. If I told them I didn't want to eat at a certain restaraunt because I hadn't had a chance to look up the menu's nutritional information yet, they would think I was developing an eating disorder. Which I'm not. I want curves, I just want healthy curves.

Sorry for the late response, just now had a chance to post you back. I've tried explaining that I really am overweight before, but they just come back with the same old "BMI doesn't account for muscle" argument. I'm not going to lie about it if they ask, I just don't want to make a big deal about it, or alarm them. Did you have anyone get offended when you initially didn't tell them?

melsinct

No, no one was offended that I kept it from them. Once you start losing weight people will definitely start asking about what your "secret" is. They mainly lose interest when you tell them you are just watching calories. I guess it isn't as exciting as "I cut out carbs" or "I am on the cabbage soup diet". :laugh:

I didn't want to make this huge proclamation that I was going to lose weight to people and then not follow through. I wasn't about to put my failure on display! However, once I started MFP, the weight started coming off, I knew I could do this, and at about 10-15 pounds down, it was very obvious I lost weight and the secret was out! I also didn't get into any specifics unless asked, as I didn't want to be viewed as a crazy calorie counter. If I went out to dinner, I would always look at the menu ahead of time. If that wasn't an option and I had no idea about nutrition info, I would pick something I assumed wasn't too bad and keep my portion sizes reasonable. I don't eat out so often where that was a big issue though.

Put yourself first and don't worry about them. You will see that as you lose weight, some of the former "shamers" will want to follow your lead and lose weight too. Stay strong and develop a thick skin!