How to answer questions about why I'm not eating certain things?

emmalvale wrote: »

Just be honest and say you are trying to eat more healthy!

I agree with this.

Consider how complicated this could get over a few months. When you start visibly slimming down, and she asks how long you've been eating differently, what will you say? If you meet about every week, she's going to notice a pattern. Just get it over with - tell her what you're trying to do. Then she'll understand why you are choosing different menu items.

Perhaps in the future you won't even want to have your get-togethers at restaurants. Then what?

tiffanymariearpaio wrote: »

PriceK01 wrote: »

I can't imagine what could make you feel awkward about letting a friend know you're trying to make healthier choices. Any chance your friend is obese?

We are both bigger. She lost some weight but stopped so yeah it's weird if I tell her I'm still going.

Well, why is it weird? Do you not want to hurt her feelings? Not make her feel like a failure?

If so, that's thoughtful of you, but you're taking too much of this on yourself.

There's a difference between being in-your-face-rude about succeeding, and being just honest about something that's going on in your life. And this sort of situation can be awkward. Say you have a great job and just got promoted, but your friend's career is doing terrible. You may want to refrain a bit from talking about your terrific position in polite conversation unless you are sure your friend will react well to that. But it would also be just as awkward to pretend you didn't get a promotion and your job's going well.

You doing well on a diet doesn't actually have any reflection on your friend. It's good to be sensitive to any feelings of envy, competitiveness, or the like. But you have to be honest about what your needs are, and right now that means ordering the healthiest items on the menu. You don't have to feel awkward or weird about that.

If it's an alcoholic drink just tell her you're already tired and it would probably put you to sleep and that would be no fun. If it's a sugary drink just say you'd rather not get that sugar rush only to crash in an hour or so. Or if it's something like coke just say it's getting too late for caffeine and you don't want to be up all night. As far as food you can tell her the fried foods or heavy sauces give you heartburn or make you breakout. I think the best thing would be to say that you're trying new things and want to change your eating habits because you don't like feeling stuffed and overeating makes you tired. An additional "Who knows, I might even lose a few pounds" would also be appropriate.

She is your friend so just explain to her what you are up to
Depending on how she behaves after that you can decide what to do next
I never had a friend question me on my food choice eating out. Find it really weird

So, I have this really close friend. A while back we both started trying to lose weight and we were cheering each other on, lending support, etc. Then, I pretty much fell off that wagon and went back to my regular habits of over eating and whatnot. Of course I gained weight back too. I noticed she stopped talking about her progress and efforts as much and I let her know that she didn't need to do that and to not be uncomfortable...talk about it all she wanted. I continued to cheer her on as she killed it and met her goals even if I wasn't even trying to meet mine.

Fast forward to now and she's taking a break and I'm the one who is back at it and killing it. And she is just as supportive as I was for her and asks me about my progress too.

I think in a healthy friendship you can be happy for your friends when they succeed even if you aren't succeeding yourself at that given time. She and I both know that if one of us is staying on track we aren't going to judge the other if they aren't.