Do Friends Let Friends Lose Weight?
You are actively pursuing weight loss. You feel great about your efforts, which have led to noticeable results. But, on the way to meet a friend for lunch, you begin to get a niggling feeling in your belly. Something’s bothering you, but you don’t know what. As soon as your friend settles in the car, the first words out of her mouth remind you why you were apprehensive.
“Please don’t tell me you want to go somewhere boring and diet-y again. Olive Vine has all-you-can-eat pasta bowl at lunch!”
This is a common situation for people making change. It can cause your mind to go into overdrive.
You might:
1. begin to make excuses for her
2. remind yourself she’s your best friend
3. pretend you didn’t notice the negativity and judgment dripping in her voice
4. go along to “Olive Vine” and valiently fight to order something that doesn’t lead directly to a nap
Six Key Weight Loss Habits of the Naturally Thin
Part of my real-world research as I lost over 90 lbs involved following naturally thin people around. Asking questions. Posing challenges. Discerning habits. My merciless stalking, if you will, produced a wealth of information I had never learned in my food addicted upbringing.
Naturally thin people are not thin because they are smarter, stronger or have more willpower than other people. They are thin because they have developed habits that serve THIN, instead of making FAT. Here are the top six:
1. Never Eat Unless Hungry – Naturally thin people know hunger cues, and see them as signals for action. Without the green light, they don’t eat.
2. Stop Before Full – Naturally thin people never feel stuffed or uncomfortable. They feel a satiation cue which stops them right before they are completely full. Their connection to their bodies is strong, and they honor the feedback they get from their physical body.
3. Waste Food, Not Waist It – People who never struggle with their weight don’t worry about throwing food out when they are full, whether that means a to-go box, or the trash can. They know that refusing to “waste food” means “waisting” it, which is just like carrying your garbage around on your body for everyone to see.
50 Ways to Leave Food
We often have a picture in our heads of what successful weight loss looks like.
It might go like this:
New Diet + Short Period of Time = Skinny Me
We convince ourselves this is how it works and, when it doesn’t work, we blame ourselves. Or the diet. But usually ourselves – as if any diet EVER worked!
With a 99% fail rate and a 108% regain rate, diets are so not the way to go.
Once we realize this, some really big opportunities open up! As one of my clients recently said, “There really are 50 ways to leave your lover!”
Abandoning Ourselves
Have you heard this quote?
“The chief cause of failure is trading what we want most for what we want at the moment.”
The road to weight loss is littered with bad trades!
We vow to attend a barbecue and avoid drinking alcohol, since that often sets off compulsive eating. But, in the moment, perhaps under peer pressure from the host or hostess, we throw the vow away and plunge headfirst into a margarita.
We promise to eat in a healthy manner but, when the first meeting of the work day shows up decorated in doughnuts, we’re on a sugar high before the boss can say “Good morning!”
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