One thing I'm doing right now is renewing my commitment to have a very vegetable-heavy meal each day and to avoid sugar. I've got a really good book of veg recipies and am working my way through it front to back:
The book is really just a good way of reducing planning-load and organizational obstacles. I pick out the next couple of recipies, make sure I grab the necessary ingredients on the weekend ready and then just make sure to set aside the time to prepare the meal. Plus the recipies are generally good.
Regular and increased veg consumption seems to work well for me as a good reducer of overall calories. And I cannot overstate how much difference reducing sugar makes to being able to control what I eat. I used to get really bad hunger pangs. Whereas just now I had lunch an hour later than I normally do and the hunger was just a signal to me rather than the demand it used to be.
I really wish that I had been given better diet advice and feedback years ago, but I'll do what I can with what I have right now. You can always feel better than you do right now.
How do you handle "crabs in a bucket" syndrome?
I'm back on a low carb diet, and like last time, friends start talking about going out to at noodle houses, donut shops, hitting the county fair for some funnel cake, and this happens like clockwork.
I'm respectful of their dietary choices; if I have a kosher friend, I'm not inviting them to Baconfest. I don't invite people who hate spicy food to Szechuan Numbing Spice Palace. It's common courtesy.
That's a difficult one. Maybe the most difficult, because proper support and the ability to foster a healthy lifestyle is the most critical part of losing weight. It's incredibly difficult to lose weight just through continuous act of will. You do it best by building good habits and accumulating small changes. It's not to do with health but in my own life's journey I kind of moved away from a set of friends who weren't really doing much with their lives in terms of work and moving up and started making friends with people who were more driven and that was honestly a positive for me in helping me get my act together. Parallel situations in some ways.
I don't know that there's a really solid solution that isn't get new people around you. Losing weight is hard enough and if the people around you are holding you back from it rather than actively encouraging you, you might never make it. But perhaps the following are helpful suggestions that are less drastic alternatives:
- Do not be shy or ashamed of being clear about your goals with your friends. If they're good friends then they should accept those and support you in it. There's nothing at all wrong with you wanting to do this and working at it.
- Try to find at least some society that will fit with your goals. Even if these people are still your friends who you hang out with, you can have other friends too - a local sports club and amateur league in something like squash or whatever. Most sporty people are friendly enough and actually very supportive of someone who wants to lose weight and get fit. In fact, they'll usually give you an astonishing amount of support which will really make you question your existing friends if they don't. So mix in some new people who care about the same things you care about.
- Set a few goals before you go out. If there's a big group of you going to a noodle house, you can tell them you're just ordering a starter or no side dishes or whatever. Honestly, a doughnut shop or noodle house is about as bad as it gets - carb city. Urgh! But some goals will help in the situations where you choose to go with them. See point one about not letting them shame you about your goals though. Maybe you can just get a drink in one of these places or something.
- If you're struggling with the temptation of being in one of these places, plan defensively and have something to eat beforehand that will fill you out - a salad with some croutons and lots of leafy bulk. You're about to enter battle and it's entirely right to be prepared. Even if you choose to go you can at least eat less than you would with good planning.
- If they really start trying to pull you back down by either reacting negatively to you trying to lose weight or not respecting your goals and trying to sabotage you, then that's a big warning sign about whether these people are really the friends you think they are.
- Try to set up some non- doughnut shop hangouts. I don't know your role in the friend group - more of a hanger on or more in the periphery, but perhaps when it's 'your turn' to organise what the group does you can find something more conducive to you not eating.
- Hang out with them a bit less. This is the half-way house between finding a new friend group and staying with them. Nothing wrong with saying: "actually I'm hiking that day" etc. and skipping out the odd session. Whether you want to clue them in as to it being you trying to avoid noodle house or whatever, is really based on whether you think they'll be supportive or not, but it's your call.
That's a bit off the top of my head. Sabotage by friends, family or a partner is one of the if not THE biggest barrier to weight loss. Try all of the above in different degrees and see how it goes.
