Newsletter #22 – Are Your Friends and Family Making You Fat?

Are Your Friends and Family Making You Fat?

Quote #22

“Your income [body fat percentage] is the average of the ten people closest to you.” – Brian Tracy

Quick Tip #22

Au Bon Pain has a cool new menu called “Portions.” Everything is 200 calories, and everything is actually made out of real food (instead of high calorie food-like substances that you would find on the interior isles of a grocery store). 200 calories is way too small for many of you, but you can get 2 (or 3 if you are a larger man) and be properly fueled on healthy and tasty food.

They have things like asparagus and almonds, tomato and chickpea salad, and honey mustard chicken. Click here to find out more.

Recipe #22 – Butternut Squash and Coconut Soup

I like butternut squash. I like coconut. Together they are even better. This is a great appetizer or snack or even a side dish for a meal. Click here for the recipe.

Are Your Friends and Family Making You Fat?

Even thought I know I will end up with a lot of hate mail, I’ve got to speak the truth – YES! Your friends and family probably are doing their best to keep you fat.

When anyone starts my accelerated fat-loss program the #1 challenge, by far, is other people – especially close people like boyfriends, friends, and family.

In my own journey, the people in my own life were, in fact, one of THE biggest and most annoying obstacles in creating the body I wanted. They were constantly telling me what I was doing was stupid. Telling me things like, “you look too thin.” (How in the hell can a 5’10” man look “too thin” at 200 pounds!?)

They would go out of their way to tell me how much of a pain in the ass my new eating habits were (not that I ever complained or made them cook special food for me). Or that they disliked how much I exercised (yeah, I missed like 4 American Idols per week!). They would even go so far to tell me that someone on Oprah said that not eating bread was dangerous. (Like I really want a fat person giving me weight-loss advice.)

I figured that my situation was unique. Nobody else could have this many bothersome people in their life. BOY WAS I WRONG!

As I started coaching people, I realized that 90% of my clients were having the exact same problems that I had. The people in their life, consciously or unconsciously, were trying to sabotage their progress.

With that said, here are the six ways I was able to make it out of the crab bucket of being fat:

#1. A burning, insatiable desire to get the body I wanted – I knew that there was no way, now how that ANYTHING or ANYONE could ever stop me from getting what I wanted. I had spent most of my life as a fat guy, and that was NEVER going to happen again, so help me God!

#2. Keeping my mouth shut – If you normally drink, generally your friends will pressure you into drinking. At work people will come into your office with two Danishes trying their hardest to get you to eat at least one of them.

When I was asked, “Why aren’t you ____________[insert: drinking, eating the bread, etc.]?” I said, “I don’t feel like it.” Or “I don’t want to.” And, then changed the subject or told a joke immediately

I kept off of the subject of diet, exercise and food. I was friendly, and congenial, but I kept off of the subject. Answering questions about your food, which is none of their business, is like drawing attention to the fact that you are making your way out of the crab bucket – people will start pulling you down. I really wish that I was not saying this, but this is consistently the experience of almost every one of my clients.

Do NOT give people a detailed blow-by-blow of your plan. This just opens up the door for them to say stuff like “you gotta live,” or “have one for me,” or “one little bite won’t hurt,” or “I saw this guy on Oprah who says that’s the wrong way to do it.”

For some reason people’s peer group generally thinks that it is their duty to keep the status quo. In this case the status quo is your unwanted body fat.

Maybe they feel as if your moving forward is you leaving them behind, so they think that sabotaging you will preserve the relationship. Trust me, they will not stop until they get you to break your plan. I feel bad saying this, but I’d feel worse if I didn’t warn you.

#3. Giving extra love – The people in your life are mostly scared of losing you. Somehow in their minds they have figured out that if you get leaner (and thus hotter), that you will suddenly dislike them, or something like that.

I found that giving people extra love, attention, etc. helped to calm their fears when they saw that I did still like/love them. Over time it actually seemed to make them want to find out what I was doing that was working so well.

#4. Being kind yet firm – Be aware that some people will take your extra kindness as an invitation to further undermine what you are doing, and/or even be abusive because you are changing. You have got to lay down the law.

People cannot treat you any old way that they feel like. You should be as kind as you possibly can, but you MUST be firm. You must mean business.

You get treated in life how you teach people to treat you – by your actions, not your complaints or criticisms.

#5. Detoxifying my life – Its unlikely that everyone in your peer group is going to make it. Some people are just toxic and will sabotage and be abusive no matter how loving, kind and/or firm you are. For your sake, some people have to go.

I am still friends with a lot of the people that I was friends with before. However, there I some people that I never speak to anymore, and there are some people that I only see on rare occasion.

No one in your life is neutral. Some people are slightly positive or negative, others are massively so. No one is neutral.

If you have to eliminate someone from your life to be happy and healthy, the world will be a better place. Any real friend would want you to be better off, even if that means being away from them.

#6. Being patient – As you persist. As you get results. As you are still kind and loving, at least some of the people in your life will become curious about what you are doing to look so good.

In enough time, a lot of the people in your life will you join you on your journey to the body you want as you lead by example. Also, in enough time, the “new you” will become the new status quo. You and your new lifestyle will eventually cease to be a threat to the people in your life. AND they will actually begin reinforcing your new habits (somewhat).

If you can hold on, be diligent, stay quiet and stay kind, the storm will eventually pass.