Long time lurker, first time poster here!
I come from a family of big eaters who are all, at least, overweight. This includes me! I was overweight my whole childhood, food was a huge part of my life and was a reward for any achievement or success.
Over the last two years I lost four stone. I’m working on shifting the last of my weight, but because I don’t really want to imply to my bigger family members that I don’t want to look like them anymore, I’ve been doing it very quietly without mentioning my goals. As I get smaller, the feedback has mostly been that I’m ‘too skinny’ or I look sick. I am absolutely not too skinny. I weigh 180lbs and I’m 5”6, I’m still classed as overweight and I’d like to get down to 150 or lower.
I have one family member in particular, who I’ll call Joe for the purpose of this rant. Joe is obese, has the worst eating habits and has just been diagnosed pre-diabetic. Joe also has a large family of young children to look after and it scares me to think they’re putting themselves at such a risk without considering their little ones. Whilst I am concerned, I don’t actively care about the fact that Joe is big, but I was really happy when they came to me to ask for advice on how to get into a healthier lifestyle.
I started to explain about CICO and the apps that are helpful. I suggested going for walks with the kids. Swapping out the sugar heavy drinks and coffees with water for low sugar fruit squash. I listen to Joe tell me about how they can’t do exercise because their heart rate goes above average, how they can’t eat less because of an iron deficiency, they don’t like healthy food and don’t have the time to prepare it. Joe will often bring fast food to my house, usually two burgers and a large fries. I suggest switching to one burger and a small fries. At the time of this conversation, Joe eats 6 rice crispy marshmallow treats.
There are a couple of other family members here at the time of this conversation. My (reasonable and healthy suggestions??) are all met with excuses as to why Joe can’t do these things. I’m even told that Joe is going back to the doctors because they believe they have a thyroid issue responsible for the weight. That Joe can’t even go for walks because they are so tired from the iron deficiency they’re basically disabled. I’m even told that it was different for my weight loss because I walk to college.
Now I get that Joe and my family are trying to make each other feel better. I get that it’s such a hard thing to do and make changes around, especially when you’re so deep in the food trap. But it hurts that when I’m asked for advice, not only am I told they just can’t do it but they even have the cheek to belittle my own efforts. Family members actually raised their voices and got annoyed at me for giving the advice I was asked for. I tried so hard to tread lightly and make gentle suggestions without personally hurting Joe’s feelings. It really hurt to hear my hard work discredited. You don’t lose four stone by walking half hour each day. You do get to be obese and pre-diabetic from going to coffee shops daily and eating caramel muffins and frappes as a snack.
I’m sorry for the long rant. I hope I don’t come across as being snobby with my family, I truly don’t care what they eat or what size they are and wouldn’t have offered advice unless they asked for it. I will, of course, still support Joe if they need me too but any advice on how to help get them out of this mindset would be very appreciated.
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