You have just reached a health milestone! Whether it’s a smaller pants size, a weight loss goal, or your fastest 5 mile walk, you’re excited and anxious to tell your friend or relative. But rather than sharing in your happy success, your loved one minimizes your achievement, or worse yet, cuts you down.
Has this happened to you? Or even if it hasn’t, are you prepared to deal with the feelings you may experience if – or more likely when – it does?
If you’ve ever watched My 600 Pound Life, you’ve likely seen friends and family members who are enablers or saboteurs. Instead of supporting the dieter’s efforts, they tend to reinforce old, unhealthy eating and sedentary habits. Some even seem resentful when their loved one becomes successful. According to the physician on this television series, Dr. Nowzaradan,
“Families can either be enablers or encouragers. Having a supportive family for patients on a weight loss journey is an important component to their success…If they don’t have that, it’s almost impossible for them to be successful in the long term, unless they remove those people from their environment. So they either have to change their dynamic with those enablers or separate from them if they want to succeed.” (1).
I believe that minimizing the dieter’s achievements can be just as damaging as asking to see the dessert tray in a French restaurant. This is because it is setting up doubt and undermining confidence. Worse yet, the person doing this is a loved one, which makes it even more hurtful.
Read more about supporting your dieting or maintaining friends and family in the blog post, How To Support Others. Take a look at the list of “What Not To Do” so you wont be a discourager! https://lindawbrowning.com/2023/02/21/how-to-support-others-on-the-weight-maintenance-or-weight-loss-journey/
Rather than guessing at the detractor’s motives, let’s cut to the chase and look at how you can neutralize their actions. Let’s keep the focus positive so that you aren’t engaging in head games, passive-aggressive remarks, or revenge. That type of thing can be tempting when we are hurt or upset, but behaviors as these are rarely helpful in the long term. The ideas below may benefit you and your health, and perhaps educate your diet detractors.
- They are critical or disbelieving of your future success: Express how serious you are this time. Suggest to them that they either support you or remain quiet (2). That sounds overly direct, but you will need to set boundaries or the behavior will continue.
- They ignore your progress: Try show them some before and after photos that make your weight loss obvious. (To be fair, it can sometimes be hard to see weight loss if the dieter is always wearing loose, dark, or heavy clothing.) If they are still unable or unwilling to support you, try not to let it get in the way of your progress. Continue working on your health, knowing that as you approach your goals, their remarks will be recognized by others as being ridiculous!
- They minimize your need to lose that last bit or maintain your weight: Explain the reasons why you are pursuing your goals. It’s likely they don’t understand the difficulty of this stage in the weight loss journey if they haven’t experienced it for themself.
- They make negative comments about your weight loss: Let them know how you feel, but also that you’d value their support. You could say something like, “I’ve noticed some negative comments about my weight loss and I just wanted to let you know that they’re hurtful. I would appreciate your support as I work towards my health goals” (3).
- They prepare or buy foods that you should not eat: assuming this isn’t your sweet little old grandma (who we know is just using her love language), you can try complementing their effort while explaining that you can’t have this food. If you’re comfortable with prevarication, you could say that you’re not hungry, but that just postpones the inevitable (4).
- They continue to sabotage your plans: at some point, you may have to find a new support system by cultivating relationships with others who share similar interests in fitness and health. These can be neighbors, colleagues, in person diet groups like WW or Overeaters Anonymous, virtual diet groups, or new friends in fitness classes.
This isn’t the type of topic that is east to address. But it is always best to be prepared for obstacles that can get in the way of your progress. Keep working towards your goals and together we will succeed in maintaining our healthy weight!
Note that some ideas for this post were generated by ChatGPT as there were insufficient reliable sources. To learn more about artificial intelligence and its role in supporting our health journeys, please see this post: https://lindawbrowning.com/2022/12/16/can-ai-help-with-weight-maintenance/
(1). https://people.com/health/my-600-lb-life-dr-nowzaradan-why-difficult-patients-keep-weight-off/
(2). https://www.prevention.com/weight-loss/a20430677/friends-sabotaging-weight-loss-goals/
(3). With AI assistance from ChatGPT.
(4). https://biointelligentwellness.com/six-ways-to-deal-with-diet-saboteurs/
Maintain Weight Loss 