You're My Best Friend and I love you, but...you're fat

It's a strange thing, the way that your outlook on food changes when you decide to get healthier. You get this new energy and lust for life and you feel AMAZING and you want to share that with everyone! You start to notice all the people around you who are slowly killing themselves and who are robbing themselves of potentially YEARS of life and of joy.

Now look, here is the deal. I'm still fat. I have a LONG way to go before I am what would be considered a healthy weight. No fat person wants someone to tell them that they are fat. WE KNOW. It's not a secret to us or anyone else. Being healthy is a choice that everyone has to make on their own.

But herein lies the problem. What happens when someone you care about is really going down an unhealthy road? What do you do when you see someone that you love slowly killing themselves? Can you tell them? Should you tell them?

My issue is this. I have a friend, a best friend. Who has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. She has been there for me through thick and thin and I have her. No, we don't talk everyday, but that doesn't mean that I don't still love her. She has a young child now and I guess that is part of what has made me feel this way about her. Her mother died young, though not necessarily because of her own struggles with weight it was a contributing factor.

Now that I have started to improve my eating habits and I feel so much better I look at this girl that I love and I think to myself about all the things that she could miss out on with her son. She already has some weight related health issues and with the eating habits that I know she has it can only get worse. I think about how she won't be able to run with him at the park, she may not be able to fit into rides with him at theme parks, she could die young too, she could lose a lot of things she has now because of her health issues that she already has. This concerns me.

Is it my business? Not really, no. But I love her and I am concerned for her. So what do you do? What do you say? How do you tell someone that you are concerned about their eating habits? How do you tell them that with your newfound knowledge about how healthy eating can change your life that you are worried about her?

I don't think there is a way to do this that doesn't involve someone's feelings getting hurt. That is a sad thing really.

We have made weight such a hot button topic that it's wrong to talk about it and it's wrong not to. You don't want to say anything because you don't want to step on toes, you don't want to sound condescending, you don't want to make anyone mad. But weight isn't just about wearing a certain kind of clothes or working out. Your weight effects your LIFE. It can take time and joy away from you.

In a way I feel like I have no right to say anything to anyone about their weight. Mine is still MUCH higher than it should be. BUT, I am getting healthier. I don't care about being SKINNY, I care about being healthy and I care about being able to live my life to the fullest of my ability. I care about being able to ride rollercoasters with the kids (because, honestly, I have had to pass before for fear of not fitting in the car and not wanting to be embarrassed), I care about being able to run and play with them outside, I care about people taking me seriously in my career, I care about feeling good about who I am. I care about what I see in the mirror MATCHING what I see in my mind. I care about feeling good and feeling healthy and feeling strong. I care about being healthy and not filling my body with CRAP!

Your weight is not my business. It really isn't. It really isn't anyone's business but your own. But it's not wrong to tell someone that you care about their health. The worst that can happen is that tell you to fuck off and they are pissed at you for a while. The best is that they agree and now you have a workout buddy. You never know what words could change someone's life.

Sh*t Happens...and so does pizza, beer, ice cream, girl scout cookies, McDonalds, Starbucks..etc

It happens to all of us. It does really. You have those days or weeks where you are just, well, off.
 
Those times when you don't WANT to eat right, you don't WANT to put in effort. You are tired, you are maybe a little down, you feel overwhelmed, stretched, the weather is bad, you get your tax refund, whatever. SOMETHING makes you off kilter.
 
It happens.
 
So you finally move your bag of gluten free, all natural chicken strips and remember that you had girl scout cookies in the freezer. Thank You Berry Much? No. Dulce de Leche? No. Samoas and Thin Mints? Now THOSE were meant for me.

What is the serving size on these again? Right, two cookies. So you have two cookies. Eight times.

Your significant other gets their tax refund and so you go out to eat. Since you have splurged on this, you may as well go all out. So you go to the ice cream place, the cupcake place, you have beer and margaritas. You are on a slippery slope my friends. A slippery slope indeed.

So because you are at your third job most of the day and the time has changed and you feel like you can't get caught up on your sleep, and you have been out to eat like 4 days this week and the weather has been rainy and you had housework to do. You kind of lose your way.

You had a bad week.

Shit happens.

What you do with that shit is what defines you.

Your choices are as follows:
1- Leave the shit in your life.
I mean, who doesn't love walking in the bathroom to find that the person before you didn't flush? (Please don't get me started that is another blog in itself). It's nice to be reminded that even though you were doing so good before that you messed up. It's good to be reminded that you are weak, prone to failure, a screwup, and that your old shit will keep coming back to you.

2- FLUSH IT!
Flush that shit away. Don't let it ruin your day or your week or all the progress that you have made so far. Having a bad day or a bad week doesn't define you. Changing your lifestyle is HARD! Changing your eating habits is HARD. If it was easy there wouldn't be morbidly obese people, there wouldn't be addicts. Change is hard. It is a process. It is often a   s  l  o  w process. Maybe you did decide one day to change your eating habits or your exercise habits. Maybe you made that commitment. Good for you if you did. But you didn't become a fatty or an addict overnight. You won't NOT become that way overnight either.

Food is good. All those things I mentioned are good. We should have good food sometimes. But if you are a food addict, or even just a person who enjoys eating what you enjoy even when maybe you shouldn't, you have to be aware of what goes in your body.

After about 2-3 days of all those things I listed. I felt like crap (again). I was tired, I didn't want to go exercise. My head hurt, I just felt well, like shit. So, I decided to flush it! (Literally, I'm doing a detox/cleanse).

Sometimes you just need to rejuvenate yourself. Get pissed that you gained back weight that you worked so hard to lose. Get pissed that you are no longer at the top of the rankings, get pissed that you were weak. (NOTE: we all have moments of weakness, they happen, they shouldn't discourage you, but you CAN use them as a motivator to do more.)

This is a new week.
This is a new chance.
This is a fresh start.
This is a flush.

Shit happens people. But what you do with it makes all the difference. Don't let it hang around reminding you of all the things that are messed up in your life. Flush it. Flush it out of your life and out of your mind and get back to how you want to be. Don't let it linger around. Spray air freshener. Open a window, light a match for cripes sake. But get the shit and the smell of it out of your life.

Punch a girl scout outside of Walmart in the face (no, don't really do that you would probably get arrested and if all those little girls ganged up on you I would bet that they could mess you UP!); break that beer bottle on the floor! (You probably shouldn't do that either unless you are at home and you know, wearing shoes) Run into McD and shout F**K YOU! and give them the finger (again, 5150 possible here).

Temptation and weakness and bad days are GOING TO HAPPEN.

FLUSH.
THAT.
SHIT.

Everyone deserves a clean bowl, even you. Don't let all the bad linger on....Flush it, and start again.