Day Eight!

Wow! A week and one day! What can I say? How about... Yay!
Today's title,
Friends and their non existent PhD's
I don't know about anyone else, but when I talk to my friends about weight loss they seem to turn into doctors! It's incredible! All of a sudden they're wearing lab coats, a stethoscope appears around their neck, and they're giving me unsolicited opinions about what is healthy and what is not.
Okay, maybe the lab coat and stethoscope stay at the office but I do get advice that I didn't ask for. The most frustrating thing for me about this is that it's from people who are either skinny and have never been overweight in their life. Or on the flip side, it's from overweight friends who have never been a normal weight.
I asked Dr. Laurie about this and she told me that people have an image of what others are supposed to look like in their minds and if change is even mentioned "oh, but you're not that fat." or "But you look good!" starts to come out because the thought of change makes them feel uncomfortable.
And if you haven't mentioned your weight loss journey to your friends but are starting to look trimmer, then I find people start the sabotaging process. Maybe it isn't on purpose, but this is when your office buddy starts to bring in cookies and doughnuts for everyone, or maybe it's a friend who now asks you to eat out with them a lot more than usual now. Dr. Laurie explained this too, the sabotage (in most cases) is definitely not on purpose. Societally in our minds we associate losing weight with being ill. So when people start to bring you food or put you in a situation where food you don't eat anymore is surrounding you like a tornado trying to suck you into your past self! it is because it is a natural response, they are actually trying to protect you, even though they are unwittingly sabotaging what is actually healthy progress.