I Don't Want to Be the Fat Friend!

I'm posting some advice I gave to a client in our private forums. I feel most of us have gone through this at some time or another. It's natural  to be jealous of someone's success. What is a waste of your time is letting them have all the success when you have ZERO excuses to be just as successful, if not MORE successful than them. I felt this advice was just too good to not share with all my PNP readers.

"I'm going to preface this by saying how petty and immature I am going to sound.

I have a friend who linked me to her Sparkpeople page where I can see her food/exercise journal. She decided she wants to lose 15 lbs before her trip in May and for the past two weeks she has been dieting. Her diet consists of 1100-1300 calories of mostly processed foods. She has already lost 6 lbs. The only exercise she is doing is elliptical for like 20 minutes 3x a week.

Now, the intelligent side of me realizes how much damage she is doing to her body right now. She'll probably lose 20 lbs in the next 8 weeks but she'll be skinnyfat in size 8 instead of 10. But the difference is that she has stuck with it for 2 weeks, while I contine to vascillate between eating in my calorie range and blowing it. Sure, I eat better food but I just can't seem to not be jealous of her quick success.

 Another thing, I don't want her to be skinnier than me. It's just not fair. I workout and I cook real food, not processed crap. If she ends up in that size 8 before me I am going to be mad!! I suppose I should use this as motivation, right? I hate that I feel this way about someone that I care about, I feel embarassed and selfish for even be writing this, but I had to get it out... "

"Well you said it yourself; her success has most to do with her willingness to stick to her calorie range first and foremost even if the calorie range is wrong. It is always going to come down to what we eat before what we do in the gym. Anyone can lose weight without exercise...not that it's not important, but it can be done.

Processed food...well, that's a whole other thing. I mean, I like clean food and most of what I eat is clean or fresh but I eat plenty of rice cakes, sugar free jelly, canned tuna, pudding, and the like. The way I see it is that I try to make the majority of my diet fresh so that the few things I eat that aren't fresh is OK. It works for me and I'd rather eat a frozen SBD pizza with a salad and an apple than to just say "screw it" because I don't feel like cooking and then order a pizza. :)

Your feelings are natural and she's losing too fast. She's not losing a lot of fat I can promise you that much. In the beginning she is mostly losing water, fluid, and muscle by drastically cutting cals and combining it with a little cardio.

What you can learn from her is that she is doing something she can follow for now. You need to do that too. If always eating clean leads you to straying way off plan, incorporate some easier stuff into your menu so that you can stay on track better. Work out right so that when both of you lose your weight you will LOOK so much better and she will wonder why she doesn't look as good as you even though you both lost X amount of weight.

Be jealous, be fired up, and whatever else it takes to get you on your own program consistantly. Ain't nothing wrong with being petty especially when it makes you take better care of yourself. Heck, I'm petty as all get out but I own it. LOL."

I hope you learn from this that losing weight is going to come down to the simple things:

1. Consistancy

2. Journaling

3. Staying within your cals by avoiding BLT's and unplanned meals

4. Exercise

I've said it 1000 times...80% diet - 20% gym. Ladies, the only magic formula is you getting over yourself and realizing that in order to lose weight and look great you have to work hard. If it were easy we'd all look like an Oxygen Fitness Model!