How friends can influence your weight loss plan

How friends can influence your weight loss plan

Sometimes, moms are right! Don’t get annoyed with your mom when she says ‘bad company’, because it is true that friends can lead you far away from your goals, especially your weight-loss goals, knowingly or unknowingly. If you are wondering How friends can influence your weight loss plan – a report from New England Journal of Medicine says that friends could be the cause behind your obesity, which did surprise and offend many people. However, come to think of it, you can never deny the fact that friends hugely influence your habits and day-to-day activities. Here’s How friends can influence your weight loss plan and how they make you fat and ways to avoid them.

Areas where friends have an influence

• Treats you can’t refuse: Parties and treats are common affairs in a friend’s circle. Sometimes, your urgency to stick with your diet plan often is met with deaf ears. Friends may even resort to statements like, “Won’t you break your regime just once?” or “Am I not more important to you than your diet plans?” to motivate or persuade you to join in their plans. Most often than not, you fall for this “emotional blackmail” and deter from your plans. Of course, you value your friendship and you don’t want to disappoint your dear friend! This pattern keeps repeating on and off, and you give up on your weight loss plan.

• Creating depression: Studies reveal that the psychological state of a person matters more than physical activities or the diet involved in weight loss regime. Factors like depression have a big influence on the way you put on weight and may pose difficulty while losing it. Sometimes, friends play a vital role in increasing the level of your depression by passing rude remarks and being sarcastic about your weight or weight loss activities. If this goes beyond your bearable limits, you may just give up or lose the motivation to reduce weight completely!

• Losing sense of time: Managing time effectively is a very difficult task for people with a large number of friends. If you are a person who has more than a dozen friends to hang out with, you may also fall in the no-time-for-important-things trap! Your time will be mostly spent in discussing inane topics, and you may completely lose sense of time.

• Gadgets and buddies: With the increased number of gadgets in the market, friends usually tend to spend a whole lot of time with computers or mobile phones. This results in sitting idle for long periods of time, which contributes to putting on weight and poses the biggest obstacle for weight loss (this happens inadvertently!). Even though gadgets are an important part of our life, spending long hours in one place, especially when you are on a weight-loss regime is foolishness, and needs to be corrected sooner than later.

Now that you have seen how friends can influence your weight loss plan let’s see how you can tackle these challenges.

Tips to get out of these traps

• How to trick treats: True friends understand each other’s discomforts and woes. As much as you value their friendship, they should value yours. First and foremost, try to explain to your friends about your concerns and the necessity to stay away from the party. Most often than not, they will understand and let you be. However, if it becomes difficult to do so sometimes, you can agree to participate and can resort to the following measures:
  • Pile up your plate with low-calorie food stuffs like salads, and eat slowly. Give your friends the impression that you are indeed enjoying your food.
  • Stick to natural juices and avoid colas.
  • Avoid junk food and sweets, or else just take very small helpings.

• Tips to stay away from depression: The best thing you can do here is first of all choose your friends wisely. Sometimes, it is just that they may not understand that certain remarks are hurting you. You need to just have an open talk with them. Good friends will always understand and stop their irrational behaviour. When you are on a weight-loss mission, you are enduring a lot of physical strain. Similarly, learn to ignore these silly remarks. Have a devil-may-care attitude towards these remarks, not your weight loss regimen.

• Tips to hang out less: Your personal health is more important and your goal to get rid of the extra weight has to be given priority over hanging out with buddies gossiping about inane stories. Outing with friends can also be planned out properly, so that you can allocate your precious time judiciously! Don’t forego your regular exercise timing for these meetings. Another tip is to keep walking during “hanging out” sessions instead of sitting. Also, take care that you don’t end up gorging at the roadside eatery after this precious hanging out session!

• Work around the gadgets: Instead of playing mindless computer or mobile games, try to motivate your friends for a game of shuttle badminton or tennis. During breaks, you can still look at your friends’ new phone or exchange notes regarding that.

Friends, even though they do care for your wellness, can be a hurdle deterring you from achieving your desired goal. Finding the right motivating buddies and sticking to your plan of action largely lies in your own hands. If you are innovative enough, you can work around all your hurdles and emerge a winner, no matter how friends can influence your weight loss plan you can come out without getting alienated by your friends. Even your friends will be proud of you in the end!