You're probably wondering how my diet and exercise programs are going. There's just nothing more interesting than hearing about every morsel of carb-free food someone eats or how many minutes they spent on at treadmill. Right? Wrong!
No one really cares about someone else's diet and exercise program. I mean, they do - but only in how it might relate to themselves. For example, you don't really care that I've been eating Paleo lately. Not completely though because Paleo doesn't normally include cookies or wine - which seems to be a problem for me because I slip a little of those in every day.
I know a woman who has been on every deliver-to-your-door/go-to-meetings/free-app diets known to modern women. She has been on a new one in 2015 and looks fan-freaking-tastic. No carbs (even fruit), no drinking and she has little protein packets that taste "pretty good" she says.
I'm going to be honest (when am I not?). When I told her she looks really healthy and asked her what she's been doing it was because a part of me (must be that extra 20 lb part) is jealous as hell of her discipline and diet success. Maybe I was hoping she'd been sick and the weight-loss was the result of some catastrophic though curable disease. Or, as in the case of another woman I know, lost 20 lbs on the "Divorce Diet". Huh, there's a thought ... JK Dave!!!
I don't know about you but my eyes glaze over and my heart turns black when I hear about my friends' food programs (I cut out gluten and feel sooo great!) or scientific information about food (potatoes and tomatoes are nightshade vegetables and are bad for your immune system. What? How have the Irish and Italians survived all these fucking years?) Or juicers who put every veggie imaginable into their Bullet and call it good. I call it disgusting! And I really, really, really tried to like it.
Hearing about other people's healthy food programs and seeing their weight loss does two things to me: makes me crazy with envy because someone else lost weight and I didn't (this was supposed to be my year to lose that menopause weight!) and shakes my self-esteem. We middle-aged women were raised in the age of Twiggy and diet pills. Sadly, we secretly compete to be the skinniest. Admit it or not, that's the way it is.
Counseling 101 according to TMac: Hate and envy of skinny friends may be our first reaction but skinny people need friends too! Ultimately, it's about you, your time, your goals and values. It's about what you are willing to do and/or give up to be "skinny". For me, apparently I'm not willing to give up cookies or wine. But I am willing to give up bread and dairy. I'm also not willing to drink mushed up veggies or drink chalky(expensive!) protein shakes, like ever! Kudos to you if you can choke it down!
P.S. The exercise recap is just as bad as talking about food. No one really cares how many steps you took, each mile you biked, every burpee you did, whether you are at boxing class or not, or how great your yoga class is. I'm glad you got a good workout and feel great. That's all I need to know.
Unless, of course, you found a way to lose weight while eating cookies and drinking wine - then tell me every detail.