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You should feel confident that you are actually healthy! It sounds like you are in amazing physical shape and on top of your body's needs; that's something to be proud of! I'm a small size 0, down about 10 lbs from where I was a couple of years ago, and I don't feel nearly as good about my body as I did back when I weighed more, because I've lost all of my muscle from lack of use. (I do eat normal amounts, though!) I used to run and practice yoga, but now (what with 60+ hours of work a week), it's really tough to get in any exercise at all. I envy you! Keep up the healthy lifestyle choices and don't let those around you who make unhealthy choices in order to obtain a certain body image get you down!!
Your friend probably has an eating disorder.
You should definitely feel proud of your accomplishment, but realize that this isn't a competition and she's not "cheating." She's ruining her health and dabbling in a fatal disease.
I's advise not talking weight with her - or anyone else for that matter. The proof is in the pudding and what matters is how you look to yourself and how you feel in your skin. How many pounds someone else loses and or how has no bearing on your improved habits and fitness.
just ignore them. you have a good head on your shoulders and know what's healthy. your friends apparently don't!
Yeah, like the pp said... don't make it all about weight loss, but about health, too! Also, these friends sound really insecure and like they do have problems with this, so perhaps you should share the info with people who can deal with the whole weight thing better (for them, it's a sore subject).
Also, have you talked to your friends? I might try to sit down and have a good talk with them about their unhealthy habits. Even if they don't listen, it might be good to try--you don't want them to end up very very sick.
You are beautiful!!!! Being healthy is what is important! What your friend is doing is not healthy at all and the weight she is losing is muscle NOT fat. Everytime you look in the mirror tell yourself your beautiful AND Healthy, it makes you feel so awesome!!
Ack! I can understand how it's hard to feel confident when you are not getting positive support from your friends. But, please remember that your weight loss comes from a place of healthy lifestyle adjustment. And the one-two punch of watching one's diet and working out changes muscle tone and posture for the positive.
Once upon a time, I was going through something awful in my life and stopped eating for about a month. I'm a plus-sized gal and lots of people told me I looked wonderful... but I felt like poop. I was already having a bad patch emotionally and then added physical weakness on top of that. For all the grief I give myself about my weight, I never regret gaining back those 17 lbs. because that kind of weight loss was not good for me.
Congratulations on your healthy weight loss, your stress relief, and your earned confidence.
It is so easy to get caught up in the competition with others about weight loss. It's such a sensitive topic for so many women and something many struggle with and obsess over for years. But what I've learned is that there is no easy way out. If you crash diet, you will gain the weight back and you won't be healthy. You need to take pride in how you are losing weight in a healthy way that is strengthening you and your body. You can't measure you sucess against another person. Be proud of your weightloss and don't let a quick remark by someone else make you doubt yourself. Congrats on your sucess!
I'm not sure what you are upset about.
You = healthy (though are you trying to lose muscle? why?)
Her = unhealthy
I can't tell from your post if you are upset because you are worried, or that you don't feel validated. If it is the latter, this is a cycle you MUST break. Health is valuable absolutely for its own sake, not for validation. There are a lot of skinny girls running around who aren't very healthy (I know, I've done the beer and lattes "diet." Never been skinnier, never been less healthy, mentally or physically).
I have a few anorexic and/or bulimic friends. Eating disorders aren't fun, and they usually stem from some deep-seated issues that go far beyond just wanting to be beautiful. Sounds frustrating if your friend isn't officially diagnosed with anything (or maybe has been diagnosed with something but hasn't told you). In any case, she definitely doesn't sound healthy.
A good friend of mine modeled while we were in college. She was never diagnosed as anorexic, but I'm sure she had at least a borderline eating disorder. I'm a petite girl - 5'2, size 2 - and she yelled at me once for putting olive oil on pasta because "you put fat into an otherwise fat-free meal."
Fast forward to her first pregnancy. She ballooned because she finally gave herself "permission" to eat all the foods she wouldn't touch ordinarily. She went waaaay overboard on junk food, because she had basically been starving herself her entire adult life until she got pregnant. After baby #2, she's now struggling with a serious weight problem.
The bees are right. How do you feel confident around her? You give her all the empathy you can muster because she's probably very unhappy inside. You feel happy because you love yourself enough to nourish yourself properly. Because you're not willing to sacrifice your health for a malnourished body that is impossible to maintain in the long run.
Don't feel discouraged or jealous, feel concerned. As other commenters have said, your friend is displaying symptoms of anorexia. Even if she hasn't seriously harmed herself yet through the impacts of this debilitating psychological disease, she's not doing her body any favors. Losing weight through self-starvation is a self-defeating process. She'll lose a lot of weight very quickly at first, but is very likely to gain it all back rapidly plus some, and continue to yo-yo in that fashion with increasing difficulty in losing the weight each time as she trains her body to resist the process. Your friend needs a kind friend to help encourage her to stop this behavior, and perhaps talk to a therapist to grow past the grip of her eating disorder.
As for you, congratulations and good luck on your healthy weight loss. I would caution that it sounds like you might not even need to lose any weight, if it's all in muscle as you imply. You don't need to look like a stick to be beautiful.
I can relate a little. One of my bridesmaids loses weight easily by just eating lightly for a few weeks. She doesn't eat so little that it is dangerous, but she just cuts way back for a few weeks and is back into her skinny clothes. She does this every few months. It's just really easy for her to maintain a thin figure.
For me, while it is super easy for me to gain weight, I have to make a marked change to lose weight, like go on a strict diet. This friend said to me when I went on South Beach, "It's not healthy to not eat carbs. I lose weight just by switching to whole wheat bread and eating low fat yogurt." Of course, if that worked for me, I would LOVE to do that instead! Who wants to give up bread?! But I need to in order to lose weight.
I'm not saying its the exact same thing, but sometimes its easy to get jealous of friends who have it easier than you with weight loss. You feel like you work so much harder for the same goal. In the end, it has to be about you and no one else, though, but I know it sucks.
I'm sorry you're having a rough time, but I guess I don't understand why this has knocked your confidence for such a loop. It sounds like you're in great shape, and have a very healthy lifestyle. Would you rather trade that for an unhealthy lifestyle, just to feel like you "measure up" to the disordered eating habits of your friends? I'm also not sure why you wouldn't feel confident around your friend who eats once a day-- do you think that makes her better than you, or enviable or something? Make sure you measure yourself against your own values and goals, not the ones of someone else.
Your friends probably don't notice or care because it sounds like you're already at a healthy weight and have a healthy lifestyle-- I know I would never notice if some of my fit, athletic friends lost 8 pounds. The changes that you're probably seeing in your body and energy levels aren't probably that visible to your friends-- when we're around people quite a bit, I think we don't notice these small physical changes.
It sounds like you're getting great results from your committment to fitness, so please don't let the lack of support from your friends get you too discouraged!
Just know that you are healthy, and doing things the right way! You won't gain the weight back quickly as she will as soon as she eats more than a morsel a day. Focus on the health of it, as a healthy body is a beautiful thing!
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Sorry, bees...feeling the need to vent...
For the past month, I have been watching what I eat, doing yoga, and running. Physically, I have felt so confident and so secure just because I knew I was working out and because yoga is such a huge stress reliever.
Today, I proudly announced to two of my closest friends that I've lost about 8 pounds since beginning yoga. One of them promptly responded with, "Oh yeah? I've lost ten pounds since last year!" Where did she get this information? From her gynocologist, who informed her that losing 10 pounds within the 3 month period she saw her within was too short. How did she lose the weight? Not by working out, not by watching what she ate, but by starvation...by simply NOT eating.
I'm so upset...I did feel so proud about my weight loss (it's hard for me to lose weight b/c I was a collegiate athlete and most of my weight is muscle tone that requires ungodly amounts of cardio to decrease) but yet...none of my friends seem to notice or care. Does anyone else feel this way by their friends who do not work out, or put forth what I consider a real "effort" to lose weight, b/c they simply don't eat?
Honestly, one of my dearest friends, who is beautiful in every way, literally eats one meal a day - how am I supposed to feel confident around her???
Feeling discouraged...