I would describe myself as healthy and fit. I work out 3 times a week and my job requires me to climb 100 meters repeatedly throughout the day. I eat a lot of chicken and rice and between meals I love to snack on fruit and crunch on sweet peppers.
I have a friend who feels hopeless, depressed, unattractive and complains about her weight/belly. She says the weight ease gained since having her 2 kids, which is pretty reasonable. Her youngest is about 6. She says the only way she can lose weight is through surgery. The longer I was around this person, it didn’t make sense why she was so big – She is active and high energy, going on a walk just about every day. Maybe she did have a condition that prevented her from losing weight.
Over the past few days it has become clear what’s actually going on. she is eating slop every single day . She eats chili dogs, tater tots, cheese fries, sloppy joes, pop tarts, fried chicken, anything covered in cheese. She is snacking all of the time on chips, fried foods and microwave dinners/frozen food. 0 vegetables, 0 water. All soda, sugar and highly processed foods.
Now that I’m typing it out, she’s not asking for advice (just complains to me about how bad she feels) so I probably shouldn’t give her unsolicited advice. So is that the right thing to do, to say nothing?
Édit: thanks for thé advice! Going to stay In my lane
2 comments
This is a very long post for something unsolicited and kind of not your business.
Your first paragraph seems like you want some applause. So congratulations on your fitness.
Ask her if she wants to change her lifestyle, if she says no, then drop it and don’t keep mentioning it. If she says yes, ask if she wants guidance/support for changing. If she says no, then I’d just drop it and not keep mentioning it, if she says yes, that’s when maybe you can step in and offer support/guidance.
If people don’t want to change, they are NOT going to change. It’s hard enough for someone to change their lifestyle even when they are motivated to do so, it’s almost impossible to do so if the person doesn’t want to change.
Lastly, the reason I say drop the conversation even if she says yes to change but no to guidance is because the change is going to have to come from within anyways, so in that scenario I’d say its best to leave it until she makes the first step towards change to not risk the friendship. It’s very common where people say they want to change, but don’t ever make any changes to do so, and this can last vast time spans, so best to just leave it at that point.