How do you deal with people who question your healthy lifestyle?
Last week I provided the short answer to this question but today we're digging deep to understand what's really happening here.
When I was in the thick of getting healthy, it was just me. No friends or family joining me for workouts. No meal-prep parties. I was good with that and still am because, personally, I was doing it to change my life and I just wanted to prove to myself just how badass I was.
I feel like people around me thought I was going crazy with working out daily, chugging all the water and having to pee all the time, and snacking on veggies. I remember one Thanksgiving where I got just a tiny bit of everything instead of filling the plate 5 stories tall and going back for seconds with people just kinda looking at me and telling me how it's Thanksgiving and I should let myself indulge. But I didn't want to. I wasn't going to justify going ape-shit with all the food just because it was a holiday. I looked at it more as a challenge and a great opportunity to stay true to my goals.
The comments made surrounding how I "needed" to give myself a break with exercise were unjustified...I was only working out 10-20 minutes a day. Even though I would brush them off, the little comments pissed me off.
When someone makes comments about your healthy (and well-balanced!) lifestyle, it's important to know that it's coming from a place of insecurity. The person making the comment is probably coming face to face with the fact that they are not taking responsibility for their health. There is a sense of hopelessness and probably some shame they are feeling.
You can be there to offer help and support. The really frustrating thing, at least for me, is we can't change others. We can help shift their way of thinking about what health looks like. But we cannot force others to make healthier changes so that they can live to see their great-grandkids.
My advice, keep being a rockstar to show others what their future could look like. You're giving them a glimpse of future possibilities. Be open to having a conversation without judgment when the doors are open but until then, keep doing your thing!
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