I was reading through some posts today, and thinking how lucky I am to have the friends I have. I've never really realised it before but they encourage me to do what I have to do to lose weight.

They don't hassle me for not drinking with them at the weekends, they understand that water is what I want to drink and for a reason, they understand I dont want to go to McDonalds, so when i'm with them they don't they'll pick up a healthy alternative with me, they comment on how i'm looking thinner or give me a boost if i'm slacking!!!

Two in particular come to the gym with me, a place where I could feel self concious (sp?) around people with physiques I'd one day love to have. My friend Stephen who can run miles, and lift houses is happy to run at my pace and in my time through the park. And then get to his own level of training once I'm done!

So in a way its a salute to my friends who are helping me along with the advice from this site that keeps me going!!!

Just wanted to get that off my chest!!!

Do others have friends or family or even colleagues that they feel help them through!??

I'm moving to England.

We meet with as much negativity as we do encouragement. My wife is an inspiration as she's getting back into her competition shape now.

It's just the negatives that tend to stick. Family is a constant fight. Friends? It's been a couple of years now - the ones I still see get the picture now, but most are more "tolerant" of my modified lifestyle than they are accepting of it. I don't want to say I've "cut ties" to many of my friends of days past, but I don't spend much time with them anymore as they are not conducive to a healthy lifestyle. My car club buddies still eat at Hooters 2~3 times a week... they'd love me to join them again, but ... that's not for me anymore. Besides, do you know what a plate of hot wings would do to me now? :p

BlueStreak....Really??? Thats almost a shame, maybe its my character but I think if i wasnt spurred on I wouldnt be as commited??

My family are really cool with it, as far as they ask me questions on things like I have already succeeded?

The only negatives I think would come from work colleagues, but again not all. Once i posted about a colleague that asked me for some help, then dissed the site and sat opposite me eating a danish!!!


And........totally off topic.......but Bluestreak i saw a car like yours in my town at the weekend. Excuse my ignorance on American cars but it was the same colour and model as yours just without the blue rims. Strange to see but more and more American cars are popping up. I even saw a new Viper not so long ago!

My true friends have been encouraging. Of course they were worried when they noticed that I was getting really lean. Let's face it, they become used to seeing you a certain way and think that you may overdo it.

My family is great. Espically my wife. She pretty much had to change her lifestyle to accomodate mine.

Now my co-workers (which since I live in another country they become kinda friends by default) are not so supportive. I think I am partly to blame since now my interest have gone from drinking a lot (which is what they do) to fitness. So when they are all talking about how drunk they were ore are going to get, I am talking about lifting, swimming and a new healthy recipe I found. They see it as obsesive. We'll see who feels better at the beach this summer when they are flashing their beer bellies and I am showing a nice little 6-pack (no not of beer) :cool:

BlueStreak....Really??? Thats almost a shame, maybe its my character but I think if i wasnt spurred on I wouldnt be as commited??

Quite so. As I've said many times before, other people's angst at my improvements can be motivational at times.

My family are really cool with it, as far as they ask me questions on things like I have already succeeded?

I come from an extremely stereotypical American-Italian family. Everything my family does is at some point, in every family gathering, centered around unhealthy and large plates of food. They're used to my change and are as accepting as they are somewhat disproving of it. On the one hand, I get "well, you do look healthy..." but if I take off my shirt or sit down at the dinner table, it's "I hate your diet... I wish you'd eat more!" or "You're too thin!" I've learned to make friends with it and brush it off.

The only negatives I think would come from work colleagues, but again not all. Once i posted about a colleague that asked me for some help, then dissed the site and sat opposite me eating a danish!!!

Don't get me started on co-workers. They're fat, lazy, and unmotivated to do anything more than move a computer mouse. They don't bother to invite me to the monthly birthday celebrations we do at the office because I won't eat a large slab of sugary cake. They keep the A/C somewhere near freezing because of the coats of adipose tissue they wear. I'm constantly cold in here. In fact, I've taken to blocking off the air vents in my office so I can feel my fingers as I type/work.

And........totally off topic.......but Bluestreak i saw a car like yours in my town at the weekend. Excuse my ignorance on American cars but it was the same colour and model as yours just without the blue rims. Strange to see but more and more American cars are popping up. I even saw a new Viper not so long ago!

Pontiac manufactured 1,035 cars like mine - all exactly the same, cosmetically speaking. Many of them made it overseas. I'm part of an organization that tracks the whereabouts of the cars. The car is known as the 30th Anniversary Trans Am, and the coalition is aware of the car being in 17 countries outside the USA thus far, England included.

However, if the one you saw was white with chrome rims, that's what's simply known as a "WS6" Trans Am. It's identical to my car, but without the stripes, blue wheels and a few other bells and whistles to set the car apart as an anniversary model.

-R

"However, if the one you saw was white with chrome rims, that's what's simply known as a "WS6" Trans Am. It's identical to my car, but without the stripes, blue wheels and a few other bells and whistles to set the car apart as an anniversary model"

It was white, with with normal silver rims, but had the blue stripe over it. More than likely someone trying to imitate!

They have an annual American car show near where I live at a place called Billing. Then you see and certainly hear hundreds of American Cars!!!

Fortunately for me, my wife is really supportive, even interested. I remember when I bought my first tub of whey protein I hid it because I was embarrassed that I bought a "supplement". I thought she'd think I was wasting money or something. She was a little confused when I told her about it (LOL, it sounds like booze or something, doesn't it?) and eventually she got used to me having it around. Now she buys the mini EAS myoplex for her own diet. It's cool. My kids just think it's funny that daddy eats chicken for breakfast.

I receive little encouragement/discouragement these days from anybody, so that's good (no positive is better than lots of negative!). I've actually received little flak...just stuff from co-workers on occassion, but with the exception of one fat guy who obviously feels bad about himself, most of it has been a bit incredulous at my diet, but nothing demeaning or anything. My mother says I'm too thin...but she always will. I just ignore anything she says about it and she's given up for the most part commenting on my weight.

Last comment I received was from a guy who works out a lot who said he doesn't want to see tits on me this summer, using our new child as an excuse :) I said don't worry!

My boyfriend is super supportive, if I say that I lost even 1/4 a pound he'd be truelly happy for me, saying "Yay! Way to go!!!" . My friends have no comment on the issue. We just have other things to talk about. I'm sure that had I mentioned a weight loss they'd scan me, say "Oh, that's great" and we'd continue talking on other subjects :D . One of my classmates can be a pain though, he knows the weaknes I have for chocolates and his hobby is to tempt me with some extremely tasty candy. :mad: Though I'm sure that if I tell him firmly enough to stop doing it - he will. But for now I allow myself to "sin" once in a while (every day, lol) untill I'm finished with the exams.

Gila.

My friend have sort of a passive encouragement. Meaning, they will ask how I'm doing from time to time. When I tell them of my progress its something along the lines of, "Wow. That's awesome. It'll be hard to keep up, though". This comment was from the guy that is about 50 lbs overweight. The same one that will tell me, "I was down 6 pounds today!" The sad part about that comment is that the truly believes he is losing "weight". On the flip side of all this, if they ask me how I'm doing, and I tell them that I've plateaued, or that I went back up a bit, its something like, "See? I told you it'd be hard to maintain."

I take pretty much everything with a grain of salt, and don't really put too much stock in the things that they have to say.

Jeremy Likness said in one of his CDs that people are very prone to be envious of what you are doing, because they can't make the same changes themselves. It is because of that, many people WANT you to fail. I always try to keep that in the back of my mind, and use it as motivation.

My workmates (not really friends) used to find weird the fact that I was eating broccoli & chicken nearly every day.

Until one day, sick of their comments, I said:

"You know, my grandfather reached the respectable age of 102"

They said: "How, eating nothing but broccoli and chicken?"

Me: "No. He just minded his own f***ing business".

After that, I never got any comment, positive or negative, again. I'm quite happy about that.

My workmates (not really friends) used to find weird the fact that I was eating broccoli & chicken nearly every day.

Until one day, sick of their comments, I said:

"You know, my grandfather reached the respectable age of 102"

They said: "How, eating nothing but broccoli and chicken?"

Me: "No. He just minded his own f***ing business".

After that, I never got any comment, positive or negative, again. I'm quite happy about that.

LOLOL!!!

Love it! That's a saying I'll derinately put in use! :D

I generally don't get too many comments- every so often I get a :rolleyes: when I talk about splitting calories and nutrition info- Either I'm boring or they don't believe me. Either way, it makes no difference to me what anyone says- I just do my own thing, and everyone else can follow or get out of my way :db:

OH, I get mixed messages from everyone. my husband thinks I am doing great, look great and is really encouraging. My trainer gets excited everytime I show up for boxing to see what is "leaner" this week. :lol:

Now my friends? They say stuff like, you are getting TOO thin and you better stop what you are doing. Oh and "Boxing? it is so violent." I politely tell them that it is a sport like anything else and apart from really hard training and work, it requires a lot of strategy, playing both offense and defense. They only see it as a slug fest and people just hitting each other randomly with no rhyme or reason to it. My father in law is TOTALLY OPPOSED to my boxing. he has chewed me and well as my husband out a few times for allowing me to box. We just don't tell him anything anymore. Why bother. No one tells me "no" It just makes me work harder. ;)

I just threw this in my journal... I've got a couple of friends that seem very doubtful. Some people don't understand why I'm doing it so drastically. Thats probably the biggest one - I've identified my goal and I've identified my plan, but to many people around me they don't think I'll be able to stick with it (I'm kinda the rambuncious party nut in my group of friends) and don't understand why I have to make so many numerous changes (diet, exercise, sleep, partying, smoking, etc).

But I get the point of it all, and I feel like thats all that matters. And fortunately my roommate is 100% interested in improving his health / body image as well, so thats awesome - any time either one of us want to give we can kick the other one's a$$ to get back on track.

Dave (will enjoy spiting the naysayers)

Between family and friends, some are supportive and some aren't.

My friends, most don't really care and get on with thier own lives, but out of two of them, one is constantly asking questions and isn't really supportive about it, if we're in the supermarket getting a bit of food (and this being a cheat meal for me at the end of the week, with a few drinks), I'd pick up the "healthier" ones (They arent healthy but you know what I mean), such as light pringles or salted nuts. I get an odd look and told to "buy the real ones instead of that diet shite". But it's the same person who's always asking me about what I'm doing diet wise and workout wise, tries it for a week and gives up now and again, and says he will come workout with me and my other friend and doesnt show up, so it doesnt annoy me at all.

My other friend is really encouraging. He helped me get back on track to working out with weights, although he only comes once a week, we go every week (not this week because I'm sick, but we're going on thursday).. he asks me a lot of questions about bulking (he's about 140 - 130 lbs, not a lot of muscle), and I tell him as much as I know, and he uses the information. We're doing opposite things (Cutting, bulking), but I get motivated by it.. so yeah, one encouraging friend out of the rest.

As far as family are concerned, my dad doesn't give a shit, my brother is a bit young, and my mum gives me a fair bit of encouragement.

Having more encouragement from people would be great, but in the end I have to find the encouragement myself for a body transformation.

I do get asked a lot whats good and whats bad for cutting/bulking, a lot of people don't believe I know a lot about it untill I tell them the facts, because I don't have the body to show for it (yet), which again, is encouraging.