Making the hard decisions
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Living a healthy, fitness-oriented lifestyle is all about making the right daily decisions. Unfortunately, social pressures can often pull us down the wrong path. If you ever struggle with living healthfully because of social pressure, then continue reading.
Studies have shown that you have a much higher chance of being overweight if your friends are overweight themselves. This is a fairly intuitive idea: if you’re constantly spending time around people who make decisions that lead directly to obesity, it’s easy to follow those same behavioral patterns. Let’s face it, it’s much easier to go with the flow than to be the odd one out.
While most of my friends and acquaintances are not obese or even necessarily overweight, many of them pay little attention to their diets and eat whatever they’re in the mood for. It’s only a matter of time before their youthful metabolisms will slow and then their diet habits will catch up to them in the form of weight gain, low energy, and heart disease. But if you’re reading this, you’re not interested in rolling the dice because you want to be in control of your own life.
So let’s take a look at a common situation: you’re hanging out with your friends and the group is looking for a bite to eat. After selecting a place, you’re faced with a number of menu options. As you watch your friends order junk food, you start to dread saying you’ll order the “healthy choice.” What do you do?
Here are some simple strategies that have helped me deal with these scenarios over the years:
1. Make healthy eating “your thing”: You might get teased when you choose the chicken salad over the burger but eventually, your friends will understand that you’re serious about maintaining a healthy diet. Most of the time, people tease in these scenarios simply because they are either insecure with their own choices, experiencing discomfort when your behavior doesn’t fit how they normally perceive you, or both. But if you stay consistent in your decisions, eventually your friends will adopt and accept the new norm. The funny looks might take a while to go away and you might still get the occasional friendly jab, but as long as healthy behavior becomes a part of who you are and how others perceive you, it’s pretty much smooth sailing.
2. Make healthy behavior your default: Whenever we’re faced with a dietary decision, it becomes very easy to hem and haw over a decision. But the longer you take in deciding, the more tempting it becomes to take the easy way out and choose the junk. Instead, make the healthy choice your default selection. When scanning your options, simply hold firm in your decision to live a healthy life and the decision becomes clear.
3. Be a living inspiration: Chances are some of your friends and family would like to improve their own health & fitness in some capacity. Fortunately, peer influence goes both ways; it’s not just the obese that affect their friends. So once you become the “healthy one” out of the group, your friends will start to lean on you for help and advice. Not only will you become a role model, but there will be added pressure for you to stay consistent with your lifestyle. As Jack LaLanne would often say, “I can’t die, it would ruin my image.” The key lesson here is that achieving and sustaining your health goals is supported by the influence you gain with others.
Hopefully these strategies help you stay consistent in making the right decisions every day. If you have any of your own to share, feel free to share them in the comments below!
