I think the Universe likes balance. For every up there needs to be a down. For every left there needs to be a right. And for every person who gets it there needs to be one who doesn't.
I have a friend who is extremely overweight. I don't know how close she is to being morbidly obese, but I do know that she's at a very unhealthy level. Her body shape and weight are so bad that it is causing other health issues. She is seeing an endocrinologist quite regularly.
I've tried talking to her about PCP and getting healthy but she won't listen. She would watch me eat my PCP dinner and just shake her head saying that there was no way she was going to deprive herself of the foods that she loves to eat.
The endocrinologist has told her that she needs to lose weight and has given her a list of foods she should be eating, but she ignores her doctor. She doesn't want to give up her snacks, she doesn't want to eat at regular time schedules, she doesn't want to cook separate meals for herself and her husband (who's also a bit overweight, but not much more than I was when I started Peak Condition).
She feels that everyone should praise her for the little efforts she has made to get healthy. She joined the YMCA. She takes water aerobics about once a week. She does the treadmill. Now she's starting Zumba classes.
The problem is she's a walking contradiction. She'll sit there and tell you about the exercises she's doing (but usually has to stop multiple times because she's winded, or just gives up) and that she's worried she hasn't lost weight which means the endocrinologist will yell at her—and she'll tell you all of this over her self-proclaimed "fat girl" dinner, which consists of: a dozen chicken tenders, a plate of nachos with extra sour cream and guacamole, large loaded fries with extra "cheese" sauce and bacon, two or three large soft drinks, and a restaurant-sized piece of cheesecake.
If you try to tell her anything that she doesn't want to hear, she gets defensive (with a little bit of anger thrown in), accuses that you "hate her", and then grabs a pint of Ben & Jerry's and downs it.
There's this sort of helpless feeling that I get each time she's around. I can't say anything to help her, I find it hard to say anything to support her the way she wants, and sometimes I get the feeling that she's not going to be around for long. (She's only in her mid-twenties now.)
Of course, my friend could totally surprise me, like my aunt who was so overweight she couldn't walk anymore and became confined to a wheelchair. She'll be turning 79 this year. The good thing, though, is that she's lost most of that weight over the last few years and is looking pretty good.
Maybe one day she'll wake up and realize that she needs to really take better care of her health. Who knows—maybe when she sees how well I'm doing after PCP she might change her mind about the things I talk about. We'll just have to see.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Day 75: I Don't Care What You Say, I'm Not Listening Anyway
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E, there is a whole theory about how this kind of learned helplessness works, where our natural impulse is to praise someone for making even the smallest step towards a better life, so the person never moves beyond that initial step. In the classroom I saw this all the time, kids conditioned to expect praise for the simplest of things - literally bringing a pencil to class for example - and getting very defensive when you say "yes, that's nice, but what about the fact that you just talked for a hour and threw stuff at me?" Sounds similar to your friend and her zumba classes. Throw in a dose of modern American everyone is a victim mentality and you have someone that is very difficult to reason with. Seems like the best you can do is be that steady pressure and example and hope she comes around.
ReplyDeleteI talk to all kinds of people every day, but this type baffles me every time. The truth is that no one will change until they really want to, no doctor's warning or friends advice will move them an inch.
ReplyDeleteSo try to enjoy the parts of your friends character that you like, and hope that she finds it within herself to want to change. Of course, if and when she does find the motivation, it will be incredibly difficult to undo the damage, but it does happen.