Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 88: How to handle saying no in social situations
Transcript
- Cameron: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations Podcast. And in today's episode, I want to talk about something that I think comes up quite a lot for people when they're in weight loss phase and that is justifying themselves. So a really, really common thing that happens is someone will offer you some food or you know make a suggestion about food or whatever it is, that kind of social environment where there's food and drink involved and people will feel feel the need to kind of over explain themselves. ⁓ I can't have that because I've only got 1700 calories today. I've already eaten four four hundred and thirty fourteen hundred and thirty-nine of them, like only have this many calories left, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Or I am dieting and right now and I can't have that like because it doesn't fit my calories, or I'm not gonna bother with that because I'm trying to lose weight right now, blah, blah, blah. And the more you overexplain, often what happens is naturally, because this is like a societal norm thing, you will get the response of. ⁓ but you look great. ⁓ you've already done so well. For and I get my a lot of my clients get this where they're like, ⁓ but you've already done so well. Like, why would you like you why don't you just relax? Why don't you have a day off? ⁓ you can have a day off, right? And of course, what that person doesn't see is like, if we allowed that every single time, where we'd be like, okay, well, if you say yes to everything, well, what about the scones in the office? ⁓ I always joke about scones in the office because I used to work beside someone who made the most awful dry scones. And people around me who said they would be dieting would end up nailing three of them, and I would just think, Why have you done that? They taste terrible and also goals. But the point is that when you kind of think about it, you are justifying yourself, you're rationalizing things out and you're going into it. And that then encourages that little bit of that kind of like, as I say, societal norm of kind of being like, ⁓ well, you're already in good shape and all the rest of it. So you then kind of feel that that frustration and that resistance against it. And of course, I think the key thing is that a lot of the time, if you don't say that, if you don't over explain yourself. then you don't have to feel like you're pushing back. You can kind of just be like, actually I'm kind of full. Or actually I'm okay. I don't really fancy it today. I mean, depends, if someone's brought something nice in, then you might not want to say that. And like, actually don't fancy your brownies today. No thanks, Sandra. No thank you. But you can just come up with something that's very simple and very surface level. Actually I'm quite full from lunch. Do you know I'm not all that hungry today. I don't know if it's heat. Like it doesn't really matter. But I sometimes think the more you explain the worse it is. And Like I was saying, like if you if you kind of rationalise it and you say yes to everything, Sandra scones in the office, you say yes to your friend who wants to work for a lunch, but instead of you just being like, ⁓ well, I'll have a coffee and like we can share a cake or we can ⁓ I'll have a small slice of cake or something a bit more reasonable, and you're like, ⁓ well, I I almost feel like I need to justify why I'm not having like a full lunch and the cake. Or for example, maybe the the menu is really, really calorific. So you're like, actually, I'm just gonna have something quite simple, like I do a salad and coffee, like you feel like you need to justify your decisions. Well that creates an extra stress for you. And it does often like end up with more input. And I really think that helps is like have a little bit of a sense of humor about it and realize that sometimes, whilst well mean meaning, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to feel well meaning for you. So when you say, actually I'm doing really well on the diet right now and just like trying to be a bit more sensible. So I'm just gonna miss that. Like I'm not really that bothered. Like that often will invite something. It'll invite some dialogue or the classic like, ⁓ but you don't need to lose any more weight. Or don't lose too much weight, which is a another classic one. ⁓ you know, which is always an interesting kind of thing as well. And I do think are like, ⁓ you you don't have to be so strict all the time. And it just means that you get frustrated and you get a bit annoyed and you almost feel like someone's like kind of giving you a bit of resistance or friction to your goals. Now, sometimes that is the case. Sometimes there is a little underlying element of someone might be a bit jealous or a little bit insecure themselves. Like I was speaking to a client the other day and we're talking about this, how they have a a friend who they're really, really good friends with, but is very much like a social sort of eater so we'll copy what everyone else is doing around them. So my client had kind of said like ⁓ I'm just gonna have a mane, I'm not that hungry. And the friend was like ⁓ go on just have a cake and she's like no I'm actually just not hungry because like ⁓ well if you don't have one I can't have one. And it's like, well cool, that's on you. You can almost like brush it off. Well it's like that's up to you. Like it's like I couldn't eat anymore, I'll explode. Like it's just really, really easy to get frustrated at stuff like that. And sometimes understandably so. Again, the less you explain yourself, the more it helps. But sometimes that's gonna be there as well. Sometimes where it will just be the kind of like n social niceties of like, ⁓ you look great, you don't need to worry about dieting, or you don't need to lose more weight. That's that can be meant in a really kind way. But certainly there can be these other times where there is maybe a little bit more of like Jealousy, or perhaps like people want validation for what they're doing. So this is another one where like I have a client who is just drinking a little bit less, like not much less, but they're just having like they went out for a couple pints and they moved from two pints to two ⁓ to non alcoholic pints after those first two because well, actually they had something on the next day and they just didn't want to be hanging for it. And friend was like, ⁓ well, like if you're not drinking, that's that's no fun for anyone else. And they were like, Why does it matter that much? Like, A, we've already had two pints and like we're just sitting out. It wasn't like a night out and they're not 19 anymore. But you will get that occasionally where you'll get a little bit of kind of like pushback. But to be quite honest, I actually think that's much less common than people think. I think a lot of the time we kind of invite it in ourselves on ourselves. Like I am very much like when I'm in a weight loss phase, apart from the fact if you follow me on social media, you'll know because I talk about it because I'm a coach and it makes sense to do so. But if you didn't, you wouldn't know. Like I don't talk about it. I very much doubt my friends who aren't on social media would know. Like I have I've met with a few few of my friends, I think they'd have no idea. Like absolutely no idea. Unless they actually saw the fact of leaner, I don't think they would have any idea that I've been like trying to loot like well not trying to, but losing weight, I should say. Because I don't really talk about it, because it's not that relevant in social situations. Now, obviously, if you want to discuss about how like you're something because it's important to you, that's different. But I do think when it comes to meals, you can make your life easier by not justifying yourself. And I do find, and I don't mean to broad broad brushstroke in a sex way, but like I find a lot of female clients are Definitely sometimes guilty of that. They almost feel like they need to justify it and things like that. And I'm like, you absolutely bloody well don't. Like, you don't need to justify it. You can just say no to things. That's absolutely fine as well. Like, there doesn't need to be and should not be any pressure. And I always tried the reframe of like, imagine that was your friend. Like, you wouldn't want to feel like they they they had to justify their food choices to you. Like, I'm not gonna tell you why I like have a certain type of sandwich over another, but that's down to personal preference. So there's not that much difference between me choosing one item of food to another or me maybe having one item less because, you know, everyone else is having dessert, but actually I'm fine without it. So I think that can be quite important as well. Is like it's okay to just not not to even push back or have to say no are all these things, almost just to not not even get to that stage and just be like, Yeah, I'm fine. Mike, I'm okay, thank you. Like you don't need to have that kind of pushback. And you will have those friends, ⁓ go on, have one, or go on do this or whatever. But the the reality is is most of the time people don't care. And you can very often very easily diffuse that with humor. Like you can very easily diffuse it with humor. Like, you know, I've been on ⁓ out for a few drinks and stuff and someone's like ⁓ go on have another one and I'm like, I'll kind of be like look I have a run tomorrow morning. I was like if I if I do, I was like I'm gonna be running about, you know, like a snail's pace and absolutely crawl At the end, kind of thing. That's a terrible joke, you know, I would make a joke out of it. I think it's one of these things where it gets easier to do as time goes on as well. So just a quick thought in terms of like justifying things and perhaps not having to do that so much as well. So hopefully that was helpful and I will catch you on the next episode.