Old 10-06-05, 11:19 AM
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DannoXYZ 
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Originally Posted by kf5nd
A friend of mine, a triathlete, is having major problems convincing her obese roommate and another obese friend that they have major problems, and that they need to improve their diet and exercise.

She is coming up against major denial, major not-seeing their own life situations... except the pain comes spilling out after a few late night (alcoholic) drinks. But, next morning, "the wall" is back up. This wall is so insidious that it even involves denigrating my friend for being a fit triathelete! ...
This is the same scenario you see with alcoholics and drug-addicts. They don't think they have a problem and you can give them info from the outside all you want, nothing's gonna change. They have to accept it on the inside first and recognize they have a problem before there's any chance of outside help making a difference.

There two ideas I have on this. One is to have the triathlete log all their meals and workouts every day for a month. This is one piece of data you can pull out to show them why the triathlete is trim and fit.

The other idea is to have someone talk to them who's been as big as them and are now slim. This person can show them photos of their former self and tell them their journey to getting fit and losing weight (it has to occur in that order as well).

Finally, death threats work pretty well; we're all selfish at heart. I had gained about 100lbs over my most-fit condition in high-school and was in constant denial, "Oh yea, I can stop the binging and lose weight anytime I want to", "It's just temporary, I can fix my bike next week." blah, blah blah. It was only when the doctor told me he's going to take out life-insurance on me because my blood-pressure had crept into dangerous levels that I was shocked into reality.

I stopped the happy hours, the constant partying and gorging myself with immensely-tasty greasy, dripping-in-animal-fat foods and really watched my diet. Pulled the bike down off the wall and actually started to ride it. Dropped 60lbs so far this year and should be back to my most-fit condition again in 4-months. It's not rocket-science, but you have to open your eyes at some point and see reality. Until your obese friend does that there's nothing you can do.
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