How to Protect Your Mental Health When a Loved One Is Losing Weight
When you’re on a journey to improve your relationship with food, your body, and your weight, it can be difficult when someone close to you starts a new diet or engages in intentional weight loss.
How It Can Impact You
On the one hand, it can be triggering to see and hear about the ways in which your loved one is engaging in food restriction or exercise for weight loss. But why can it be so triggering?
It can make you question your choice to stop dieting. Seeing someone intentionally lose weight can make you wonder if choosing to mend your relationship with food and your body was the right choice to make. That friend seems happier now that they’ve lost weight, so wouldn’t you feel happier too if you went back to dieting? Maybe you just didn’t try hard enough. Maybe there’s a diet out there that will work. It doesn’t always take much for those old beliefs around restriction to creep back into your life.
It can take you back to the mindset of dieting and restriction. Hearing about calories, kilograms, fitness apps, and workout regimens can be very difficult if you’ve worked hard to let go of the restriction mindset. Having close and regular exposure to these subjects can impact the way that you think about body, weight, and food.
It can make you see your body in a negative light. If you hear your friend or family member talk about how much happier they are now that they’ve lost weight, it can impact the way you see yourself and your body. Would you be happier if you lost weight too? If you don’t lose weight, does that mean that you can’t be happy or aren’t worthy? What does it mean that people are trying to shrink and you’re not? These thoughts can cause negative beliefs about the body to re-emerge.
How You Can Look After Yourself
So how can you look after yourself and safeguard your own mental health when someone close to you is losing weight?
Acknowledge the Impact
It’s important to acknowledge that having someone close to you engage in intentional weight loss can have a significant impact on you. It’s common for people to feel like they’ve been betrayed or let down by a friend who is losing weight intentionally. This feeling is normal and valid. It does not make you a bad friend or family member. Give yourself compassion and grace for feeling this way.
Determine Your Boundaries
When navigating conversations around triggering subjects like food, exercise, and weight loss, it’s important to determine where your boundaries are. Ask yourself if there are particular subjects you want to avoid and how you will communicate that boundary to your loved one. Or maybe there are particular situations you’d like to avoid, like settings with plenty of food present.
Communicating those boundaries can sound like this:
I’m happy that you’re happy, but it’s difficult for me to talk about weight loss since I’m working really hard to accept my body as it is. Is it okay if we don’t talk about this?
I’m so glad that you’ve found something that works for you, but I prefer not to talk about calories and kilograms. Is that okay?
I really want to support you in everything that you do, but this topic is difficult for me to talk about. Can we talk about something else please?
You Don’t Have to Fix Others
If you have found peace and liberation in letting go of diet culture, it can be tempting to convince others to do the same. But doing so can be to the detriment of your own mental health. It’s important to acknowledge that it’s not your responsibility to save others.
It’s okay to protect your peace and focus on yourself. While you have done the work to acknowledge how diet culture has impacted you, there are people who are still impacted by diet culture on a day-to-day basis. It’s not your responsibility to fix this, and it’s okay to just focus on yourself.
Other People’s Choices Don’t Invalidate Your Own
When those around you intentionally lose weight, it can be tempting to compare yourself to them. Should I also be thinner? Would I also be happier if I tracked my calories and lost a few kilos? It’s a cliche, but comparison really is the thief of joy.
But when another person chooses to lose weight, it doesn’t make your choice stop restricting any less important or valid. Acknowledge that people make their own choices and choose their own path in life. And remember that others are allowed to make choices that are different from yours. It doesn’t mean that you have to make the same choice or that your choice is wrong.
Remind Yourself of Your Own Values
When you’re exposed to restriction, weight loss, and dieting, it can be easy to lose sight of what is truly important in your body image journey. Take a few moments to remind yourself of the values that are important to you when you’re trying to make peace with your body:
I am allowed to exist in this body.
My weight does not determine my worth.
I don’t have to shrink myself to be happier.
I am worthy of love and happiness in this body.
I don’t have to lose weight or change the way that I look in order to be allowed to exist.
Remember that You’re Not Alone
When you’re healing your relationship with food and your body, it can feel very lonely and isolating. Some days, it feels like you’re swimming against the current of diet culture.
On those days, remember that there are many people around the world who are taking the same brave steps that you are. You are not alone in this, and your feelings are normal and valid.
Want to Know More?
If you would like more personal mental health support in your journey towards body acceptance and making peace with food, please feel free to reach out via yasmine@outofthewoodscounselling.net or schedule a free 15-minute call to see if we’re a good fit.
