I think we all agree that it is so hard to lose weight let alone try to be confident in your own skin. The media is full of photoshop and "skinny-fat" people.

Then there are friends and family who you always think look better than you...and some may The part that just kills me are the friends and family who eat like crap, I'm talking like fast food 24/7 and drink beer just as much! To top it off they don't exercise!! How in the world do they keep a flat tummy and no flab on their arms and thighs?????

I know that whatever works for other people may not necessarily work for me and I also know that weight loss is a life time commitment and it may take me a life time to get the body I want. BUT GOSH DARN IT! I hate going to family get togethers/b-day pool parties and being seen next to them.

Does anyone else feel me on this or is it just me?

Keep in mind that there are people with faster metabolism than others. They can eat just as much while absorbing less fat. Others with a slower metabolism like me or you have to be careful about what they eat and exercise so as to maintain fitness.

I've also asked myself such a question and the most common answer is that they do some kind of exercise routinely - no matter if walking 10 min to work each day or something else.

One thing I realized about those people who "eat fast food all the time" and stay skinny ... my best friend is like that. She's always been tall and slim and eaten anything she wants.

Then when I started losing weight, I started REALLY paying attention to how she eats. Surprisingly it's not what it appears.

She will go through the drive through and order a burger and fries. She'll eat 1/2 the burger and about a dozen fries and throw the rest away.

She will buy a candy bar to snack on, eat half of it, and the remaining half will sit on her desk for 3 days.

She will buy a snack size bag of chips and eat half of it, and the rest of the bag will sit on her desk until she throws it away.

She'll order a milk shake at Steak n Shake and drink 1/3 of it and throw the rest away (or give it to her husband).

Before this, I never paid attention to HOW she ate - just what she ate. I used to get so upset - we'd order the SAME thing when we went through the drive through and yet she was skinny and I wasn't? And then I realized that she didn't wolf her burger down and chase it with handfuls of fries. She ate slowly and methodically and quit when she was full.

But I couldn't see that - all I could see is that she ate junk and was skinny and I wasn't and how unfair it was.

Now, I'm not saying that she is *healthy* skinny - but she doesn't have weight problems because she eats reasonable portions.

Don't focus on what anyone else is eating but what you.

It is never what it seems. And it really should be about health. The shit you put into your body now are the things that will give you cancer, diabetes, heart disease etc. later in life, whether your fat or skinny.

Just eat for yourself. Don't feel sorry for yourself, feel sorry for them if they are ok with filling themselves up with crap.

Ah! Yeah, Kara, maybe my family is doing something simular as to what your best friend does....never thought of that.

I try to only focus on me and what I eat and try to improve everyday....but gosh darn it, it's soooooo hard. I feel like it is taking FOREVER to see progress in the mirror and then to see family members eating like crap and are skinny ARG it sooooo frustrating!!!

Same for me Kara, I discovered after careful observation that skinny constant eaters are not really eating as much as I thought they were.
The only person I know who really eats as much as she seems to eat is my sister, who is 110 pounds. BUT she exercises tons, she moves constantly, even when at home, and she eats a lot but does not drink sodas or juices, she eats maybe 2 and a half steaks when I manage barely 1, but she is then full and happy for like 6 hours, while I start picking on stuff, having a piece of fruit, and a piece of cheese and a piece of something else, in the afternoon.
And I do not believe in faster metabolisms and slower metabolisms if you are healthy and have no metabolic problems. However I do believe in naturally more active people and naturally less active. Two of my nanny kids, brothers, 14 months apart, are complete opposites weight wise. The older one is tiny, wiry, so skinny, all skin and bones, his brother is already fat. Not obese but a good 20 pounds heavier than his big brother, flabby. They eat very similarly (though the older ones eats more varuation, while the younger one sticks to beige food a lot), and they do the same amount of sports (the chubby yojnger one does more sports in fact). But when at home the skinny boy moves constantly. Like my sister he is always in action, he even watches a movie and changes position, runs up to get something, walks around the room, goes outside, comes back in, etc... the younger chubby one just sits there, burning the minimum of calories he can. So while it looks like they eat the same and exercise the same, the skinny one just burns more energy existing in that nervous frenzy way.
The same applies to my sister and me.
Camy

I agree with what the others have said.

Reflecting further on what Amber said about focusing on our own behaviour and the difficulties involved - I find that it is best to compare myself - not with others - but with the less healthy me that I used to be. I do this with both food and exercise. That way I get to feel good about the person that I am today and that feeling encourages me to continue to act healthily.

We all know what the wise food and exercise choices are. We just need to make sure that we do them. Other people may not be punished at the scales the way that we know that we are. We just need to stay firm and not be led astray.

Last night, I celebrated a friend's birthday.

They are all skinnier or healthier than I am.

They got two chocolate chip cookies -- relatively small, maybe 3 inches wide -- and the cookies were split into 4 pieces each. Everyone -- except me, because I didn't eat -- got 2 quarters (or less, if they didn't want more).

That was the "birthday cake" -- yes, the birthday cake.

And that was the end of that.

This is why they are thinner and probably healthier than I am.

I had to take a good look at their habits in order to understand why some of them are so thin.

One of my friends is constantly eating all day -- she was six or even 8 small meals a day. But for her, a "meal" is a yogurt and a piece of fruit. Or a salad (no meat, just the vegetables). Or a granola bar. She's constantly munching. She also doesn't eat dairy.

She tops when she feels full.

I agree that you have to look at HOW people are eating and seeing what they are eating and figure out if you are eating differently. And if you are, try experimenting and eating like them, to see if it makes a difference.

When I used to eat junk food, I would go and order a cheeseburger and fries. My friends? They go and order a chicken wrap, which has less calories and fat. No fries.

It's little things like those that do make a difference, especially if you're counting calories as your method of weight-loss.

I told this story to someone else one time. 3 years ago I weighed 250 lbs. I was the heaviest person in my office. Then I lost 80+ lbs. Shortly after that a few new people were hired in my office, and one of them was about 250 lbs - the same thing I used to weigh. She never knew me when I was fat - only in my post weight loss size.

One day right around this time of year, a group of us were sitting on the steps outside chatting and the one woman was talking about a diet she was on and how tough it was becoming for her. I don't even know what diet she was doing, but it was something really restrictive and between Halloween just passing and the gearing up of holiday foods, she was feeling pretty down.

So I mentioned that I found that if I kept up with my healthy snacking, that I tended to do better at not being tempted by the stuff that gets brought in, and that I found that being *too* restrictive was counter productive.

She turned to me and said (not meanly, but in a kind of "what do you know" sort of tone): "Well, that's all well and fine, but you don't know what it's like. You eat all the time and still wear cute clothes. And you're always going to the gym and working out and talking about running in races and things. You just don't know how hard that is for me."

She went on to say that so many people thought it was so easy and always offered her advice and that she was just so tired of "skinny people" trying to "help" her when they obviously had no idea.

I remember that I just sat there with a stunned look on my face. I wasn't upset at her at all - she was honestly suffering and I could tell she was about to cry and wasn't being mean or anything. I just couldn't reconcile her words with *ME*. Skinny? What? Eat all the time? Huh?

But the truth is that I *do* eat all the time. Even when I'm losing weight, I eat ALL THE TIME. I eat yogurt and fruit. I eat an apple. I drink a can of V8. I eat a couple of wasa crackers. I have some string cheese. I have an afternoon snack. I have a protein drink. I eat dinner. I make homemade hamburgers. I make homemade pizza. Heck I even have a margarita or a glass of wine a few times a week. Not to mention my "free days".

So yeah, from this woman's perspective I am one of those "lucky skinny people who can eat whatever she wants and eats all the time".

In reality I struggle with my weight and I have to be very careful about what I eat and when I eat it. And when I have a free day, it's still an under control free day.

People see what they want to see. And what they see is not always the truth.