How to Turn Your Friends into Your Weight Loss Allies

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Welcome to the Virgin Diet lifestyle show with your host, celebrity nutrition and fitness expert and New York Times best selling author, JJ Virgin.

You've made the commitment. It's time to take back control over sugar and finally drop those extra pounds. So you go and clean out your kitchen. You stock it up with healthy foods and you get started. And then it happens. You get the invitation to a friend's dinner party. So you go with the best of intentions, even letting everyone there know that you're on the sugar impact diet. And the next thing you know, they're spending the entire evening trying to get you to eat high sugar impact foods. You fight it hard, but you finally succumb when your friend tells you that she's so hurt that you won't just have a little bite of her homemade pie. I mean, come on, just a bite won't hurt, right? And heck, it's made from fruit. So you take the bite, then another and another. And you wake up the next morning feeling depressed, frustrated, and frankly, defeated and ready to give up. Sound familiar? You know, I think we've all been in this situation more than once and got taken down by it. Well, not anymore. I'm going to give you some simple strategies to fend off the peer pressure so you can still have a social life without taking down your diet and your health in the process. There's so much more to food than food. It's really love. From being a baby and having your mom feed you to the birthday and holiday celebrations, to that box of chocolates for Valentine's Day. And it's really the love that we want to share. So if your friend has decided to have the pint of ice cream, she wants you to grab a spoon too. And it goes further than that. It turns out that weight gain may actually be contagious, meaning you can catch it from your friends. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at 2,067 people over 32 years. And it turns out people were more likely to become obese when a close friend became obese. In fact, their chances increased by 3. 57%. And what's crazy is that proximity didn't matter. That friend could Be a neighbor or live in another state.

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One of my long term weight maintenance strategies is to find better, healthier friends so this doesn't happen. But that doesn't mean you have to get rid of your current friends or family to stay on the program. There are some simple ways you you can get them on board so they're going to support you rather than sabotage you. First one, enlist their help. Explain why you're doing this, why it's so important that you do it, and how much you appreciate their support. Now ideally, number two, you're going to get an accountability partner or support group to stay connected so you aren't going to go it alone. Think of this as your lifeline. I also love here doing some contests. Get your friends together and say hey, whoever keeps the sugar out this week, we're going to throw a bunch of money into the kitty, and that person's going to win it and go get a manicure, pedicure, or a day at a spa. Contests are awesome. We put them into both our sugar solution online program and our virgin diet challenge. Now, keep a journal. If you know that you have to write it all down, all of it, you're going to be far less likely to succumb. And this is one of the things I tell people in journaling because people tell me, oh, yeah, I keep it in a journal. But then I messed up, so I stopped. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. When you keep a journal, you write the good and the bad. That's the point. And it's really interesting. There was a study done on weight loss that found that the single biggest determinant to success was whether you wrote it down or not. In fact, the people who journaled were twice as successful as the people who didn't. Next one. Always give the hostess a heads up ahead of time and get them to be an ally. So they're going to look out for you and intercept those food pushers. And if possible, and this is a biggie offer to bring a dish, then you know that there's something there that you can eat. Now, the reverse of this, though, is important, too. Number five, don't make a big deal out of it. You know, if you walk into a party and you say, I'm not eating sugar, it's like people there are going to go, oh, we're gonna take her down. It's like, it's a challenge and they're determined to break your resolve. You know, if you don't really say anything about it, if you don't talk about it, if you don't make a big to do, they won't actually even notice. People are much more involved in what they're doing than what you're doing. Okay, number six, if you were getting totally poked and prodded about this, explain that you are working with a health expert or a doc on a specific health issue. And while that cookie or the cake or that pizza looks so, so good and it smells amazing, you're just going to have to pass right now. Or if all else fails, use one of my favorite lines from our community. No, thanks. I'm driving. For more great strategies on how to deal with peer pressure, text 58885 and enter JJ Peer Space, your first name space and your email address. Again, you text to 58885 and enter JJ peer enter a space, your first name, another space, and your email address. In the Sugar Impact Diet, I help you clear up the confusion around sugar and take back the control that sugar has over your life. In just two weeks, you'll lose your sweet tooth and shrink your waistline, so why wait? Start those two weeks today.

Hey everyone, did you like this episode? Be sure to subscribe for the next one and tell a friend. If you'd like world class training and cutting edge information, Visit the Virgin Diet.com.

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