I am in a wedding party how do I stop being the fat funny guy (Page 2)

Oh I did not mention this but congratulations Dad!

Be a man and just tell them you're not drinking cause you don't want to. Who cares what they think. Are you still in High Scool, responding to peer pressure? No. Just tell anyone who bugs you that you heard they'd becom an alcoholic, and can you help?

I'd go with the quitting with your wife idea--anyone who gives you a hard time about that is really saying something about their own character.

I'm not in favor of trying to nurse one drink along for a long time because it takes discipline, and if you are already worried, then I think it might not work.

You can also make sure you have either a coke or club soda at all times. Then you can more easily turn down offers to get you a drink because you already have one. If they say that they mean a 'real' drink, just repeat that you already have one, it is a real drink because you are really drinking it.

I wouldn't try to pretend that you alcohol free drink is an alcoholic drink--I always think it is better to be honest. But some bartenders will automatically try to make it look like a 'real' drink, I guess a lot of them have had experience with people in your same situation.

Speaking of the Jets, I've read several stories about NFL players and weight loss that recommend a "cheat day" as a part of any good weight loss plan. Especially following the recent increase in size in defensize lineman and the health problems associated with 350 to 400 pound men, the NFL is recommending that all retired players of a certain size start serious weight control programs after retirement. I've seen a couple stories about these programs, and they all recommend "cheating within limits" as a part of successful weight loss. And these defensive linemen are working with the same problem you've got. They're emerging from a lifestyle where they were always the heaviest guys in the room, the ones who were always eating, the guys with the biggest pile of food on their plates when they sat down at the training table, and the guys who always know where the best BBQ joint is in town. So their weight loss program, like yours, has to include some sort of planning for dealing with the fact that they've been acculturated or acclimatized to be the fat (and maybe) funny guy.

The cheat day is the concession to this personal history. It means that these guys can keep their links to their personal past -- their favorite foods, their favorite mom and pop restaraunts, their self image as a guy who likes to settle down in front of a pile of pulled pork and hush puppies -- while slowly creating a new personality, a new lifestyle, for themselves.

So I think that you can go to a wedding and have two drinks and a plate of salty/fatty snacks. Just use it as motivation to work out regularly both before and after your cheat day. One drink over your self imposed limit = an additional swim workout. An extra piece of fudge means an extra mile tacked on to your regular run. Don't be perfect, be good.

Do this for a year, and soon you'll be the guy who shows up at the party with the trim-fitting tux, the person about whom everyone says, "Did you see how good he looks now?", the guy that people go to when they have a question about eating healthy and joining a gym. You'll be the funny healthy guy who is going to live to see his grandchildren!

My opinion for what it is worth: I found with smoking that in order to stop I needed to stop associating it with pleasure. We tend to seek out things we think are pleasurable. If you want to succeed in dieting and cutting back on drinking you need to associate the cutting back with something positive, something you WANT to do, rather than something you HAVE to do. Willpower only lasts so long and it can get you through a few weeks, but if you don't sever the connections to the pleasurable associations that you feel from whatever indulgences you have that you wish to change, eventually you will relapse. In other words, I found that once my thinking changed and exercise and eating better became pleasurable and I realized how much better I felt and happier I was, it wasn't an effort to stop my old habits-or much of one at least.

I am also completely onboard with Gwendal's advice not to try and change everything at once. I tried to do that so many times in the past and never got past two months. This time, I think my changes are for good (going on 8 mos now) and the difference was that I took small steps. I can not really stress the importance of this enough.

For me those steps were: Stop smoking, start exercising, eat more healthily (but not watch calories), watch calories. I would only start the next step after I felt comfortable with the current one.

If you try to change everything at once there is a tendency to see any failure as a total failure and completely relapse. "Bad" habits are hard to break, you need to do it slowly or at least I did. REplacing old habits with better ones is a nother good strategy-even if the better ones aren't completely where you want to be (I drink way too much diet soda now that I have quit smoking, but it is still better than smoking!) Some people can stop doing things cold turkey, but others need to take it slowly. Best of luck to you! and congratulations to you and your wife.

Edited by lablover 2005-07-10 8:04 PM

What the cheat day is designed to do is to keep your body from slowing its metabolism down to conserve energy. The problem with most diets and why they don't work is that people on diets starve themselves and the body reacts from years of evolution. By cheating the one day in seven you keep your metabolism from slowing down. One tip from the book for burning more fat is try to do your aerobic training sessions in the morning before eating and then hold off eating breakfast for a while. You will continue to burn your fat stores at an accelerated rate until you start eating. Hope this helps.

Edited by MKraus64 2005-07-10 8:27 PM