Fitness And The Negative Comment Cycle

Girl, you are getting too skinny!

Are you going to eat the same thing again today?

You know you look silly carrying around that gallon jug!

Don’t lose any more weight!

The comments, even from well-intentioned family and friends, are the one thing you don’t need on your fitness journey, but for some reason, once you get in your groove, they are relentless. People don’t even realize what they’re saying sometimes.

Do they know that you’ve been able to come off your high blood pressure medication since you changed your diet? Do they know you no longer suffer from aching knees because of the amount of weight you’ve lost? Do they know you’re more confident than you’ve been since you were a teenager and that your entire mindset has changed as a result of your fitness journey? The answer to all of these questions is often NO. And you probably don’t feel like getting into a drawn out discussion by standing your ground when the questions start rolling in. Who has time for that every single day?

So when do you speak up, and when do you just let it ride? In my opinion, you speak up when those comments start making you rethink all of the positive steps you’ve made on your journey. When those comments cause you to start picking up old habits or bring self-doubt into your thoughts, it’s time to stand up. And there’s no reason to be rude when you do this. A simple statement should do the trick. Like I mentioned earlier, sometimes the person making the comments has no clue what your lifestyle change has done for you. Let it be known! The last thing we’d ever want to see is that a person stopped working out because someone else thought they were gaining too much muscle or getting too lean. As long as you are happy with where your fitness journey is taking you, keep pushing forward.