So I read an interesting article the other day which made me think.  It seemed to suggest that if your friends are fat, you have an increased risk of becoming fat yourself. Hmm. Lets just think about that for a second…that’s like suggesting that being fat is contagious, like a disease you might get if you hug me then don’t immediately wash your hands…how bloody insulting.  If word of this gets out I’d best prepare for a mass exodus of friends, after all lets be honest, nobody’s going to want to risk  being around me if that’s the case 🙁

Having said that, after my initial flash-point reaction of thinking the article had clearly been written by some skinny fuckwit with fat issues, I calmed down a bit and thought about it for a while, and you know what, I can see a world in which there might be just a tiny element of truth buried in there somewhere. By definition, I guess the people you hang out with are into the kind of things you’re into. So if you’re into fitness and an active lifestyle, your friends probably are too. If you’re a foodie and your free time is spend hunting down new places to go eat, stands to reason your besties enjoy that too.

Pop quiz – when I get together with my friends, do we

a) Go to a step-class and work out for four hours burning 5000 calories each before going out for a salad washed down with iced water and vitamin pills, or

b) Go to a movie, eat Haagen Dazs and popcorn whilst we’re watching it and then go out for pizza, pudding and cocktails..?

Yes…it’s never going to be option A. We would probably burn off at least half the ice-cream laughing through the course of the evening but it’s not going to be a calorie conscious night out. Well, in pre-diet days anyway.  But still – none of my friends look like I do. They come in all shapes and sizes, as you might expect. But as far as I can see, nobody has caught fat from me yet, therefore that kind of begs the question, why do I look like this, and they don’t..?

I think I can answer that. After our night out, they’ll probably all step off the calories for a couple of days, because that’s what normal people do. It’s all about balance and that’s the bit I struggle with…when I’m not dieting, I eat all the wrong stuff, and portion control..? Doesn’t even occur to me, I mean portion control is what you do when you’re dieting, right?  Not when you’re off the leash.  So I can do dieting, and I can do not dieting, but woven together so I broadly style it out across the week..?  That I can’t do…it’s one (and I get fatter) or the other (and I get skinnier).

So, when the skinny girl breaks out and I get to a size that I feel happy with, that’s the time when I need to wake up and learn a whole new way of being. Old dog, new tricks? Yep, count me in…I’m ready to learn 🙂

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