Friends & Fat

I was reading an interesting article on MSN this moring- which cited a long term study on weight that found your chances of becoming obese increase by 40% if a spouse or sibling became obese- which made sense to me. The statistic that surprised me was that your likeliness of obesity jumped as high as 170% if a close friend was obese.
So- we aren't what we eat? We are who we hang out with? Interesting... but it does make sense. However- I think it's more about the TYPE of friends you have- rather than how much they weigh. On my current "diet" (I hate calling it that- more like healthy lifestyle change?) when I started out it was SO helpful to have close friends doing the bootcamp with me. We made healthy dinners at each others houses and spent time together figuring out calorie counts. There is NO WAY I would have made it to nearly as many 5:15am workouts without knowing they were counting on me to be there. Even as eating well has become more routine it still helps to my have my Diet Buddy- Jules, to reach out to in a moment of weakness.
For example- a text conversation from yesterday:
12:35pm: Jules: "This is not a good diet day"
12:36pm: Chel: "You can do it. Stay strong!! Just be good starting now."
12:37pm: Jules: "Anything healthy I can have at Carls Jr?"
12:39pm: Chel: (me googling while at work) "Yes- get the charbroiled chicken bbq sandwich- only eat half the bun. Even if you eat the whole thing it's only 380 calories"
12:40pm: Jules: "Ordered! Thanks!"
And in the span of 5 minutes- a diet slip up was averted simply because of support.
SO- choose the people around you wisely- not for their size (hanging out with skinny people has not been proven to make you skinny :) but for their influence on you and their support of your healthy living goals.
Chel
Ps- Brooke just emailed me and said "Can you please include something about what to do when you eat a 4th meal of patty melts and fries at 2am? Thx" Here you go: Get right back on the eating well wagon- what's done is done and today is a new day! Oh and even though you crave bad food when you're hungover- it NEVER actually makes you feel better- so what's the point in eating it? Aside from all that- I want to hear the story that ended in 4th meal :)