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What can I do when a friend or family member insists on giving a fattening food as a gesture of love? The following is a based on a question and answer from the "The Weight Loss Support Group Forum"  .Original Post: My mother lives half an hour away and she loves to cook and bake. She is always trying to make food for my husband and me, and I turn her down with the explanation of trying to eat healthy. Her foods are never healthy. She still insists and brings something over as a surprised about once a month. Today it was a new very fattening cheesecake recipe that she is trying out. I have no one that I can give it to, as everyone I know is also always watching what they eat. It's not like when I worked in a office and could just take it in to share. Then it would be gone in about 30 minutes.  I know I should just throw it away, but hate to waste food. I really do not want to eat it, not even to freeze it and eat it over time. I think it could easily undo all the work I have been doing lately. My biggest issue though is I really wish she would not give it in the first place. I am very insistent each time she asks, but I think she likes to show her love with food. She always says, "Everyone needs a treat sometimes." I am sure that's true, but it's an entire cheesecake! Many people have been raised to view the gift of food as an expression of love; the more decedent, rich, and fattening the food, the more love it conveys. We have comfort foods, which we turn to when we’re feeling down; pep-me-up foods for when we feel sad; celebration foods to increase our joy, etc. Food, food, food! Can’t we be happy, comfortable, peppy, or joyful without overindulging in an array of fattening foods? It isn't easy to get friends and family to understand that their idea of 'love encased in food' doesn't always seem loving to us. When they don't get the message and there is no other way to 'dispose of' the offending dish, throwing it away may be your only choice. Oh my goodness! Throw away perfectly good food? Well, think about it for a moment. It may look good; it may taste good, but just how good is it for you? Ask yourself: will eating this food keep me from reaching my goal? Will it make me feel guilty? Will I feel bad about myself because I didn’t have the will power to resist? Could eating this food cause potential damage to my body? I don't mean you should obsess about it and never indulge in a sweet treat. We're talking about keeping a huge amount of a fattening food given as a gift of love, not a sliver of your favorite dessert on a special occasion. Think about the fat, sugar, calories and cholesterol... what will those do to your body, your kidneys, liver, and heart? If they will hurt you in the long term, they are like poisons. You wouldn't keep poison around and nibble on it every now and then to make yourself feel better, would you? Of course not! You'd throw it away. It's hard to change your thinking process on things like this but changing what we currently do is the only way to accomplish the changes we're working toward. If you keep doing the same thing you can't expect different results. If it has the potential of being hazardous to our health, our goals, our self-esteem, self-respect, self-confidence, or our self-image, the guilt of throwing it away will pale in comparison to how good we will feel for not eating it. What helped with some of my friends was to share my weight loss goals, along with articles detailing health issues I am trying to avoid so I can live a longer, healthier life and be here for my husband, children, and friends long into the future. Yes, everyone needs a treat sometimes, but a whole cheesecake is far more than a treat. A sliver of cheesecake is a treat; a whole cheesecake is sabotage! It probably won't be easy, but you might have to tell her you appreciate her wonderful cooking and her generosity, but if she leaves it, the food will go to waste and that would be a shame. "I'm trying to do something for myself, my husband, and my child/children; even for you. I know you love me, Mom, but a supportive hug and kiss and some encouragement toward my goal would mean so much more to me, and would be much longer-lasting than food. If I lose weight, I will be healthier, more active, and a better daughter, wife, and mother but I need your help to reach that goal, Mom. Will you help me? Please?" Asking for her help instead of only telling her what you want to accomplish may be the way to reach her. Moms usually cook and give food because it makes them feel needed. They like to see you enjoying the fruits of their labor. If you make her feel needed in a capacity other than 'cook' and show her how much her support and encouragement mean to you, she might come through for you in that role even better than you could have expected. In any situation, start by looking at the result you’d like to achieve. How would you like this situation to end? Think of some ways you can get those results. In this case, you know you're mom wants to bring you food and that food will always be fattening. The result you want is for her to either bring healthy foods or no food at all. How can you reach that result? Depending on your mom's temperament and the way she reacts to things, you might have to get tough. Only you will know. I've had a couple friends to whom I've actually had to say, "I'm trying to lose weight to save my life. You bringing fattening and unhealthy foods and tempting me with them or leaving the entire dish behind for me to have later is like putting a gun to my head. I love you and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your love and generosity, but please, show me you love me with something other than food. You know what I could really use? A cheerleader, (or exercise partner, diet partner, etc)." This lets your mom or friend know they are loved and appreciated but can be of more use in another capacity. Depending on your own circumstances, you might even tell her that healthy foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, would be of much more benefit to your family as those are costly and hard to afford in today's economy. You’ll likely be faced with the reply: “But I do it because I love you.” “If you love me then you want me to be healthy, right? I won’t stay healthy if I don’t take care of my body, and that has to start now, with losing some weight.” If worse comes to worse, though, you can always throw it out. Have a taste and praise her for the wonderful flavor, but toss it as soon as she leaves if there’s no other way to get rid of it. As for the current cheesecake, enjoy a sliver, freeze a few more and hide them in the hardest to reach place at the back of the freezer so if you want them, you have to work for them. Then, if you can't find someone to share it with, sigh and toss it. Throwing it away may make you feel guilty for wasting it, but how would you feel if, by the middle of the week, you knew you had eaten it? I know how I’d feel: even guiltier. Then I'd feel like I had no will power, that I was a failure and nothing I do to lose weight will never work; ‘I'll always be fat so I might as well just eat whatever I want’. Then I'd get depressed and I'd eat to make myself feel better and do far more damage than the original cheese cake.  We have to know ourselves and imagine how we would react, balancing the guilt over wasting ‘perfectly good food’ with the guilt and consequences of eating it. It’s a juggling act to be sure, but one we must do to reach our goal. Sometimes a juggler drops a ball so give yourself a little leeway. If you don’t expect perfection, you won’t be disappointed when you don’t achieve it the first time out. It didn’t take a day to establish the habits we have; it wouldn’t be realistic to think we can break them in a day. Keep up the good work! I'm glad you posted your question and dilema. Hope this helps just a little.
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