Mini Lesson: Support System

Video Transcript

Change Influencers

For the next few mini-lessons we are focusing on different factors the affect how successfully we can utilize the information that we learn about health and nutrition to make changes to our behavior, habits, and lifestyle. Besides our motivation for change, which we learned about in our last video, we are also surrounded by people who are going to influence whether or not we change, and even what that change will look like. 

We all have family, friends, and co-workers that we spend a significant amount of time with. How we spend our time with each of these people is a major factor in our lifestyle and can influence our behaviors and habits...which are some of the primary determinants of our health. In other words, the people we are choosing to spend our time with have a significant affect on our health.

That does not mean that if your current behaviors, habits, and lifestyle have contributed to poor health that you must no longer spend time with these people...absolutely not true. What this does mean is that some changes may need to be made in how you spend your time with them. So I wanted to share a few things that we might want to consider that can help to foster a supportive environment.

Being Open and Honest

The first thing is to be open and honest with friends and family about the changes that need to be made and why. It's important to focus on how these are changes are to support our body and our health. Ideally, they will be supportive and want to know how they can help, so...

Types of Support

The second thing is to consider what kind of support would be most helpful for us. When someone is emotionally supportive, that means they are willing to be a listening ear when things are hard or cheer us on as we are making progress. We may also need practical support, where someone is willing to help us through the logistical side of making changes...like babysitting so we can exercise. And then there is inspirational support, where someone is willing to jump right in and make the changes with us so we can cheer each other on. Obviously we don't get to decide what kind of support someone is willing to give, but oftentimes people want to be supportive, but don't know where to start unless we speak up for what we need. And just because someone may not be the inspirational support we need, doesn't mean that they are not willing to provide practical or emotional support.

Emotions and Lifestyle

The third thing to consider is that sometimes our emotions and our lifestyle are intertwined. Our desire to make change to our current lifestyle may stir up some unwanted emotions and it is important to help our loved ones understand that our desire to make lifestyle changes does not mean that our feelings for them have changed. Declining to eat an elaborate dessert has nothing to do with rejecting the love of the person who made it, but we might want to make an effort so that they understand why. As hard as it may feel sometimes, whether or not we eat something should always be a choice we make for ourselves, not just to please someone else. 

Take it One Step at a Time

The fourth thing is to take it one step at a time. There will likely be some trial and error as we work through how the changes we are making influence our interaction with loved ones. Not everyone will respond the same and they may need some time to process the changes we are making and how that will affect how we interact with each other. Most of us have a default we like to fall back on to keep things less complicated when we are interacting with others and it can be upsetting for some people when that default is no longer acceptable to everyone in a group. Please be patient!  We all need to be patient with ourselves and those around us as we work together to figure out a new dynamic that supports everyone's health.

The more we can surround ourselves with supportive friends and family, and strive to be supportive to them in return, the more likely we are to be successful with the changes we are striving to make to support our health.