Unhelpful "Helpers" are those people that want to (or say that they want to) support you, but don't know how and end up being supremely unhelpful in the process. I wanted to vent a little about unhelpful helpers as their good intentions make it impossible for me to complain about them in my real life.
One of my coworkers has been following my progress pretty closely because she wants to lose weight too. I love my coworker as she's super fun to work with, but she's supremely unhelpful in the losing weight department, like constantly organizing lunches at new restaurants or happy hours or bringing ice cream as snacks for meetings. For example, yesterday she made a huge salad for all of us to share at lunch knowing that I need to eat healthy this week. Great idea right? Wrong. Her salad was a copy of the CPK Italian Chopped salad plus added goodies that she liked, like bacon and hard boiled eggs. I already knew that salad was a calorie bomb from her description of what was in it, but when I looked it up on the CPK website the calories for one salad was 990 calories! And, that's not even including the extra bacon and eggs that she put on her version. I didn't want to burst her bubble, but I had to tell her that I couldn't eat it and that I was going to stick to my turkey chili with a side of steamed broccoli for lunch. I'm glad that I stuck to my guns because the plates of "salad" that my coworkers had were mostly cheese and meat with a smattering of vegetables. Several of them even went back for seconds and thirds because it tasted so good and had that aura of being healthy since it's a salad!
Another unhelpful helper is my mom. She's always been concerned about her weight and for as long as I can remember she's been on a diet, avoiding some kind of food group, or skipping meals. In contrast to her diet mentality, when she visits, she's always suggesting places to eat out or asking if we can go get snacks or ice cream. She always wants to treat me to things as a way to show that she loves me. These are always harder for me to turn down as I don't want to make her feel bad.
My mom recently cleaned out her closet and gave me a bag of clothes that she doesn't fit into and told me that I could get rid of any of the clothes that I didn't like. A few of them were nice and fit me well, so I kept them. A lot of them just weren't fashionable any more as they'd been sitting in her closet for decades! Instead of letting me donate them, she wanted a list of the clothes I didn't want and the reason why. I lied on a few and said they just didn't fit well. Some of the clothes I have to try to pass off to my sister-in-law and the rest I've been given the okay to donate. It's a nice thought to help me out with clothes, but supremely unhelpful if I have to catalogue and then find good homes for all the clothes I don't want.
Another broad category of unhelpful helpers are all the people that comment about my weight loss thinking that they're giving me a compliment, but that sometimes feels more like criticism or guilt inducing. Like, "you're getting too skinny," "I wish I could lose weight like you," "I should work out, but I'm not fit like you," "one bite won't hurt since you're already skinny," or "are you really not going to have some cake?"
I could keep going on forever about the unhelpful helpers in my life, but I try to remind myself that everyone cares about me and they are just following their own life habits. I just need to stay positive and keep coming to Diet Bet for support!