By Richard Tardif
Six months after I began my journey to health and fitness I agreed to meet with my “Friday night friends”. I had disappeared from the pack and thought it would be great to reconnect. For five years we met every Friday night at our local pub and ate to our heart’s content. Four of those years we were the same group until Gary, not his real name, experienced a heart attack.
When I arrived for dinner after being a no-show for six months the first reaction was, “wow, what happened?” The next inevitable question was, “What is your secret?”
I didn’t have a chance to answer. The usual order of chicken wings with sauce, pizza and bread arrived along with the first round of beers, not something I usually participated in. The topic soon turned to work, women, and whining, the 3Ws as we jokingly called it. Conversation stopped when I ordered a salad with dressing on the side, and drank water. There was silence. The simplest way I can describe the expressions on their faces is, WTF? Then I felt I was under a semi-verbal assault.
The act of sabotaging is cruel. Being ridiculed for my eating habits and “one night off won’t hurt 
you” teasing, “you don’t like my company anymore” or “So, you’re better than us now” is difficult to deal with it. One night off will hurt me. It took me six months to get it! A whopping 5,000-calorie night out will slow my blood, force my pancreas and liver into overtime to keep up with the intake, and zap my energy. I invested too much time to go back to my old ways.
The most common way people tend to sabotage your fitness plans is to play on your guilt. In my case, it was for leaving the weekly pig out sessions. This was obvious throughout the evening. I had a chicken wing and stuck to water. It was when eating a chicken wing I remembered something I read many years ago.
I. AM.
Ignore their comments. Ever thought that your friends might be admiring you? Maybe they will follow your lead, once they are not around the pack?
Accept their comments and acknowledge their opinions. Never get in an argument or a back and forth over your choice, and you are not obliged to defend yourself. Respect their choices.
Move on. You can change the topic of conversation. There is no reason to distance yourself from your friends. They were your friends before. They are your friends now. No reason to end relationships.
The one person in the group who was interested in my change had a genuine interest. Real change doesn’t come quickly I told him. Then I tossed some verbal clichés – it doesn’t happen overnight, life habits change slowly, at-the-moment decisions on what to do is important (okay I may have thought that one up on my own), like choosing salad over chicken wings.
Fast forward to this week at Mouvnation and the post workout chat, which inevitably happens, turned to having a slight edge, and my first thought was, “Over the last two years I was giving myself the slight edge.” Small choices were based on my goals. Why would I eat 5,000 calories in one night after one hour of metabolic stacking? This would be a waste of my training. When I refused the chicken wings and beer, I gave my self a slight edge, that day.
Turns out, there is a book titled The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.
The Slight Edge teaches us the principle to be patient with ourselves, to look toward improving one percent at a time. Positive and negative results don’t happen overnight, but are cultivated through simple daily disciplines.
Find your slight edge.
