This is more just a vent post, I don't know if anyone here can really actually solve my problem. But the people around me don't seem very supportive of my decision regarding this. And this is going to be a big wall of text, so sorry.
Well, I'm a 24 year old male, and an athlete and fairly avid weightlifter as well. I grew up omni all my life, my early childhood was a fairly healthy omni diet mainly of food from my "health nut" dad, and was pretty slim, but then after my parents divorced my mother was stressed out, I lived with her, and I got a diet of all processed food and ballooned up. I eventually got to over 230lbs at 5'9, and had high blood pressure. I started doing a sport at 20, after no sports from around 6th grade on, and dropped my weight down to 180lbs or so along with my blood pressure, though basically through crash dieting.
I started lifting weights, and as you'd know along with the weightlifting culture, comes a lot of meat eating. I got exposed to "paleo" and tried it out, and my weight went up to a much fattier 195lbs and I felt horrible and started getting much more anger and anxiety, along with generally less mental power/function. I eventually developed a UTI infection and long story short, the Western medicine doctors I saw were no help, so I looked up some alternative medicine stuff for it, and got into Chinese medicine theory, and Chinese medicine says it's from excessive "heat" in the body, and basically recommends a more vegan/vegetarian diet to resolve this. So I tried it and am now UTI free.
This also coincided with me meeting a trainer at my gym who was a vegan and who kind of nudged me towards it as well, though he's a raw vegan and I ended more in the McDougall type diet camp, he was a very good guy, and despite being very firm in his beliefs, wasn't like, say... Durianrider or something, in zealousness. He had more the type of body and lifestyle I wanted, so obviously, you learn from people who have what you want.
Religiously, during the time I started with my sport and exercising, I started going to an Orthodox Christian church. Orthodox Christians, for those unaware, are supposed to be vegan for about 1/3 of the year, on Wednesdays and Fridays most weeks, during Lent, Nativity Fast, etc. So the "paleo" diet was actually a big conflict religiously with me. But, coinciding somewhat with meeting my friend above, one Lent I decided to be as strict as possible and I lost even more weight, gained more muscle, felt better, and had better training than ever. So, religiously, I feel a vegetarian diet is more fitting with my religion than meat eating.
I guess one of my biggest problems is what I'd call the St. Paul problem. For those who know, St. Paul in Christian religion was a man who persecuted and even put to death Christians, who eventually became a very zealous one himself. My problems come a lot from my almost zealousness in meat eating. My mom remembers my complaints of not buying enough meat and eggs every week when I tried going "paleo." My friends remember how much I used to love beef jerky as a teenager. Some of my friends hunt and shoot, and somehow or another seemingly once a week or so will make a joke/say something negative about "pussy vegetarians" or say "you better not become one of those vegetarians..." I've told them I try to eat a "mostly vegetarian diet" bringing up most meat's added hormones, and basically only make exceptions for meat eating for friends, family, social outings, etc, but at home tend to eat vegetarian.
But my mom for example, finds it absurd when I say I want to be vegetarian because of me complaining about there not being enough meat in the house years ago. So, I'll say I don't want to eat meat anymore, and then the next day she'll buy more meat that unless I eat it, it will get spoiled and she'll get mad I didn't eat it. And in some ways, I still do like meat as well, so it feels like trying to quit smoking and then having someone buy you packs of Marlboros.
All my friends and family have seen my body change over the years very positively, but then say silly things like "Oh you're just naturally skinny" when I spent half my life obese. Even worse, they'll be like "Oh, come on, have some more pizza, you're so skinny!" after I've already had like 8 slices. Last year, this type of stuff wasn't as big of a deal, but seemingly this year, I've had lots more trouble with this type of thing, and have gained weight at least in part from eating, say, pizza and burgers in "social eating" type of situations. Pretty much all of my family members (except one of my sisters) are obese, along with most of my friends. So I wonder if on some level if even if they think my diet/etc is "true" they wish to drag me down with them?
Ideally, I'd like to eat lacto-ovo vegetarian, along with fish a few times a week (sorry if fish isn't allowed for this board) and eat mostly in McDougall-esque macronutrient framework (high carb low fat.) As this type of diet feels the best for me. In my sport I'd like to compete nationally, or maybe even internationally one day as well, and I feel I need to get more serious about my diet and not give into the temptations of friends and family with meat and general bad food eating if I wish to get to that level.
The problem is putting my foot down, and saying "this is the way things are, if you don't like it then screw off." I've tried being nice, accommodating, flexible, etc, but it seems people just tend to figuratively walk all over me. I've also always been socially somewhat "weird" and have weird/obscure interests not many other people around me have. Maybe one of the biggest problems for me, too, is eating might be one of my last shared bonds with normal people, and I don't wish to give that up, people know I enjoy eating and tend to eat large portions so I'll be invited over to eat by friends when they're making a lot of food.
I've been thinking about this all lately, on Thursday a friend of mine for helping him with his car wanted to take me out to eat. I declined about 4 times in one day, saying I already made a big pot of potato and chickpea pulao at home, but he went anyway to a Pakistani restaurant and ordered me food, with meat. This fourth of July, my mom bought a big amount of meat as well. I no longer feel healthy eating meat, I can feel my skin and hair get greasier, and tend to get more agitated/angry if I eat it.
So, how do I put my foot down to people who don't seem to take my dieting seriously? With my friend for example, I refused 4 times. I really don't wish to offend people, and make another part of me "weird" to people, but do you sometimes have to? In Orthodox Christian tradition, for advice on fasting, generally the advice is if you're at someone's house and they offer you food with meat on a fast day, to just accept it to not offend them. I feel like doing this is OK one time with someone who doesn't know you, but what about people who do? Aren't they now being the offensive one and not you, after already making your wishes known to them?
I don't know if anyone has advice or encouragement for me, but I just needed to vent about this. I feel like I could be doing nutritionally much much better, and be feeling and training better with better nutrition, but the temptation, lack of support, and lack of understanding from other people is holding me back, and other people see it as not mattering as to them being under 200lbs is skinny (because so many people are much over that) but don't understand needing to be say, 170-180, to be competitive and optimal.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for any replies.
Well, I'm a 24 year old male, and an athlete and fairly avid weightlifter as well. I grew up omni all my life, my early childhood was a fairly healthy omni diet mainly of food from my "health nut" dad, and was pretty slim, but then after my parents divorced my mother was stressed out, I lived with her, and I got a diet of all processed food and ballooned up. I eventually got to over 230lbs at 5'9, and had high blood pressure. I started doing a sport at 20, after no sports from around 6th grade on, and dropped my weight down to 180lbs or so along with my blood pressure, though basically through crash dieting.
I started lifting weights, and as you'd know along with the weightlifting culture, comes a lot of meat eating. I got exposed to "paleo" and tried it out, and my weight went up to a much fattier 195lbs and I felt horrible and started getting much more anger and anxiety, along with generally less mental power/function. I eventually developed a UTI infection and long story short, the Western medicine doctors I saw were no help, so I looked up some alternative medicine stuff for it, and got into Chinese medicine theory, and Chinese medicine says it's from excessive "heat" in the body, and basically recommends a more vegan/vegetarian diet to resolve this. So I tried it and am now UTI free.
This also coincided with me meeting a trainer at my gym who was a vegan and who kind of nudged me towards it as well, though he's a raw vegan and I ended more in the McDougall type diet camp, he was a very good guy, and despite being very firm in his beliefs, wasn't like, say... Durianrider or something, in zealousness. He had more the type of body and lifestyle I wanted, so obviously, you learn from people who have what you want.
Religiously, during the time I started with my sport and exercising, I started going to an Orthodox Christian church. Orthodox Christians, for those unaware, are supposed to be vegan for about 1/3 of the year, on Wednesdays and Fridays most weeks, during Lent, Nativity Fast, etc. So the "paleo" diet was actually a big conflict religiously with me. But, coinciding somewhat with meeting my friend above, one Lent I decided to be as strict as possible and I lost even more weight, gained more muscle, felt better, and had better training than ever. So, religiously, I feel a vegetarian diet is more fitting with my religion than meat eating.
I guess one of my biggest problems is what I'd call the St. Paul problem. For those who know, St. Paul in Christian religion was a man who persecuted and even put to death Christians, who eventually became a very zealous one himself. My problems come a lot from my almost zealousness in meat eating. My mom remembers my complaints of not buying enough meat and eggs every week when I tried going "paleo." My friends remember how much I used to love beef jerky as a teenager. Some of my friends hunt and shoot, and somehow or another seemingly once a week or so will make a joke/say something negative about "pussy vegetarians" or say "you better not become one of those vegetarians..." I've told them I try to eat a "mostly vegetarian diet" bringing up most meat's added hormones, and basically only make exceptions for meat eating for friends, family, social outings, etc, but at home tend to eat vegetarian.
But my mom for example, finds it absurd when I say I want to be vegetarian because of me complaining about there not being enough meat in the house years ago. So, I'll say I don't want to eat meat anymore, and then the next day she'll buy more meat that unless I eat it, it will get spoiled and she'll get mad I didn't eat it. And in some ways, I still do like meat as well, so it feels like trying to quit smoking and then having someone buy you packs of Marlboros.
All my friends and family have seen my body change over the years very positively, but then say silly things like "Oh you're just naturally skinny" when I spent half my life obese. Even worse, they'll be like "Oh, come on, have some more pizza, you're so skinny!" after I've already had like 8 slices. Last year, this type of stuff wasn't as big of a deal, but seemingly this year, I've had lots more trouble with this type of thing, and have gained weight at least in part from eating, say, pizza and burgers in "social eating" type of situations. Pretty much all of my family members (except one of my sisters) are obese, along with most of my friends. So I wonder if on some level if even if they think my diet/etc is "true" they wish to drag me down with them?
Ideally, I'd like to eat lacto-ovo vegetarian, along with fish a few times a week (sorry if fish isn't allowed for this board) and eat mostly in McDougall-esque macronutrient framework (high carb low fat.) As this type of diet feels the best for me. In my sport I'd like to compete nationally, or maybe even internationally one day as well, and I feel I need to get more serious about my diet and not give into the temptations of friends and family with meat and general bad food eating if I wish to get to that level.
The problem is putting my foot down, and saying "this is the way things are, if you don't like it then screw off." I've tried being nice, accommodating, flexible, etc, but it seems people just tend to figuratively walk all over me. I've also always been socially somewhat "weird" and have weird/obscure interests not many other people around me have. Maybe one of the biggest problems for me, too, is eating might be one of my last shared bonds with normal people, and I don't wish to give that up, people know I enjoy eating and tend to eat large portions so I'll be invited over to eat by friends when they're making a lot of food.
I've been thinking about this all lately, on Thursday a friend of mine for helping him with his car wanted to take me out to eat. I declined about 4 times in one day, saying I already made a big pot of potato and chickpea pulao at home, but he went anyway to a Pakistani restaurant and ordered me food, with meat. This fourth of July, my mom bought a big amount of meat as well. I no longer feel healthy eating meat, I can feel my skin and hair get greasier, and tend to get more agitated/angry if I eat it.
So, how do I put my foot down to people who don't seem to take my dieting seriously? With my friend for example, I refused 4 times. I really don't wish to offend people, and make another part of me "weird" to people, but do you sometimes have to? In Orthodox Christian tradition, for advice on fasting, generally the advice is if you're at someone's house and they offer you food with meat on a fast day, to just accept it to not offend them. I feel like doing this is OK one time with someone who doesn't know you, but what about people who do? Aren't they now being the offensive one and not you, after already making your wishes known to them?
I don't know if anyone has advice or encouragement for me, but I just needed to vent about this. I feel like I could be doing nutritionally much much better, and be feeling and training better with better nutrition, but the temptation, lack of support, and lack of understanding from other people is holding me back, and other people see it as not mattering as to them being under 200lbs is skinny (because so many people are much over that) but don't understand needing to be say, 170-180, to be competitive and optimal.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for any replies.