Friendships are built on fun, laughter and shared interests. At least in my world they are. My friend circles mostly come from people I’ve met performing, people I’ve worked with, people I’ve met through Weight Watchers or running. Things I have in common with my friends are also similar to things stated above – love of music, love of running, love of being funny, love of volunteering, love of being active. 

When I was younger and heavier, my interests also included decadent food and alcohol, in a sort of “I’m young and in college/freshly graduated so let’s go get pizza and beers and hang out for hours on end and discuss the chaos and drama of life” and that’s what my friendships often were based around. Calories and bitch fests. 

One of the hardest things I think I’ve had to come to terms with is that sometimes friendships dissolve because of one thing and one thing only: the commonality was food. There are friendships that stemmed around the ability to sit around a table and sit and kvetch together…. but when your mindset is turning positive and your eating habits are turning healthy, those friendships begin to fade away. And that’s something that I’ve learned as I’ve gotten farther along in my journey of health. I don’t put myself in those same social situations any longer, and when I invite those friends to go for a walk, or see a movie rather than immersing ourselves in bitch fests about life and drinking margaritas, I start to realize that maybe the common bond is not there anymore.  As I’ve lost weight, I’ve begun to lose the friendships I once had as a heavy person because the person I was then in my head, isn’t the person I am now. 

I’m not saying I can only be friends with marathon runners and Paleo people, but I am saying that there comes a time where you identify that your mind and habits have changed and if your friend’s haven’t. Sometimes after you try and see if you’re both along for the same ride only to discover that you’re not, that at some point it is time to accept it. Which can be hard to do. It’s easy to identity when commonalities change, like a hobby or moving away. But when it is due to a personal mental shift, it may be hard to see when those ties sever.  That’s been a hard pill to swallow over the last year or so – to realize that as I change mentally from my weight loss journey, that not everyone is along for the ride. On the flip side of that however, I have made some great friends within my new realm of being healthy. 

It is ok and important to surround yourself with likeminded people. These thoughts haven’t been easy to articulate but I hope they all make sense. ❤️ Cheers to good friends.  Cheers to surrounding ourselves with good people.