Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I'd love to hear everyones opinions on this. I'm sure you guys have people close to you that are inactive, eat unhealthy and are overweight. Do you let it bother you? Do you bring it up to them?

My Mom is more then 100 pounds overweight. I offer to help her any way I can, but she makes excuse after excuse for herself. She has no interest in improving her health. Visiting her is tough, because it is like I'm watching her slowly commit suicide. I try to remember that it's her life and her choice, but it bothers me that she is basically a ticking time bomb.

All you can do is lead by example. The same thing happened to me and my Mom. She watches her two Grandkids 99% of the time, and was not taking care of herself. I tried everything I could to motivate her and get her to the gym, but there were and still are a lot of excuses. Finally it dawned on her that she had to take care of herself so she could better take care of her 2 Granddaughters.
About six months ago I think she started to go back to the gym and now sees that working out is a good stress reliever. Before she would let working out stress her out, but now it is quite the opposite. There are still days that things seem to get in the way of our workouts but most of the time the gym wins hands down. Just be patient, and hopefully your Mom will see that being active and living healthier is the way to go, and that it isn't that hard to do.

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The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible.

hsorlando, you're 100% dead on. Leading by example is the best we can do. We can tell people not to eat fast food and pizza delivery and that they should exercise. As we all know, actions speak louder than words. By showing our loved ones what can be achieved is the arguably the best thing we can do.

I'm going through this myself. I know people who eat way too much processed food and empty calories and don't workout. Yes, it shows. There are also very strong & healthy people among my family & friends too. Quite a few vegetarians and vegans But for the ones leading an unhealthy lifestyle I do feel a responsibility to show them what's possible. This is especially true with the kids in my family. The kids look up to me and I don't want to let them down.

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Kick Ass & Conquer!

Lead by example and use their habits as motivation to change your own.

Just be mindful about them thinking your judging them. At lot of people with bad habits are very insecure and take people doing things differently as personal attacks, even if you're not saying or acting in any way like that.

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Yup, my mum too, she is overweight even though she does eat pretty healthily - she grows her own veg on her allotment. But she doesn't exercise properly or try to lose the excess weight she has. What bothers me the most is that she seems to think that I'm not healthy - she said I was scrawny! Which is another reason why I want to bulk up some more. As hsorlando and ICanDoThis both said I'm trying to lead by example, to not force her as she is very stubborn but to show her that getting fit is fun and definitely worth taking the time to do.
I wish she would see this, I get stressed easily and I find that a good workout really does help. My mum has a hell of a lot to get stressed about so not only would some exercise help with her weight-loss but it should de-stress her a bit too, help her chill out and be able to think more calmly - she should then be able to actually sort more things out if she's not so worked up about them.
This is what I'm worried about if I try to suggest anything to her though, she gets very defensive but I have a free seven day pass for the gym - not sure what will persuade her to come and try it out but I'm working on it...

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"I didn't ask to be born so the best thing I can hope to do is get through life without causing too much damage"

My mom is overweight and over the past couple years I have shifted her dietary habits such to the point where she is eating very healthy in very healthy proportions. She has some physical disabilities and thus does not really exercise but I hope once she loses some weight it will help her be able to. She is still overweight but I know she is not over eating, she even gained 5lbs in the time I went out to visit her for 2 weeks. I keep telling her it's her cholesterol and she is over stimulating her body's cholesterol production with animal products and if she were to kick them her cholesterol would tank signaling her body to lose weight.

I see terrible dietary and sedentary lifestyles in the rest of my family as well. And my dad has a lot of issues with cholesterol and his heart. He's only 56.

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Live cautiously to make it safely to death

I believe we are all in this situation; I pretty much echo what the other members have said - lead by example. Don't be critical of one's food choices, i.e., make snide remarks & so forth. I know it is hard not to say anything, as I struggle with that myself.

I have found that if others' notice your enthusiasm about your lifestyle/vegan/raw foodist/whatever, it will serve to make them curious. Then, hopefully, they will start asking questions on their own. Unsolicited advice is usually frowned upon.

And, most folks do know that are making bad diet choices...Some may benefit from a bit of motivation, or a gentle nudge in the correct direction, but for most it turn out negatively. I have learned this the hard way, and now I rarely say anything.

It does bother me a great deal to see my family members suffering when I know there is a (somewhat) easy way out, but unfortunately that's the way it is.

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Quote from VeganEssentials;

I have made it a habit to get back into the mindset that every workout is war. All-out, 100% do-it-or-die-trying war. If you want to get bigger and/or stronger, lifting won't be fun most days.

But honestly I am hard pressed to find an older (40+) person who isn't overweight. My mom (46) is vegan and even she has some extra. I think it becomes harder as you age to keep the pounds off, and most people don't have a useful activity level at that age.

As many others have said, try very hard to refrain from sounding judgemental. Whenever she makes positive choices just be very supportive of those, and when she makes poor choices, just don't say anything. It's hard to keep quiet but negative reinforcement will just push her away....

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Pretty much my whole family is very overweight except my youngest brother and myself. They all refuse to accept that they are the ones that are unhealthy out of all of us. They don't eat vegetables and they don't drink water and i've seen them put salt on microwave dinners.

One of my brothers is starting to try to lose weight because the wii fit told him he is obese, but he still just eats garbage and is adamant that what he eats doesn't matter. He keeps bringing up some lady that lost a bunch of weight on a mcdonalds diet as if losing weight equates to health.

Luckily there is no one in my immediate family like this. I have to believe that if people in your family are like this then you are much likely more to follow suit and be obese like them. I'm glad I have a healthy family.

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