An advent of ideas 23: losing weight can be hard work, but you needn't suffer... and nor should you make others suffer for it....

[GoogleMe]

... that said, choosing your friends carefully can help. There are those annoying bad influence people who lead you into overeating but if you look carefully, they are managing their own intake (unless they are looking to you as a 'partner in crime'). Sometimes there are people who will deliberately undermine you if they know you are trying to lose weight, for their own perverse reasons, and occasionally they may need to be told where to get off. But on the whole I have found a quiet approach works best for me in my circle rather than the Spanish Inquisition or a lecture about high fat or refined carbohydrates in a meal. It's all too easy to blame others for your excess weight... and you may be at least partly right, but the responsibility for sorting it out does lie with you.