Years ago Saturday Night Live came out with a character who could kill a festive gathering in four seconds flat. “Debbie Downer” would show up at her friend Ronnie’s thirty-fifth birthday party, for example, and when offered a piece of yummy birthday cake by the host say, “None for me. With all the refined sugars we’re eating, America’s experiencing a virtual epidemic of juvenile diabetes.” As the rest of the group’s shoulders slumped in the awkward silence that always followed Debbie’s remarks, you’d hear the strains of the deflating, downer-chords play: whan-whan.
When I started to make positive changes in my life, I unwittingly became a real-life Debbie Downer. And nobody likes Debbie Downers. I always had been the Funny Fat Friend, but now that I was slimming down, increasingly, people were uncomfortable around me. They assumed I’d judge their food choices, criticize their lack of exercise and suck the fun right out of the room. All of a sudden the people I knew and loved felt not encouraged but indicted by my improvement. It was a reaction I hadn’t expected.
Before I went on The Biggest Loser, my closest friends and I had a girls’ night about once a month. Most of us were overweight, and it was a night when we could shove our diets aside for a few hours and feast on all our favorite indulgences—which always included Oreos, nachos and other pillars of wholesome healthfulness. Interestingly, when I came back from campus, nobody wanted to have a girls’ night with me. “We can’t have that type of food … Julie’s going to be there!” Whan-whan.
“Girls, it’s still me!” I wanted to remind them. “Even without a six-inch stack of nachos on my plate, I’m still the Julie you know and love!” But it was no use. They weren’t too sure what to make of my weight-loss progress, and I wasn’t too sure what to make of them.
I learned a valuable lesson during those first weeks back: When you undergo dramatic change, there is a period of time when you exist in a lonely middle ground. For many months I no longer fit in with my fat friends, but I wasn’t part of the “skinny club” yet either. I was a girl without a group, which for a social butterfly is the worst kind of girl to be. Did I want to feel accepted, or did I want true transformation more? On some days that was an impossibly tough question to answer.
Over time I sought out a support system of people who really did want the best for me, whatever that might mean. I needed a handful of friends who would push me toward my potential, who would pick me up when I floundered and who would cheer for me over even the smallest success. And interestingly, as I surrounded myself with those positive influences, my old friends came around too. They saw that despite my outer transformation, the inner me was still the same. They resolved to stick with me, no matter what my weight. And finally, they stopped with that annoying whan-whan every time I entered a room.