Everywhere I turn, people are on some kind of a diet. Whether it’s Atkins or South Beach, people are obsessed with the right mix in their food choices to reach their ultimate weight. Of course, the most popular diets involve carbohydrates and proteins. The idea behind these diets is that foods are divided more or less into three categories:
Proteins—Chicken breasts and salmon (all good)
Good Carbs—Whole grains and leafy vegetables (necessary, but in moderation)
Bad Carbs—Breads, pizza crusts, and pastas (avoid these unless you want to stay overweight).
It’s a structure that also applies pretty well to the people that surround us.
People Proteins
We all know our proteins. These are the people who bring out the best in us and give us energy and support, reinforce our drive to achieve, and help us grow personally and professionally. These can include our mentors, our most unconditionally supportive or inspirational friends, our spouses and partners, and our children.
Good Carb People
The good carbs may be the trickiest to identify. These can be friends and associates who are generally good influences, and provide useful help, but may be best experienced in small doses. Maybe these are loyal colleagues who provide useful support at work but maybe they lack the same drive we do. Or they can be good friends who care about us and are always there to lend an ear or can always be counted on the make us laugh, but may have a few bad habits we don’t want to rub off on us.
You can’t and shouldn’t get rid of good carbs, since they do provide some value in your life, but you have to be careful not to spend too much time with them or rely on them too heavily.
Bad Carb People
Of course, you can easily recognize the bad carbs in your life. These are the toxic people who waste our time, drain our energy, dampen our self-esteem or try to influence us in the wrong direction.
These are the “friends” who envy everything we achieve and posses, and try to undermine us, usually just at the moments when we are feeling good about what is going on in our lives. Have you ever heard a “friend” downplay a promotion (“Well, you must not have had much competition”) or try to make us insecure about our appearance (“So, you wore that to the interview and they still gave you the job?”) Too often, the underminers in our lives are old friends who we have tolerated out of a misplaced—and unreciprocated—sense of loyalty. And sadly, sometimes they are family members. If you want to investigate this further, check out the new book The The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life by Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan.
Other “bad carbs” include toxic co-workers. You know these people, the ones who never have a kind word to say about anyone, especially if they are in management, and spend more time complaining about work that actually working. These are the people leaning against your office door, looking to waste time and gossip when you want to hit an important deadline. These are the peers who only call you when they have a problem, and take up long lunches talking only of themselves and their woes. These are the unhappy, self-absorbed, tiresome people that we always wonder why we tolerate. When was the last time one of your bad carb friends asked about you and actually listened to the answer?
How to Lose Dead Weight—The Integrity Diet
If you can go on a low-carb diet to lose weight, why not do the same with the people you surround yourself with? Go on an “integrity diet” and rid yourself of the bad carbs in your life. It isn’t easy to give up pizza, pasta and doughnuts. And it isn’t easy to look a longtime “friend” in the eye and say you do not want them to be a part of your life any longer. But the best part is, while you might miss pizza, you will never miss a “toxic” friend.
To get you started on your Integrity Diet, try the following:
Make a list of the important people in your lives.
Divide them into proteins, good and bad carbs.
Make an effort to strengthen your relationship with the proteins—the people who inspire you, energize you and make you happy.
Enjoy the good carbs in moderation.
Minimize your time with the bad carbs.
Remember to pay special attention to the bad carbs. Eliminating them will not be easy or pleasant, but the positive results in your emotional and professional lives will appear as fast as the pounds shed when you say goodbye to white bread, French fries and cupcakes.
You can eat all the protein in the world, but if you keep taking in the bad carbs, you won’t get the results you ultimately want.
And be sure to let us know how much “dead weight” you lose in the next thirty days!
