"You should stop this diet now"

B

Bagpuss

Full Member
Sorry, everyone - rant upcoming.

I just wondered how other people deal with family and friends when they tell you 'you've lost enough', 'you don't want to lose anymore', 'you're looking pinched in the face' (cheers) 'you don't want to go losing your looks' (cheers again, you've been telling me I'd be pretty if I lose weight since I was 6 years old), etc etc etc?

Because it's ****** ridiculous! I'm 5'6, weigh 11.6, bmi still 5lb over the top end of the 'normal' range, and ok my face has slimmed right down but I have a huge belly, ass, thighs and I'm still a size 16. I don't want to stop. But these comments, which are getting thicker and faster every week, had a bad weekend with it from family, and they're really taking the pleasure and confidence out of the feeling of wow, I've almost done this, and making me doubt myself.

I can see there'll be a point maybe 10 lb from here when I may have to accept that if it's a choice between face and body I may need to make decision, but it feels soooo unfair .... I've been fat all my life, and ok I'm 38 and I'm never going to have a body without loose skin and lumps and bumps but flamin heck, what's the point in coming this far if I have to stop before I can even wear a shor skirt?

How do you filter out the negativity? I feel sooo angry - my family have made a huge issue of my weight all my life, and now it feels like when I did something about it they're freaked out. Why can't they just be happy for me? :confused::confused::confused:

127 lb lost (35 lb on CD.) 6 lb to go
 
I tell them usually its not down to them its down to me. My mother has just started this and I usually try to ignore her!
I think its a bit of diet envy usually cos we come so far in a short space of time. Tell them to mind their business if they can;t support you!
 
You have a family like mine , maybe because we have never put them in there place thats why they think they can say something , its best to say , I can't win can i ? then smile . then they will say now don't be like that , say i know , but please let me just deal with my life in a sweet voice :)
 
Thanks, girls. You're right, it needs a bit more smiley self-assertion ...not something encouraged in my family it has to be said :D

Funny how taking food out of the picture has raised a lot of family/childhood ghosts I thought I'd seen the back of years ago - I guess without the food veil the old demons do come popping up.

Cheers, anyway. I'll get working on the smile and 'bog off and mind your own' ' face :cool:
 
I think refering to your BMI and telling them that you're not yet at what is considered a healthy BMI would baffle them with a bit of science. Tell them your consultant doesn't advise stopping until you're at a healthy BMI as it is likely you could put your weight back on which wouldn't be healthy...

If you sound confident in what you're talking about they won't question you..

H x
 
DO IT 4 YOURSELF.

:superwoman:DO IT FOR YOURSELF , I PUT ON A FEW LB AND MY MUM NAGGED ME, NOW I AM LOSING IT AGAIN SHE SAYS DONT GO TOO FAR!:banghead:BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!! I WANT TO BE A SKINNY MONKEY HA HA NOT A FAT BABOON.:D




SHARON X
 
I think it's just a case of you having upset the apple-cart and people are jumpy and nervous that you're no longer in your 'fat pigeon hole' ...
I'd get the occasional negative comment when I was doing well on CD. I think it's because everyone had become comfortable with me being the fattest in the family ... none of my family are particularly skinny, but no matter how much weight THEY put on, they were secure in the knowledge that they were unlikely to be as fat as me.

But suddenly I was losing weight - and lots of it. Soon I wasn't the heaviest or fattest anymore and there was a scrabble for who was going to have to take my crown. They didn't like it at all.
"What? You're 12st 7lb?? That makes you lighter than me ... I'm not having THAT!"

Now that I've regained 4st, they all seem to have relaxed again as the 'natural order' seems to have been restored. I'd suggest they don't get too comfortable though ... the Depo Provera has worn off and I still have some fight left in me!! ;)
 
:mad: My family and friends are the same way , they tell you how big you are and how big you have gotten, but when you are doing something about it. they are always trying to convince you to eat, or that diet isnt healty etc etc :blahblah::blahblah::blahblah:.

So this is what i do and it works wonderfully. I dont tell them anything. when I am drinking a shake, I drink it when i am by myself, when my family says do you want something to eat I just say I ate already. When they think I am not dieting, they are never concerned with what I am eating, only when they know, So dont tell them anything, just show them. You are doing a great job:bliss: DONT STOP FOR ANYONE EXCEPT YOURSELF
 
Knowing my family , if they never saw me eat they'd think now shes got an eating disorder hehe
 
Hi there,

I'm getting that a lot now that I'm well into the 16's. It's quite annoying since clothes are still a size 18 ... which is out of range in many shops! I find it most annoying from family - but then it IS because we've allowed out lack of confidence and insecurities blanket us to the point of resembling carpet to be walked all over. The constant "are you still on the diet" "all you need to do is eat vegetables and fruit" and the hassle really gets me down. I have a pressurissed job and the last thing one wants is more pressure and harassment when one gets home.

I sympathise with you all. It's striking the balance .. do you

1) bite your tongue and ignore them (like we ignored those nasty children who called you names at school, but still warped your confidence right into adulthood) and do it regardless, under pressure and feeling very unsupported.

or

2) Just give them a piece of your mind once and for all and build up your confidence. You won't get any support as a result, but hey they support wasn't there to begin with, just envy and a lack of empathy (none of these people are unlikely to know what it is like to be fat and ridiculed by society)

Cheers

Cah-Ching
 
People started telling me to stop when I got to about 16 stone :D Even my doctor told me to stop when I was about BMI 28:eek:

I think in many cases people looked on me as the 'well padded' person;) When I dieted, they expected me to look like a slimmer version of a 'well padded' person. Not actually someone who is slim like them.

It wasn't jealousy or anything like that, just used to what they are used to.

I remember a friend saying "you don't want to lose any more, you're nearly as slim as me!" This is a great friend, and there is nothing bitchy about her. She just had me in the 'big' person slot IYKWIM.
 
Hi,

Just keep repeating to yourself this is not your issue it is their issue, there will be loads of changes coming up for you as you reach your goal, if anything this is showing their own insecurities in so much as having to keep you in a categorised box rather than seeing you as someone who can change and evolve and grow.

Stand strong and feel your own power you have done so well - remember this.

Nicola
 
Absolutely! When you've been overweight for a long time, that's how people 'know' you ... it becomes who you are and defines everything about you.

If you know a really nasty, spiteful person and then, all of a sudden, they start being nice, kind and considerate, it's likely you'd be unnerved by it ... what's happened? Why are they being so nice? That's not what they're usually like ...
See what I'm getting at? You might not have liked where they were - but at least you were comfortable in that you knew where YOU were in comparison to them. (You = nice, they = nasty)

In comparison to me, EVERYONE was slimmer, lighter and I'd thrown the cat amongst the pigeons when I lost weight. I even scared myself a bit: being fat meant I could stay below the parapet ... being slimmer meant there was nothing to hide behind anymore.

Back in December, I was no longer looking like the person everyone 'knew'. I don't think anyone was being mean when they made comments like 'I can't have you weighing less than me', it's just that I had just stepped out of a familiar mould: I wasn't fitting their perception of me anymore.

No-one likes being 'the fattest' - when I lost weight, someone else had to take my place. I think they preferred it when I carried that burden (as I do again now - but hopefully not for too long!)
 
I with the diet envy argument!!

Friends and family are always most secure when there is someone else to compare themselves to in order to make themselves feel better. My sister-in-law and I have this kind or relationship. I'm always the 'fatty' of the family girls and envy my SIL who has a great figure, eats like a pig etc and never gains weight. When I do manage to shed the lbs she hates me being the same weight/size as her - it's like i'm suddenly a threat to her as the skinny one? WTF?! Last time I did CD and lost 30lbs (which I have since regained :sigh:) she got together with my mum and sister and they held a mini anti-CD rally telling me how I was stupid to be doing it! DON'T LISTEN! Is my advice.

You are the most important thing, and, as long as you are feeling great about yourself and are healthy, that is all that matters! Stick to your guns and go for the last few lbs. If you get there and decide that maybe you're not as happy with your looks as you thought you would be, either lose a couple more or gain a couple. You're the boss, own your body girl and ignore negativity - it's not helpful!!

Chin up petal xx
 
You have had some great advice on this thread. From reading some of the posts on this site I think it is vitally important that you continue till you are happy with your size and weight. Go all the way first time round.

I am just at the start of my journey and personally I can't wait for the first person to tell me I am looking too thin. But I do realise this would become annoying after a while especially if I felt I still had a way to go.

Russiandoll it is really good to hear you sounding so positive about yourself again.

Jac
 
I too have started to get these comments.

I think some of these are from people who like RD has said were quite content for me to the "big friend" and now I am approaching a point where I am the same size as them and very soon going to be lighter and smaller than them there may be an element of jealously behind these comments.

However, I do think that some people suggest stopping now through genuine concern - I discussed this with a friend of mine recently and she said that I had lost so much already and looked so small compared to when I started the diet it was making her nervous. The thing is that this particular friend has only ever known me while I have been overweight so she only has the big-me to make a comparison with. When I explained that I had lost a lot but that I am still medically overweight, which she did not realise, she felt a lot more comfortable - I also asked her what her weight and height were and worked out her bmi and told her what my equivalent weight would be to be the same bmi as her and how much more I need to lose to bring me to the same bmi, which interestly will take me to goal.

To be honest I don't mind if family and friend remarking about it being time to be stopping as I am happy to discuss my progress and goals with them so that they will understand why I need to keep going for a bit longer. BUT what I can't stand is general acquaintence's making judgements like that by just looking at me - I just tell them that I am really please with my progress so far, however I am still medically overweight and will stop when I have reached a heathly weight.
 
WOW - just logged on from work for the first time this morning, and all these amazing posts. Thank you, everyone who has posted, so much, for putting your thoughts down and sharing your advice and experiences. I'd like to cancel the working afternoon and write a mini-essay back to everyone who dropped into this thread but I've only 10 minutes ...nonetheless I've read, absorbed and appreciated every single post.

I think I'm going to print this thread out and keep it in my bag! - it's not only the positive advice that's cheered me up, but a sense that this tricky, so hard to define feeling of somehow now being in the middle of invisible politics, female competition or unspoken family pecking orders that being fat sheltered me from is somehing a lot of us experience. It's so good to be able to talk to other women about it because it's so rarely spoken of. I hope the thread has been as useful to other people as it has been to me....it seems to touch on a common 'nerve'

I'm thinking now that these family politics - particularly the fear of being in competition with other women in my family - has been one of the things that kept me fat from childhood. In fact, women's anger scares me senseless. When I was 17 I lost half my body weight and the reaction from some female friends and girls in the places I used to go to was hostile and spiteful - you know how girls are at that age - partly because I turned out to be quite a looker, but largely because I was no longer occupying the safe space of fat friend ... as lots of you have written about very wisely. I put that weight back on within 6 months!

Isn't it crazy to be still worried about this at 38. Of what I'll encounter in women's reactions AND be expected to be, now I've given up the 'duvet'. I can feel myself trying every old trick in the book to sabotage myself, 6 lb from provisional target: it's like I'm having to watch myself every minute of the day. I WILL go through and do this. Thank you all so much and I'm wishing us all good journeys and good re-starts too - the perseverance and self-knowledge and kindness of people on this forum knocks me sideways. Cheers, girls. xxx
 
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