Things people say when you're dieting.
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Wow, I can't believe some of the things people have been saying to all of you. So cruel. At any point, you just have to do what is right for you. And yes, I agree, these aren't diets we are on, these are life changes. We are choosing to exercise and eat better for a healthier you. We all know "diets" don't work, but life changes do
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Somebody really flagged MY personal life experience as Woo? Wow. Just Wow.
You all reminded me of another one. I should start getting this one when I get about halfway to goal. You look fantastic, but you need to stop losing now or it's going to be too much.
I don't know if people think they are flattering me when they say that or what. But yeah, I do still need to lose the other 50 lbs I am dragging around.
Could be the woo in this case was a woohoo... they really need to ditch that button...
I think there a 2 reasons that people say this. One is to be snarky - you are either making them look bad (if they are overweight) or if they are the skinny friend, they don't want to lose their position as the skinny friend. The other reason would be because as a whole, we have become accustomed to so much of the population being heavy that our point of view on reasonable weights is skewed and most folks don;t really understand what a healthy weight looks like.
To add to the things that people say, I was at the office a couple of weeks ago (normally I work from home) and one of my co-workers started on a rant about the evils of diet soda and how it is making us all fat and destroying our health. Another co-worker chimed in and declared that aspartame is the worst thing that man has ever created and the FDA should just out-right ban the substance. I so so wanted to jump into the conversation, but I decided that it would not be worth the hassle and just walked away...7 -
New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »People can be real *kitten*s. When they give unsolicited "gee, that seems to be working really well for you, so this is how you should fix it," advice like that to me, I sometimes think they are either trying to sabotage my weight loss success, or else hitch a vicarious ride on it.
My mom said something that really ticked me off last night. Although in her case, I think it was just because people sometimes just say dumb things.
I have fibromyalgia, which means (among many other things) that my body doesn't repair its muscles and tissues very well after exercise. That means that exercise is frequently "punished" by sore muscles, pain and exhaustion. That's discouraging as *kitten*, and I have dealt with it mostly by just not exercising. (Which, of course, makes it worse. Fibromyalgia is a game where you often really "just can't win for losin.'")
The only way around the exercise-punishment thing is to find a level of exercise so low that the body can handle the amount of repair involved, and then "titrate" the exercise level very slowly up from there. I've tried to do this more than once, but kept pulling down massive "punishments" for gentle little neighborhood strolls.
I tried again the other day with the most gentle "workout" I could think of: 0.3 miles, 30 foot elevation gain/loss, 9 minutes of walking at just above comfortable pace for me. (That's not a workout, that's just getting to your car in mall parking lot!)
But it thoroughly kicked my butt. Not much soreness this time, but I've been totally *kitten*ed out and needing to sleep nearly round the clock for the last three days.
So, I was telling Mom about this, partly to explain why I hadn't called when I'd said I would, and she said many supportive and encouraging things. And then she said: "Well, maybe you should take a walk like that more often than every few years."
Gosh, Ma, why didn't I think of that? I'll just jump in my time machine and go back and rectify my previous behavior - was the first thing I didn't say to her. I also didn't ask her if, all the times that she's needed my help during the years in question, I should have been unavailable because I was recovering from a titration walk. I didn't - well, there's a lot that I didn't say to her.
Next titration walk tomorrow. I'm aiming for about half the distance over the same course, and I'll see how that works out. And I probably won't mention it to Mom if I don't have to.
I'm very sorry this happened. Exercise is the only thing that controls my fibro pain and moods. Keeping my weight down helps fatigue too (meds gave me hallucinations). So one of my in laws who knows about my fibro will do the whole "you've lost enough weight, why are you still on this" nonsense, then in the next sentence tell me fibromyalgia isn't a big deal, I'm just being dramatic, attention seeking, or even making it up. When she asks about it now I just say "I'm still alive" and change the subject. The passive aggressive minimizing nonsense just ticks me off and I feel worse.
I hope your plan works for you.
My mother has MS and she got all of this and more back when they were trying to diagnose it as a child. She was told that her debilitating chest pains were her imagination and sent her to a psychiatrist. Diseases where there is no visible ailment or handicap are the hardest for people to be sympathetic to. I once had a man chase me down into a grocery store (I was maybe 14) to berate me for my mother parking in the handicap spot. (It was a good day; she didn't need her cane). I was mortified and terrified. He was large, angry, and self-righteous.
Watching my mother live through this time and time again, I am always mindful of the things that people struggle with that are unseen. Good luck to both of you ladies for sticking with it. There ARE those out there who understand. Either through personal experience or through being close to someone who struggles with the unseen diseases.
As far as strange things told to me about weight loss... I've been lucky. Other than the "you'll be come anorexic!" comments every so often when I say I still have quite a bit to lose, most people smile and nod when I mention counting calories. Sometimes, I'll get the odd, "Oh I could never count calories! <insert fad diet/quick option> works best for me!" But in general, I surround myself with awesome folks and I've had a hefty dallop of luck too!
Also, #longhairdon'tcare when it comes to randos and their opinions. XD
They are merely the trash mobs on my way to the dragon. Easiy slain in lieu of the boss I know will come 'round the corner!6 -
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Somebody really flagged MY personal life experience as Woo? Wow. Just Wow.
You all reminded me of another one. I should start getting this one when I get about halfway to goal. You look fantastic, but you need to stop losing now or it's going to be too much.
I don't know if people think they are flattering me when they say that or what. But yeah, I do still need to lose the other 50 lbs I am dragging around.
Ha ha. Some people on this site are in love with their own theories and can't wrap their heads around someone else having a different experience than they have. The flock of woo birds following me is almost flattering at this point.
For example, I lost a bunch of fat and gained muscle during the same time period. I was told that's impossible, because fat happens at a caloric deficit and muscle gain happens during caloric surplus. But, that was MY experience. I was told I just "revealed" muscles that were already there. Uh, no. You don't "reveal" pecs. There are muscles that really have to be developed in order to show.
We all know fat people who lost weight and are skinny fat. People don't just diet and suddenly get muscles. Plus, I lifted weights so heavy, I'm in the category of "elite" - or competitive level in most of my lifts, and advanced in my weaker lifts. You don't "reveal" a round butt that was flat. You don't get a quad sweep from losing fat. But instead of using their eyes (because I posted pics), they just decided it was woo. Because apparently they know better what happened to my body than I do. So many posts, telling me "that didn't happen!" But, but....I LIVED IT.
This is why I don't talk about my fitness IRL outside of the gym. If you get drama about your fitness/diet on a fitness/diet website, then imagine the drama among people who aren't living a lifestyle that includes fitness/healthy eating.
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Things people say (besides woo). Is the people who were giving you unwanted advice when you were bigger give you the opposite advice once you are smaller. One person was like, "you need to exercise every day." "I already exercise every day." "No, really, I mean you need to exercise every day." "I do exercise every day." "Well, you need to exercise some more."
Now, the same person is like "you should stop going to the gym every day." And, "you were late to XYZ because you were at THE GYM!!!" "You exercise too much." "Uh, weren't you the one who said I needed to exercise every day?" "But it's different now!" "You can see..."
Another one - the clothes I wore was like, "please make sure when you arrive, you don't wear anything too tight, because it makes you look really fat," now it's like, "your clothes, I just think you need to, I mean, the men are staring at you as you walk past you need to, I mean, these new clothes you're wearing..."
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This time around, I have really kept quiet and said very little to anyone who asks what and how. I just have said I am eating much less than I was before and walking lots more. That is the total of what I tell anyone who asks me outside of MFP. Because it is interesting to me how many are quick to say, well whatever you are doing, you cannot keep up the pace of losing like you have been. Or you will get bored and just gain it all back, so why are you even trying? That was said about two months ago. I admit I have been a yoyo person for many years. But this go around has been so different, coming to MFP, logging daily, commenting, learning, seeing tons of great posts, fantastic ideas which in turn have helped me do better.3
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Yeah, it's funny. I lost over 100 pounds and have maintained for about a year and people are still trying to tell me how I should change to "their" program. I just shake my head and let them talk. No point in arguing. If I learned anything in this journey it's that you have to do what works for you.3
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cheryldumais wrote: »Yeah, it's funny. I lost over 100 pounds and have maintained for about a year and people are still trying to tell me how I should change to "their" program. I just shake my head and let them talk. No point in arguing. If I learned anything in this journey it's that you have to do what works for you.
Makes no sense. "Oh, what you're doing is working exceptionally well for you? Let me tell you want you need to be doing instead."
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This whole thread is so validating. Thank you.2
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Somebody really flagged MY personal life experience as Woo? Wow. Just Wow.
You all reminded me of another one. I should start getting this one when I get about halfway to goal. You look fantastic, but you need to stop losing now or it's going to be too much.
I don't know if people think they are flattering me when they say that or what. But yeah, I do still need to lose the other 50 lbs I am dragging around.
I don't think people understand the "woo" so don't take it personally. They were probably cheering for you.
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I often wonder if its me that woo's by accident as my finger scrolls down the screen......really got to watch that
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What irks me is when people ask me for advice, and I politely tell them and then they tell me why I'm wrong. Yet it's working, it's worked before, it's literally science and YOU ASKED ME FOR ADVICE.4
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Thanks so much, @New_Heavens_Earth and @dhiammarath ! I really appreciate your understanding and sympathy.dhiammarath wrote: »New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »People can be real *kitten*s. When they give unsolicited "gee, that seems to be working really well for you, so this is how you should fix it," advice like that to me, I sometimes think they are either trying to sabotage my weight loss success, or else hitch a vicarious ride on it.
My mom said something that really ticked me off last night. Although in her case, I think it was just because people sometimes just say dumb things.
I have fibromyalgia, which means (among many other things) that my body doesn't repair its muscles and tissues very well after exercise. That means that exercise is frequently "punished" by sore muscles, pain and exhaustion. That's discouraging as *kitten*, and I have dealt with it mostly by just not exercising. (Which, of course, makes it worse. Fibromyalgia is a game where you often really "just can't win for losin.'")
The only way around the exercise-punishment thing is to find a level of exercise so low that the body can handle the amount of repair involved, and then "titrate" the exercise level very slowly up from there. I've tried to do this more than once, but kept pulling down massive "punishments" for gentle little neighborhood strolls.
I tried again the other day with the most gentle "workout" I could think of: 0.3 miles, 30 foot elevation gain/loss, 9 minutes of walking at just above comfortable pace for me. (That's not a workout, that's just getting to your car in mall parking lot!)
But it thoroughly kicked my butt. Not much soreness this time, but I've been totally *kitten*ed out and needing to sleep nearly round the clock for the last three days.
So, I was telling Mom about this, partly to explain why I hadn't called when I'd said I would, and she said many supportive and encouraging things. And then she said: "Well, maybe you should take a walk like that more often than every few years."
Gosh, Ma, why didn't I think of that? I'll just jump in my time machine and go back and rectify my previous behavior - was the first thing I didn't say to her. I also didn't ask her if, all the times that she's needed my help during the years in question, I should have been unavailable because I was recovering from a titration walk. I didn't - well, there's a lot that I didn't say to her.
Next titration walk tomorrow. I'm aiming for about half the distance over the same course, and I'll see how that works out. And I probably won't mention it to Mom if I don't have to.
I'm very sorry this happened. Exercise is the only thing that controls my fibro pain and moods. Keeping my weight down helps fatigue too (meds gave me hallucinations). So one of my in laws who knows about my fibro will do the whole "you've lost enough weight, why are you still on this" nonsense, then in the next sentence tell me fibromyalgia isn't a big deal, I'm just being dramatic, attention seeking, or even making it up. When she asks about it now I just say "I'm still alive" and change the subject. The passive aggressive minimizing nonsense just ticks me off and I feel worse.
I hope your plan works for you.
My mother has MS and she got all of this and more back when they were trying to diagnose it as a child. She was told that her debilitating chest pains were her imagination and sent her to a psychiatrist. Diseases where there is no visible ailment or handicap are the hardest for people to be sympathetic to. I once had a man chase me down into a grocery store (I was maybe 14) to berate me for my mother parking in the handicap spot. (It was a good day; she didn't need her cane). I was mortified and terrified. He was large, angry, and self-righteous.
Watching my mother live through this time and time again, I am always mindful of the things that people struggle with that are unseen. Good luck to both of you ladies for sticking with it. There ARE those out there who understand. Either through personal experience or through being close to someone who struggles with the unseen diseases.
As far as strange things told to me about weight loss... I've been lucky. Other than the "you'll be come anorexic!" comments every so often when I say I still have quite a bit to lose, most people smile and nod when I mention counting calories. Sometimes, I'll get the odd, "Oh I could never count calories! <insert fad diet/quick option> works best for me!" But in general, I surround myself with awesome folks and I've had a hefty dallop of luck too!
Also, #longhairdon'tcare when it comes to randos and their opinions. XD
They are merely the trash mobs on my way to the dragon. Easiy slain in lieu of the boss I know will come 'round the corner!
[warning - off-topic rantiness follows]
Fibro is a real rhymes-with-witch kind of *kitten*: it took me years to be diagnosed; and, after I lost the job and career I loved, it took more years for me to get disability. They can't tell me what caused or how to cure it, and the options for treating it often boil down to things that need to be done by the patient: titrate your exercise! eat more whole grains and dark leafy greens! maintain rigorous sleep hygiene! ...*Kitten*! - most nominally healthy people can barely manage that stuff, let alone me.
And yes, people constantly have things to tell me about it: "Fibromyalgia? Isn't that that thing that fat chicks get because they're depressed all the time?" -- "Oh, my sister-in-law has that real bad. She had to give up teaching her Zumba classes: the fibro just made it impossible what with her working full-time, studying for her MBA, and running that Fortune 500 company out of her basement." -- "Oh, yes, have you read that article about hypoganglion neuromotility in cephalically anomalous fibromyalgia patients in this spring's issue of The Esoteric Journal of Obscure Results? I'll email you a copy and you can tell me what you think." -- "My brother-in-law's cousin had that. He went to Mexico for coffee enemas and they cured him completely. You should do that right away." (Yes, someone actually told me to go get coffee enemas. In a wild furor of self-restraint, I did not tell them what I thought they should shove up their own *kitten*.)
[rant more-or-less over, swerving back towards topic]
So I don't like to tell people about having fibro if I can help it. For all the reasons mentioned in this thread, I usually try to keep the diet and exercise thing under my hat, too. And, since I suck at talking about sports, my only recourse sometimes seems to remake myself into strong silent type. (So, hey, how'm I doing so far?
)
In less ranty news, I did do a much shorter titration walk yesterday, and had much better results (more details in this blog post). So I've finally got a starting point, which means that now I can proceed.
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“You don’t need to count calories, you’re already thin.”
Yea, because I count calories!
Another one was “But, you have no fat to lose.” Then when I lost weight the same people say, “You look great, like you lost 20lbs” Well if I had no fat to lose then what does it look like I lost? My leg?
I think these people maybe think they are complementing me? But really it comes off more judgemental, like they think I am delusional or vain. At the very least it’s simply unsupportive. I find it annoying and rude but I try not to let it bother me.4 -
"Again?" and "Are you going to keep it off this time?" are my favorites.5
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I've lost a substantial amount of weight (I weigh less than half of where I started), and I'll get asked how I did it.
When I explain the whole - eat less, move more thing I tend to get a lot of criticism that losing weight doesn't work that way, generally followed by woo diet product recommendations. Generally this comes from those with no long term (or any, really) weight loss success.
That being said; is eyerolling considered cardio?3 -
I've gotten a lot of this too. The conversation usually goes something like:I've lost a substantial amount of weight (I weigh less than half of where I started), and I'll get asked how I did it.
When I explain the whole - eat less, move more thing I tend to get a lot of criticism that losing weight doesn't work that way, generally followed by woo diet product recommendations. Generally this comes from those with no long term (or any, really) weight loss success.
That being said; is eyerolling considered cardio?
Them: "Wow - you've lost weight. May I ask your secret?"
Me: "Thank you. It's not much of a secret, though - just plain old diet and exercise."
Them: "(their own idiosyncratic, frequently stupid and/or insulting, way of saying "Well, that's not what I wanted to hear!)"
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I will say for the longest time I thought the "woo" button was for Whoohoo! you're awesome. I clicked the darned thing so many times. sorry folks..didn't know.3
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