"You do NOT have that much to lose!"

carlobuff

Don't tell them. Just do it and let them see the results.

Kalrez

I get that pretty frequently, so I'm just stopped telling people what my goal weight is. I'm tall (6'0"), so it's easier for me to carry 100 extra pounds and not look very obese. But the fact of the matter is that I AM obese. When I first started, I was super excited. I told anyone who would listen that I was on my way to losing between 80-110lbs. Everybody just looked at me in shock. "From where?!" "You don't have that much to lose!" "You'll be nothing but skin and bones!" They would be equally as shocked when I told them that I weight 250lbs and that I was a size 20. They would comment with stuff like "You don't look that big." My height gives an illusion of me being thinner than I am, which has been both a blessing and a curse.

Losing 80lbs would bring me to 160, a healthy BMI. Losing 110 would bring me to 140, the lower end of healthy. I'm not aiming to lose too much. And honestly, the weight is just a guesstimate. I plan to put on some muscle, so I don't think I'll realistically get down to 140 and have the body that I want. I'll probably end up between 160 and 180.

I'm just gonna keep on doing my thing. Maybe they think their comments are compliments. I'm not sure, but it doesn't really sway me one way or the other. I just don't tell people my goal anymore.

maclynn62

hi, when i was at my heaviest 25st, it took people a while to notice, then they wouldn't ask me, but, they'ed say to hubby, has lynn been ill, or have i lost weight,. I do have friends that have been realy supportive, now i'm at 16st have set my target at 14, but, that's for me, if io need to cahnge it i will. I've also had people say oh, you don't really need to lose any more, and are shocked when i say i'd like to lose another 2st, but, at the end of the day, i'm doing this for me, so when i feel comfortable i will start to maintain(which is what i've been doing at various stages of my journey.

pixiestick

They just don't want you to leave the fat club.

Lozzy_82

I get this all the time.

In just the last week or so I've had my mother say "Ooh, there's nothing to you!" when she hugged me, my dad say "well you've done really well, but you don't need to lose any more", my husband say "you're not going to take this too far are you?", a colleague tell me "that's far too much - they'll be nothing left of you!" when I told her how much more I hoped to lose, and another colleague say "Wow - that's a lot of weight! Are you sure you need to lose that much?" when I told her the same thing. To be fair though, she did follow it up by saying "but you know in yourself how much you want to lose, so just ignore me"

To put things into perspective, I am 5'3", 152lbs, BMI around 27, and a UK size 16 (US 14). I would like to lose around another 2 stone which would take me to 125lbs, a BMI of 22.1, and I expect around a UK size 12-14. Not exactly skinny!

If I reach this goal I will still not be anywhere near as slim as my mother or either of my co-workers. I think because they are all so slim their perception of weight is a bit off. To a lot of people 2 stone (28 pounds) sounds like LOADS, and they probably imagine it putting me at a size 6 or something, but it really won't! Or maybe they're just trying to be nice by telling me I'm not that overweight, who knows?

barbacasec

I like people to know because then it keeps me on track at work. We have a lot of functions where food is provided so by me telling them that I am trying to "lose" a few it helps me walk by the cookie tray I hjave never told them how much I weigh nor how much I want to lose I just say I am trying to get healthy and more toned.

My hubby and I made a deal - for every 10lbs I lose HE will buy me a new pair of shoes.... what ever ones I want!! I LOVE SHOES so this is a great motivator!! so he knows how much I weigh and how much I want to lose and he told me that he will let me know if I am losing too much but at 200lb I have at least 50 to lose so bring on 5 new pairs of shoes baby!!

japruzze

Weight, religion and politics are NOT topics for polite conversation! I try to stay out of those!

LorinaLynn

I think for the most part, friends and family just plain don't judge us the way we judge ourselves. They see the total package, which includes the rose-colored glasses we wear when we look at someone we care about. It's the same thing that makes us not notice when our husband's hairline starts to thin, or when our parents start to age...

M mental image of my Dad was pitch black hair and silver sideburns. Very distinguished. Very handsome. One year for Christmas, someone got him one of those joke baseball hats with the fake ponytail. The ponytail was grey. I thought, "That's not going to match Dad's hair!" But it did. An exact match. I never noticed that his hair wasn't black anymore.

Enjoy it. Enjoy knowing that your loved ones aren't harsh and judgmental. Accept the compliment and don't try to read too much into it.

rosied915

After so many years of being up and down on the scale, I no longer mention what I'm doing concerning weight loss.
I'd like to share this with you:

I am age 50 now but when I was getting married at age 23-24 I had just lost about 80+ pounds. I was very proud of it and on my wedding day I weighed 118 pounds! Great, right?

Here's the kicker~on some "weight charts" for a woman only 5 feet tall, 118 pounds is ABOVE the healthy range. Yet, EVERYONE around me felt I was SOOOO skinny!!

I was a size 10 and some size 8s~ by no means anorexic~ yet everyone around me was so worried about me! (not my new husband though:blushing: )

Long story short~ like so many others have already said, keep this to yourself. Surround yourself with an imaginary suit of armor to deflect the comments from the clueless, jealous, thoughtless and uninformed people in your life. And for those that love you but don't get what you're trying to achieve, just Yes them to death and move on.

Bottom line: try not to FEEL all the responses but even better than that~ KEEP YOUR BUSINESS TO YOURSELF and save yourself the aggravation!

koosdel

Does anyone else find when you discuss weight loss to friends, family, co-workers...and you tell them how much you'd like to lose, they respond with something to the effect of "There is no way, you don't have that much extra on you!" or "you'll be way too skinny if you lost that!"

It is almost de-motivational, all these people that think I look fine the way I am.

Thoughts?

Just remember how much you have to gain.

Iceskatefanrn

When I'm in a conversation with an interested party, I feel no need to hide neither my current weight, my weight when I started, the amount I've lost, or my weight goals. This is MY information, & I don't mind sharing - I am not responsible for someone else's REACTION or RESPONSE to MY information. That's their issue to deal with.

(FYI, I'm 51 yrs old, 5'3" on a "tall day"... starting weight 202, current weight 182, losing weight and getting healthy on the 17 Day Diet).

But I love a good one-liner. When someone says "oh no, there's no way you weigh THAT much"... I just say "well, I've been fat since the 6th Grade, so I've gotten REALLY GOOD at dressing to hide it!

I'm looking forward to getting into my goal weight range (135-140), I know I'll "look" much thinner than that weight. When someone tells me I'm not eating enough, I'm "too skinny", I'm not getting enough nutrition... I'll be glad to say "Well, gee, I had a huge bowel movement today, and as we all know, that's waste product - so if my body is still making waste product then I MUST be eating enough!"

:drinker:

Ice

lemonadem

Thought... Their perception of weight is different from what someone actually weights. Does that make sense??? 20 lbs may seem like a lot to someone... In reality it is only about two pant sizes.

This is true. I have a friend who is very petite, and people are SHOCKED when they find out she weighs 140 pounds at 5'2" (or 5'3"?). Because to most people, who don't really know what muscle looks like, she looks like she should weigh in around 115 or 120. But she works out really hard and it's ALLLL muscle.

My trainer is 140 pounds at 5'2", again....all muscle.

So, as the above poster said.. maybe it SOUNDS like a lot, and they just don't realize that it's not that much of a difference, in a way.

And to the above poster.I am 5'6" and have lost 21 pounds, and only went down one pants size. But another woman posted this week, and at 5'2" 20 pounds meant 4 sizes for her. So again... it's all different for each person, depending on your build.

God bless!

This is so true! I've lost 20 pds and only dropped a pants size also. Being fit for me means being in shape and curvy- I don't mind a scale number, as long as I'm toned and feeling great. We all need to find our version of healthy. I've found that losing weight, working out, and eating right aren't that big of priorities to some people, but they are to me. Thankfully, the people close to me are very supportive, but some people just don't get it because it's not something they put high on their lists. It is definitely a whole lifestyle change to get to a healthy point and stay there, not something you can start and stop whenever you hit a certain goal. Mayabe that's hard to understand too? The commitment of it?

Congrats on doing it for you though

Iwillshyne

I sooo agree. Most of my fam and friends are over-weight and have not come to grips with it being un-healthy, some are very contempt with where they are and show no signs of changing. Other say they wanna get healthy but are not willing to put in the work, so to tell them what I am doing would only result in exactly what you said : Noooo, you don't need to loose weight, expecially THAT much weight. One of my GF even said I'd look like a crack-head if I were THAT small....smh! ...NOPE, It only results in total De-motivation indeed!! Best wishes!

babycoconut249

My parents started noticing I was gaining weight, but they actually encouraged it. They don't want me to loose weight telling me its ok to be my weight since I am hitting 30. No, it is not ok to be this weight at my age with my height!

babycoconut249

I used to get that from people all the time when I weighed 180 but those same people now tell me how great I look at 155. So it makes me wonder, were they lying before or are they lying now?

Maybe your just awesome no matter what size you are! :happy:

Hellbent_Heidi

Yes, but sometimes I wonder if its just because of how I carry it (I'm tall, so its proportioned and maybe hidden well), or maybe they're just trying to be polite. Nobody is going to come out and say...."oh yeah...good idea, you need to drop that much or more" :laugh:

sweebum

I have the reverse. After losing 60 lbs, my Grandmother said she would pick a weight of 105 for me. I'm 5'6 1/2!!:grumble:

stephyy4632

Imo its people don`t see the weight correctly I am 183 and while I haven`t told anyone in my family what I currently weigh I have told most that I have 32ish pounds left that I would like to loose and most (GUESS) I`m 150ish now from what they see so me saying I want to loose another 32 pounds seems crazy to them but I just let the comments rool and I have no intention on telling them my true weight as that is my biz not theres

I know they guess my weight to be 150ish since thats what my MIL said to me when I said I wanted to loose and she was shocked at how much I wanted to loose trying to tell me how unhealthy I will be if I`m that small (which isn`t true at all since my goal weight is in fact 150pounds LMBO) so people image perseption of weight is off imo

zarozinia

I really try to avoid discussing numbers with people, even close friends, because I'm short and my numbers look small to people who are average sized. And that inevitably opens me up for all kinds of benign criticism about how they'd "kill to be X lbs" when X lbs is what is considered overweight for my height and frame. Or the ever popular "if I weighed X, I'd be anorexic!" Even on MFP, I try not to mention numbers because I've run into that same kind of attitude here.

I have managed to train my best friend (who is a foot taller than me and considers herself "plus sized", but to my eyes, she looks completely proportional and normal, so I guess I'm not immune to it either) to remember that while I may be trying to lose ten pounds (though, I could stand to lose more like 20 in the long run), that's a pretty significant weight for my frame to be carrying around. A ten pound gain on someone who is 6 feet tall can be barely perceptible in the way their clothes fit. But on someone 5 feet tall, it can mean an increase in two dress sizes. I have less square footage on my body for that weight to go, after all!

Just trust me. I weigh what I weigh, and I want to weigh less and be in better shape and have healthy cholesterol levels, and I leave it at that.