The "what are you doing" question

I am enjoying great sucess and constantly adjust my daily menu to accommodate my desires and still remain under my daily 1500 calories. Just started swimming for 2 hours 3 times a week to boost my activity. I am happy with my progress and life change. I can live like this forever quite content. I eat what I want---within reason, ever conscious of portion size and don't put anything in my mouth until I know how many calories I am consuming. I call it "mindful eating"---no more diets I'm on a health vision-quest.

I think that people want the easy way and think that's the only way to lose weight. They want to hear it's a pill or a wrap or something that takes very little effort. Makes me sad too because I think it gets easier the longer you make healthy decisions.

Congrats on your loss!

Whenever I get asked this question I tell them counting calories and working out hard. They just stand in amazement with dropped jaws and then say something to the effect of "wow that sounds tough." Inside I just kind of giggle and think yes, completely changing your lifestyle and moving your body when you feel like being lazy and not eating that entire birthday cake is tough but not as tough as hauling around over 300 lbs and having to take multiple medications for the rest of my life.

Something that I also thought of with this post was something that completely blew my mind. I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a little over a year ago the age of 28, weighing in at 290 lbs. At my last doctor appointment my Doctor said to me,"WOW, you have dropped a lot of weight what have you been doing....(I answered)...wow that's really great none of my diabetic patients ever lose weight they just rely on the medication, you are my all star patient." So, just remember the fact that we are all here and putting in that extra effort everyday puts us several steps ahead of everyone else.

I get the exact same reaction all the time. When I tell them the honest truth "diet and exercise" or "move more, eat less" they look at me stoic and jaw droppped like it is doing the impossible. I even had a family member tell me "Well, that's not what I want to hear" as if a magical remedy that would cure all their weight problems would come out of my mouth and they wouldn't have to worry about their weight ever again. I go to the gym 4+ days a week and I have acheived my goal, I'm only trying to tone now. Before it was 6-7 days a week. This takes hard work and a lot of discipline, anything in pill form or on an infomercial is a "just say no". Great job on your achievement!

i always get asked by people i havent seen in while what i did to lose it and say eat better and workout and theyre always disappointed i didnt have a magical ferrys phone number to give them to call

I get asked this all the time as well! I just say "Hard Work"! They usually roll their eyes and say they can't be bothered with that! I say fair enough! If they want a conversation with me then I tell them about MFP, eat more to weigh less, C25K, Strength Training etc and then I get a better response!

Best one was my Mum though!! She kept on buying me cakes and donuts and chocolate (That I gave to my underweight OH until she got wise and started getting stuff he doesn't like) but when she saw how well I was doing she joind MFP as well! The trouble was she decided that it was too stressful to log her food and used it as an excuse to binge on Toblerone! She gained 1/2 a stone in 2 weeks on MFP before freaking out and refusing to try!! Some people just don't want to put the work in!

Most of the people that have commented have been my customers at work - some are daily regulars, others are weekly, monthly etc, so they see the big difference (I lost a fair bit of weight pre-MFP. I was 235lbs, now I'm 143lbs). A lot of people have asked this question.

I just say that I'm making healthier choices in food and becoming more active. I hate to say eat less, move more but that's essential what I was doing pre-MFP - it worked because I had a fair bit to lose, but I think the weight came off a little too quickly. I was still making healthier lifestyle changes though. The epiphany came at Christmas last year. By this time my weight loss was starting to slow down and with all the Christmas food around I didn't weigh myself for about 3 weeks. I know I ate more. When I finally weighed in again... I was amazed at the result. Another factor in me changing my tack slightly was I started doing strength training and c25k and I felt a little tired and hungry and needed to eat more. It didn't affect my weight loss. Then I found MFP.

Anyway, I'm not really specific about what I've done, just more in general terms, especially with customers. With friends/family I would go into it more if they wanted to know. I also get a lot of questions about whether I used a particular program.

I used to really dislike being asked by customers about my weight loss and I used to get very embarrassed when they noticed. I felt that I was constantly being reminded about my weight before. But then I had a little attitude adjustment and conceded that they are really well-meaning, that I couldn't except people not to notice. And that they were really just trying to be nice. Some people can be a little tactless like the women who yelled out in front of a full shop, 'My goodness, you lost a LOT of weight!!!' or the guy the other day who said I had lost a lot of beef lol. I just smile and nod and try to talk about my running if anything. (Favourite fitness topic lol)