People thinking you're sick after weight loss?

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  • bethygirlie
    bethygirlie Posts: 311 Member
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    I get that all the time, especially since I'm so pale. I have considered tanning because I'm sick of everyone assuming I'm anemic/sick/etc. I get "don't lose too much more weight", um thanks but I have my own opinion. I'm 180 pounds, I think I can lose another 40 without looking bad, although apparently people at my work sometimes assume I'm starving myself because I work nights and I don't eat that much at night. Well I plan it that way, and I don't like working midnight shift on a full stomach because I'd just want to sleep. I hate it when people always assume you're sick when you're probably healthier than they are.
  • tking867
    tking867 Posts: 2 Member
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    I don't understand at all why someone thinks it is perfectly okay to tell you that you don't need to lose weight or lose "any more" weight YET if you said to that same person, "I don't think you need to gain anymore weight" it would be the rudest thing they've ever heard!
  • carolg225
    carolg225 Posts: 29
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    I haven't lost enough YET for people to think I'm sick, but I have a picture in my living room from 10 years ago after I had lost about 40 lbs and a good friend calls it my "crack picture". I think I look great.....funny how different we see ourselves from what others see....I know one thing.....I'm gonna throw a party when someone asks me if somethings wrong cause I look skinny!!!! :):)
  • ltkasmala
    ltkasmala Posts: 109 Member
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    Yes.... It's annoying. And I got remarks the one time I lost about 70 pounds maybe 12 or 13 years ago from people who never even saw me! I told how much I lost and what I weighed in the end (which was about 138 pounds--pretty much the same end weight I'd like to be close to this time, as well) and all I got was "Are you sure you looked ok?" Simply because I am kind of tall for a female, 5'7", with a larger frame, somehow people envision that weight must not look good. And if I had not been eating regularly (good food choices at the time, too) I might have been more concerned! Right now I am still about 30 pounds from my final goal weight and the majority of people who saw me last year and see me know just say "You look different", which I guess isn't so bad! People need to learn how to mind their own business! Until someone is really overweight with health issues, maybe they can't fully understand the reasoning behind needing, not just wanting, to loose a lot of weight! I"d ignore them unless the rumor mill gets out of hand. Some people have too much time on their hands apparently! :(
  • celiason81
    celiason81 Posts: 57 Member
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    Most anyone I know knows how hard I've been working to eat better and lose weight, so I don't get the "are you sick?" comments, but some co-workers have asked if I'm anorexic or have another eating disorder (I'm a nurse, so they're "just concerned"). Um no, I just don't snack on all the crap we have at work like everyone else. Then I get told I'm getting too skinny and shouldn't loose anymore weight. I've realized it is because most people are first shocked by a drastic change. Second, others (mainly women, moms more specifically) don't like to feel like they don't have an excuse for themselves being overweight.
  • PJ64
    PJ64 Posts: 866 Member
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    my mom asked me if i were making myself throw up the other day :/ wtf

    Nice username.
    05d.jpg

    Hahahaha! I get asked, but its my Irish heritage and I'm Pale!!:tongue:
  • slim_photographer
    slim_photographer Posts: 310 Member
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    yeah this can happen.
    I lost weight the healthy way one time. I stopped exercising and gained it back so a couple of years later I had this bowel disease and led me to loss like 30 lbs in a month.
    People started to say that I was so desperate to lose weight that I had tried supplements that nearly killed and that's how I lost the weight the second time. Not only I almost died but having people I know spreading such lies was kinda depressing.
    I guess there's no fix for such thing. Let's just keep doing what we know is right and I guess with time the truth will prevail.
    HC
  • carneson3
    carneson3 Posts: 33
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    A coworker just asked me this a week ago! I started to pretend cry and ask him why he had to bring up such a sensitive subject...THEN told him it was just weight loss! We all got a laugh out of it and I honestly was flattered that he cared enough to ask about my health!
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
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    I was asked if I had a cancer by my boss - actually she was concerned that I had not screened myself for that since my last weight loss was easy (I gain and lose reasonably easily). Her concern both got me to work out but was part of the mental self-sabotage that followed.
    I've learned to not consider these comments as pure negative input.
  • sarahisme18
    sarahisme18 Posts: 574 Member
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    Yep! I became a vegetarian, and people constantly ask me if I'm being healthy. Then when I say I'm trying to lose weight, they give me this concerned look and say I don't need to—but how do they know? They can't see beneath the clothes, LOL
  • Zylahe
    Zylahe Posts: 772 Member
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    I don't understand at all why someone thinks it is perfectly okay to tell you that you don't need to lose weight or lose "any more" weight YET if you said to that same person, "I don't think you need to gain anymore weight" it would be the rudest thing they've ever heard!

    I love it
  • flirzhja
    flirzhja Posts: 34
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    My mother told me once that I looked like I had an abortion after a significant weight loss. :huh: She emphasized how unfit I looked being slimmer and how I had no butt, etcetera etcetera. Moms could be the worst critics ever.
  • mearlie
    mearlie Posts: 224
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    I actually was sick a couple of years ago and lost weight - but was still above my goal weight - so I'm assuming that 'concern' will return as I continue losing.

    That said, there's a bunch of research on this in the U.S. - 63% of the population is significantly overweight (and going up) and peoples' perception of what is "normal weight" has been distorted ... so first off many people see "normal" weight as "underweight", when it isn't. Second, as lots of folks have pointed out, graduate loss isn't noticed until it hits some sort of "perceptual threshold" and then it looks like a sudden loss, so people are concerned.

    Myself I also wonder if people are also unused to seeing people successfully reduce as a result of choice and hard work that they assume illness rather than conscious change.

    For some reason I can't help but think of the movie Wall-E
  • mearlie
    mearlie Posts: 224
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    I don't understand at all why someone thinks it is perfectly okay to tell you that you don't need to lose weight or lose "any more" weight YET if you said to that same person, "I don't think you need to gain anymore weight" it would be the rudest thing they've ever heard!

    I love it
    :laugh:
  • bethygirlie
    bethygirlie Posts: 311 Member
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    I don't understand at all why someone thinks it is perfectly okay to tell you that you don't need to lose weight or lose "any more" weight YET if you said to that same person, "I don't think you need to gain anymore weight" it would be the rudest thing they've ever heard!

    ex-actly. i'm sure they wouldn't want me coming up to them asking them if they're pregnant or telling them "are you sure you want that brownie?"
  • chriscm70
    chriscm70 Posts: 76 Member
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    This happened to me last night. A woman I hadn't seen in a while commented on it but said she was a little afraid to say anything because she thought I might be sick. She said she commented on a guy's weight loss once and he told her it was because he had cancer though, so I guess I can understand her apprehension. Before that it hadn't even occurred to me that people might be thinking that.
  • Oishii
    Oishii Posts: 2,675 Member
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    I was asked so many times that I developed a little speech:

    'Yes I have lost weight and yes it was on purpose.'

    When I gained a little a few people told me how much better I looked, and at my lowest I was a bit scrawny, but 30DS sorted that out. Annoyingly, I was also anaemic, which I'd never been in my life before, which may or may not have been related to my weight loss, so maybe the real difference was no iron v. supplements.

    The people I remember being concerned were mainly rather socially gauche and probably feared making a faux pas by praising me for being ill.
  • Razack541
    Razack541 Posts: 29
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    my mom asked me if i were making myself throw up the other day :/ wtf

    Nice username.
    05d.jpg
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  • xristysmith
    xristysmith Posts: 15
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    :laugh: lol..where the heck is Flour Bluff, Tx !
  • Evasavealot1
    Evasavealot1 Posts: 76 Member
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    I have clients come in and ask if I'm sick. I lost 20 pounds in 2 months. People are weird. It also doesn't help I don't wear make up so I usually have my morning face look like a disaster. By noon, my face seems more alert and rosy :)

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