When others don't notice your loss...

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  • Jemie45
    Jemie45 Posts: 2
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    THANK YOU for all your responses! And the support and encouragement you have given me... I felt like I got a boost reading through them :-)

    I feel a bit silly after reading your comments. Im normally not a conceited or vain person at all, but I think weight gain/obesity can make people very self absorbed and self obsessed and this is another example of that.

    I dont know what I expect, like I lose a few kilos and suddenly look like a new person and shock people around me?! You are completely right in that I wouldn't comment to work colleagues about their appearance, its a very professional relationship and so its little suprise they haven't commented to me either. Close friends I dunno. Perhaps its because Ive never been someone to talk/complain about my weight and they feel like i wouldn't want them to comment. Or maybe its because as some of you have pointed out, I dont look all that different. I do think if I lose another 5-7 kgs even Ill look vastly different because dresses and more fitted tops will look ok enough on me to wear and that would look quite different in me as I usually wear baggier/non fitted/layered clothing now.

    Its taken me many years to recover from bulimia to just learn how to eat a 'normal' amount, not binge/purge and the past few months my headspace has completely changed in that miraculously 'dieting'/clean eating is easier and more effortless than ever before... Something has clicked and I'm no longer aiming to lose weight for a short term goal etc but in it for the long haul. But, because the weight loss is slow, My head still struggkes with doubt and whether I can do this at all. I know i have no other option but to keep going no matter how small my losses, they are still losses, but in the meantime a bit of external validation would give me a boost to keep going.
  • chrissievet
    chrissievet Posts: 11 Member
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    Hi Jemie, I'm sorry to hear such negative responses from your colleagues, but I too am in the exact same situation at work where colleagues have said absolutely nothing to me about my weight loss either, but, I put it down to petty jealousies not that anyone else is vastly overweight and they all are slim (except for one person who is not) and she is very prickly and down right nasty when speaking to me since I have lost a stone and a half and I have gone down from a dress size 14/16 to a size 10/12, but I see that as HER problem not mine I am doing something she don't like and it's probably getting to her.

    Honestly I would say its more because you said they're all slim... if they acknowledge your weightloss, they essentially have to acknowledge that you were overweight. Its far safer to not say anything until YOU comment on it and open it up for positive comments.

    Commenting on peoples weight is a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. If you comment on their weight and they're unhappy, your a horrible person. If you don't comment on their weight and they are happy, your a horrible person. If you bite the bullet, open the dialoge and make it clear you're happy for feedback, you might find people aren't as petty and jealous as you think they are?!?!?
  • ElusivePete
    ElusivePete Posts: 50 Member
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    I've lost 35 pounds in the last 4-5 months, but people I see regularly don't seem to say anything unless it comes up in conversation. Even then, it's only a handful of people that I'm close to, and who already know I'm making an effort to get healthy.

    I think the problem is that most people don't feel comfortable saying anything, either because they don't know if I'm losing weight on purpose, or because they're afraid of calling me fat! I imagine I'd get more comments if I actively talked about my efforts more often, or made a big fuss of my progress.

    With all of that said, I have noticed a couple of people doing double-takes lately, which is quite fun! I also got very positive comments from my Karate examiners recently, who only see me once every 6 months.
  • ElizabethFuller
    ElizabethFuller Posts: 352 Member
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    OK, today was so funny. One of my colleagues ran into my room, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into her room saying "Come here!!" She then told me to take of my coat (we work in a school lab) and said in a awed voice "How much weight have you lost??" It turned out that she was looking for a photo on the computer and found one of me with the Chemistry leavers in July 2012 when I was about 200lb. There are almost no photos of me below the neck anywhere at all and I'd forgotten that this one existed, she was amazed that I had lost so much weight.
    So eventually someone noticed - so nice to get a "Wow!"
  • golfmonk
    golfmonk Posts: 119 Member
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    Like I think what was mentioned by a few people earlier, my day-to-day friends have not noticed my 15 pound loss, but my family did when I went to visit them for Thanksgiving (I visit them about 6 times a year, so pretty infrequently).

    But, that does not bother me. I am losing weight for health reasons (trying to take some pressure off a bad knee) and not for verbal validation from my friends and co-workers. I do admit that when I drop another 10 pounds to get to 190, they might start saying something because at this point should make a big difference on my overall body composition (losing weight around the middle)

    Best of luck to everyone on their weight loss efforts!
  • Brainless64
    Brainless64 Posts: 27 Member
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    Well unless your tiny a size 12 is a perfectly healthy size for an adult woman.

    2kg a month is about what you'd expect to loose at being this close to/at a healthy weight.

    That's a pound a week or around 3500 calories per week deficit (500 cals a day) less than yoru body needs.

    You only get faster loss when you have a lot of weight to loose as the less you weigh the less your body needs to function.
  • karlospiklington
    karlospiklington Posts: 143 Member
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    It took members of my family who see me every day 4 months to notice my weightloss. By that time I had lost 20lbs! It probably is due to the fact the people around you don't notice it as much. Do you wear fitted clothes? Or did you before you lost the weight? As I always prefer slightly baggier clothes so it wasn't necessarily as noticeable when I lost weight until I bought new, smaller clothes.

    Either way congrats on the weight loss!

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