"Too Skinny"

I get this too. I just had my grandmother tell me the other day to stop losing because she was worried I'd start to look "gaunt". I'm 5'8 and 164 lbs. A long way off from gaunt.

Hello MFP family,

I just need to vent. I'm so tired of people telling me that I'm getting "too skinny". What is too skinny? When I started my journey at the beginning of the year, I was at my all time high of 176. I'm now down to 160. That's 16lbs. I would like my final weight to be 140lbs. I only went down one size from a 12 to a 10. I just wish instead of people being negative, encourage me and tell me how well I'm doing. Geez people.

Thanks for listening. Have a good day.

I heard I was "too skinny" or losing "too much" for the last 50 lbs of my weight loss. It's mostly people wanting to feel better about themselves for not being able or motivated enough to do what you are doing. It was funny how my family or co-workers who were overweight or obese told me these things all the time, yet my friends from the gym who were as lean as I wanted to be would comment on my progress being good and said things like "Keep up the good work" "Keep losing, you're almost there!".

Long story short, Haters ganna hate!

At thanksgiving I was asked repeatedly if I was sick. it really put me in a bad mood with my mom I'm still not over it.

Yep, i've gotten this recently. My sister (who is 5'7" and like 118lbs) told me that if i lost more weight i'd look "skeletal." I'm 5'9 and 149lbs. Wtf?

I get this too! My sister is the same height as me (5'8") and she has always been super skinny. Like 110 lbs. And they keep acting concerned about my weight when I am over 50 lbs heavier then her! I never plan to get that low. I only want to lose 15 more lbs.

People sometimes just have trouble with "change" - my husband leaned out from eating well one summer and his mom kept asking if he was sick. My mother worries every time I lose weight even if I'm also gaining muscle. Once they got used to it, though, it was no big deal.

devil's advocate:
1) They're trying to compliment you
2) They're used to seeing you heavy and the change is so dramatic you "appear" to be too skinny, especially compared to how you looked for so long.

#2 is a big one for me. I was obese for my entire adult life (almost 20 years) up until a few years ago so some people are just having a hard time getting used to how I look. I even got the skin and bones comment - not hardly! I'm still 10+ pounds from being in the normal weight range for my height! Mostly it's people I haven't seen in a while and they forget that I've lost the weight so it takes them aback when they first see me. Pretty much everyone else is used to my new figure now though.

I'm sure there are some who are jealous or whatever but I think the majority of people, especially those who love us, mean well. Once you're at your goal weight for a while, they'll get used to it.

my second mom smacked me with a newspaper and told me I'd better not have turn anorexic. Then she put a big plate of Italian food in front of me with an expectant look.
Sometimes, they are just worried.

Hmmm…. Sounds familiar or should I say familia. Let me take a guess and say your second mom is Italian? My Nonna would do that to me all the time in H.S. when I was trying to make weight for wrestling. I couldn’t leave the table at our Sunday dinners at her house until I had at least two plates full of pasta.

devil's advocate:
1) They're trying to compliment you
2) They're used to seeing you heavy and the change is so dramatic you "appear" to be too skinny, especially compared to how you looked for so long.

Pretty much this^^^

I think most people perceive such statements as giving you a compliment. I've been in maintenance over a year now and I no longer receive such comments as now I just look "normal"...people are used to seeing me this size, but before and while I was losing I received loads of these kind of comments and 99.9% of them were coming from the right place...they were attempting to compliment me on my loss.

Look at it this way...they could say, "hey...way to go losing some weight...but you're still a fat *kitten*...better work on that."