How to respond to family members who disagree with weight goal

I have not read all the responses so sorry if this is a repeat

there is a website called my body gallery, basically people can post pictures of themselves and you can see based on sex, height, and weight. This could be useful, show your parents some pictures of people at your goal weight. Sometimes numbers just sound so large and extreme, but if they see other people with your body type at your goal weight who don't look like starvation cases maybe it will help them understand. Also if you have other people in your family at a healthy weight who are willing to share their stats use that for backup.

I recently transitioned to being vegan from 3 years of solid vegetarianism (was on the fence about eating meat for most of my life, and started and stopped eating it for many years for various reasons). My entire family are very overweight (most are morbidly obese. My mother is over 300lb) and don't consider it a meal unless it's at least 1/3 meat. They fry everything under the sun and think bacon hung the moon. I love most of them to pieces, but they haven't the foggiest idea of what a healthy diet looks like, and for me, right now, the only way to really keep myself from "cheating" is to just not eat anything they cook, and keep myself on a pretty strict, yet nutrition packed lifestyle of tons of fruit and vegetables, with some nuts and seeds, with rices and beans most days as well as occasional pastas/breads (I try to keep bread/pasta to once or twice a week). It's worked wonders for me. My family thinks I'm COMPLETELY and entirely insane and have officially gone off the deep end. I may as well be an alien from another planet, the way I eat is so vastly different from the way they do. They tell me I'm not getting any protein and tell me that I'm going to starve to death (I'm 5'6", female, and eat between 1200-1500 calories per day, and get quite enough protein. I'm not starving to death any time soon), and tease me for eating like a rabbit.

On the other hand, I have a small cluster of friends who encourage me and occasionally send me recipes they think I would like, as well as ask me to share my cook book when I feed them something they find to be exceptionally delicious. I've lost over 50lb (which is hard to do when you have PCOS) so far, and am still going, so I know I'm doing SOMETHING right, as the results are there, and even my doctor's on board since I brought my recipe book and examples of my typical weekly meal plans that I've used to get this weight off until this point, and my blood tests are showing much improvement. I was close to being pre-diabetic, and my cholesterol was super high, but that's no longer the case, too.

It does get rough, though. I've had my dark moments, but I can see the results of my efforts in my body. 50lb is a ton of weight. I want to lose between 40-60 more, which will put me squarely in the healthy range for my height.

When my family starts up, I tell them that my doctor disagrees with them, and he's a pretty smart dude, so I'm going to go ahead and listen to him. If they keep up with it, I usually pour on the guilt and say something along the lines of "You know, I'm trying to do what I think is right for myself and my body. I'm not giving you crap about what you eat, or giving you unsolicited advice. I've lost a ton of weight and keep losing more. I wish you would just be happy for me." If they continue to push and end up getting me angry, which they do sometimes, sometimes I'll ask them why, if they know so much about nutrition and health, that they can't seem to lose the weight they say they want to lose so badly, when I am doing just that.

I agree. Most people are terrible at guessing how much weight someone needs to lose. With people like this I usually say, "a few more pounds".

elphie754 wrote: »

PammieSuzyQ wrote: »

You should also think about whether or not you are playing a part in the fact that they might think you are unhappy. Do you grouch about your diet or exercise in any way in front of them. Are you irritable, I mean more so than usual? It's not just being on a diet that can make us irritable, there are nutrients you may be missing that can cause you to be irritable. A lack of calcium/magnesium, a lack of omegas. A lack of vitamin D3, some B vitamins. Check your cholesterol levels. Lower cholesterol can make you irritable. You don't get cholesterol by consuming high cholesterol foods, your liver Creates ALL of your own cholesterol, but it does so from the fats you ingest. Fats are necessary to life and should not ever be entirely cut out of any diet. Most people don't know that a lack of cholesterol in their blood can cause a temporary schizophrenia. "People who are deficient in omega-3s may suffer from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and ADHD".

If you are on an extremely low calorie diet, I suggest doing some research on adding supplements, or changing the way you eat in order to include what you may be missing.

I am sorry, but the whole bipolar may just be missing something nutrient wise bothers the living daylights out of me. My parents honestly believed when I was a teen that if I got the right nutrients and natural remedy, my symptoms would go away. What to know what really happened? They were SO convinced that vitamins would help that they missed the symptoms leading up to a manic episode. That did not end well for any of us.

I really take issue to people suggesting mental illness can be treated with supplements. It is dangerous. Yes, there are issues with chemical imbalence in the brain. The way to treat that is medication, not supplements.

At no time did I suggest I was on VLCD. I am well above the 1200 "limit" each day.

No, doing research via dr. Google is never a good idea when it comes to your health. There is so much bad information out there. Blood tests are the way to tell if you have a deficiency, not random symptoms you ask google about. I have seen many people do actual harm to their body because they believed they should be taking a certain kind of supplement based on generic symptoms. A really good example: right now I have a flu virus. If I were to ask dr. Google about my symptoms you know what comes up? Ebola. There is absolutely no chance of me having contracted that since I a) have never been to Africa and b) none of my PTs have travelled either.

I did not say at anytime that diet would cure bipolars. It does not of course.

What I am saying is: That if you cut fats out of your diet so drastically that you are left with little to no blood cholesterol levels, that your mental health is in danger.

This does not follow that ALL mental heath issues are caused by diet. Mental health problems are very diverse and complex, some are organic and/or genetic, some caused by environmental factors, some by trauma, and many by more than one factor. I too wish it were just that easy, I have PTSD, I'd give up my right arm if it could be solved by diet.

So if you read that into what I said, I apologize. This is not something that I googled one day, it's common knowledge health community. I first learned about it when my children were babies. They are all adults now.

Your body and your brain needs food to function. It needs fats as part of your diet. If you do not provide your body with what it needs to function, it will not function correctly. It's very simple.

p.s. please read what i said again, i DID say to go and have your cholesterol checked.

i'm going to guess that VLCD means Very Low Cholesterol Diet? I know it's not common knowledge, but a low cholesterol diet means nothing as our bodies do not use the dietary cholesterol we consume in foods. Our livers create all of our own blood serum cholesterol from the fats we ingest. So if you cut fats out of your diet, your liver would have nothing to create cholesterol from.

p.p.s. There is a way to do intelligent online research. If you can tell the difference between *kitten* and truth, it can be done.

Mine is my elder daughter. Her comments are,, "I could NEVER do what you do (referring to weighing food etc), it would drive me crazy and isn't worth it." Really??? I'm 5'2" and was almost 200 lbs! She says she's proud, and then cooks all the things she KNOWS I've reduced significantly in my eating plan. SHE is not overweight, I am. So to keep things pleasant, I've become very vague. I say "I'm not sure, but it's not important right now" and when I eat with her, I put no thank you bites on my plate, nibble at them momentarily, and then push them away saying I had a big, late lunch. As soon as she starts in on my food intake or weight, I change the subject and make it about her and having her answer questions about what's going on in her life. People love to talk about themselves. Good luck, this is a terrible problem to have.

Virkati wrote: »

Mine is my elder daughter. Her comments are,, "I could NEVER do what you do (referring to weighing food etc), it would drive me crazy and isn't worth it." Really??? I'm 5'2" and was almost 200 lbs! She says she's proud, and then cooks all the things she KNOWS I've reduced significantly in my eating plan. SHE is not overweight, I am. So to keep things pleasant, I've become very vague. I say "I'm not sure, but it's not important right now" and when I eat with her, I put no thank you bites on my plate, nibble at them momentarily, and then push them away saying I had a big, late lunch. As soon as she starts in on my food intake or weight, I change the subject and make it about her and having her answer questions about what's going on in her life. People love to talk about themselves.

I love this

christinev297 wrote: »

My mum and sister gave me a big lecture not half an hour ago.And i had to promise them till i was blue in the face that i will NOT lose another pound. I've got 4kgs (8lbs) left to lose till i'm at my goal weight.
My husband secretly puts oil in my food or extra sugar on my fruit etc etc I honestly don't know what to think, obviously they're seeing something i'm not!

That is some serious sabotage going on! I would go ballistic on all of them. Your husband would learn quickly what it's like to have someone mess with his food. He'd be drinking and eating laxatives every chance I had. F**k with my food and my health...I'll get even in a way that would make the debil proud!

elphie754 wrote: »

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Not that BMI is the sole indicator of health, but is your weight goal within the healthy BMI range for your height?

Very much so. My goal is weight would have me at 20.6. I would be happy with anything between 20 and 24.9. Going for more of a range then a set number.

iwillsucceed0444 wrote: »

Who gives a *kitten* what your family members think. They're not the ones stuck in YOUR body 24/7. Just tell them to pound sand...in a nice way. "Thanks, but you're opinion is not needed."

Not that easy. Even when they yell I refuse to yell back. They help me with a lot, so I try my best not to be rude to them.

So sorry guys. I can totally see how my first post can sound like that lol. I'm on mobile, and when I type directly into the "start convo" box, it likes to cover what you are writing so you can see it (like it scrolls). Because of that, I thpically type things out on "notepad" and just c/p. Guess I forgot to hit "select all" lol.

Why tell them if its going to cause such stress. Just say I plan to stop when I'm at a healthy weight and leave it there. Why cause yourself extra stress?