Is it "easier" when you have more weight to lose?

I think it's easy to say "the grass is greener on the other side." Sure, it's frustrating to sometimes only lose a pound in a whole month after a lot of hard work and then look at someone who lost five pounds this week from simply cutting out ice cream or soda or something but I'm sure it's equally as frustrating for someone who, hypothetically, has been overweight since childhood to look at a person who just needs to lose 10 pounds to "get back to where they were pre- (baby or job stress or life change) weight" and who just have to get back into healthy habits they had most of their life instead of building all those good habits from scratch. Instead of trying to prove who's "hard" is hardest or who's "bad" is worse, we should just recognize that it's a tough process on everyone and that playing the comparison game isn't good for anyone. (Plus, as far as OP's coworker, it's easy to find excuses when you're looking for one too )

Wiseandcurious wrote: »

Whittedo wrote: »

That's like saying it is easier for someone to run a marathon than it is to run a 5k. Sounds like excuse making to me.

That is a useful analogy.

People kind of forget that *everyone* has a "last 10lb" at some point. The person who started very obese just lost a lot more before that, too!

True.

But I'd be willing to bet that the lighter person in the OP didn't mean to say that getting to goal weight was easier for the OP.

Pretty sure she meant getting started and establishing consistent weight loss is easier for the OP, and harder for her which is why she's stalling in the starting blocks, as it were. Think of it as the 1st 5K of the 5K race being harder than the 1st 5K of the marathon, which I think is pretty cut and dried.

I'd probably agree with her if she has only 5lb or so to lose and is already lean just because she wouldn't be able to create much of a deficit and her loss would be slow, making the commitment harder to adhere to. But OP says she has 10-20 lbs left so she should be able to get a decent deficit going. I call shenanigans on that one.

ETA: Original quote.

Regardless if you have 15lbs or 150lbs to lose its all mental cause you gotta want it. I will admit that i am little nervous about maintenance but i just take it one day at a time.

i think we all say stupid things without realizing/ meaning to.

i have a feeling what she MEANT is that you (and me and other overweight people) burn more calories faster than someone much smaller. So, while I can burn 600 calories in an hour at the gym on the elliptical and bike, or in an hour long zumba class, the same amount of exercise would burn fewer calories for HER. which, would be accurate.

Congrats on your loss so far, OP.

I think weight loss was easier when I was heavier, but it's never been easy. The difference for your coworker is that while a heavy person can ease into weight loss (they will see losses just by making baby steps like eyeballing portions then measuring then weighing), someone thin pretty much has to jump into calorie counting and exercise.

But your coworker is either bad at expressing herself or insane if she thinks you're having an easy time of it.

It may be "easier" to drop more weight being larger with exercise but it's harder exercising when you are larger so the answer is no, it's all relative.

As someone losing 30 pounds of baby/new job weight, I don't think it's "easier". I think it's just a slight different set of challenges. (Ones that people with a lot of weight to lose get to deal with later on).

More precision is required and pretty much nobody thinks you're overweight. I've had medical professionals tell me I'm not overweight when I indeed fit the category. So it's easier to fool yourself and backslide.