Do people try to tell you your weight goal is "too skinny" for you?

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  • MarziPanda95
    MarziPanda95 Posts: 1,326 Member
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    I'm 5'7 too. My goal weight was also 140lbs. From about 160 (I started at 211) people (my best friend and her mother, mostly, and they are both obese) were telling me not to lose any more. I got down to 141... and then went back up to 155 over the course of last year. I'm currently at 149. Having gotten (almost) down to my goal weight, I realised I still had weight to lose and my new goal weight is 135.

    I told my best friend a couple weeks ago that I didn't know if I should order my graduation dress yet as I aim to be smaller by the time graduation comes around (mid July). She was actually horrified. Like she actually stared at me like I was gonna die. I explained that I put a stone back on and she basically almost refused to talk about it. She did eventually come around with the old 'you look gorgeous as you are, I don't understand' but she seemed so... I don't know, almost disgusted. We've known each other since we were 7 and we have both always been big girls. Now that I'm not big, she maybe thinks it means I've changed. We used to always eat a lot together and now I occasionally refuse or eat less and maybe she thinks I'm acting like one of the 'popular' girls we always disliked. I never mention her weight and very rarely ever mention mine, these days. Maybe she's a little jealous, too, I don't know. I've just learnt not to talk about it with her. Don't worry about what other people say, OP. Most of the time they're either jealous, or they're worried you're going to be a different person. Ironically I've become so much more confident since I lost weight and my best friend is always saying how proud she is and how much she loves my new confidence! They probably won't be concerned when you're actually at that weight. Nobody said anything negative when I was at 141lbs.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,990 Member
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    My GF thinks I look too skinny at 5'8" & 160#. That makes me a middle weight (in boxing terms) and I like the way I look and that's really all that matters.
  • rianneonamission
    rianneonamission Posts: 854 Member
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    On the other end of the scale:

    I find that as a tall person one hides excess fat pretty well and people therefore think you are fine. So when I say I want to lose weight (only 20-30lbs, depending on muscle mass/body fat %, so not a lot), everyone around me tells me I don't need to, I'm not too fat. When I tell them my BMI is in the overweight range, and I carry too much body fat, they say: "You don't look it".

    Newsflash: Not looking overweight isn't the point here. It might not be obvious that I am overweight, but I bloody well am unhealthy by having too much body fat and being overweight. So stop saying I don't need to lose weight because you don't have the first clue.

    So yes, I feel your pain.

    I think people think it's kind to say, but why is it? Not encouraging me from losing fat around my belly (the worst kind) they effectively say it's ok to die prematurely. Of course they don't say or mean that, but society's way of dealing with weight has become completely and utterly illogical, and wrongly disconnected from health.
  • Scandinavianblonde00
    Scandinavianblonde00 Posts: 9 Member
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    I'm taller than you and my start weight was 140. So no. Not too skinny at all
  • givesometogetsome
    givesometogetsome Posts: 35 Member
    edited May 2017
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    Do what feels right for your body. Others may have opinions, but at the end of the day you're in charge of your own aesthetics. Plus, with so many overweight and obese people now, society's general view of weight has really been skewed (in the wrong direction!).

    I'm 5'4" and my goal is 110 lbs. I used to be that weight (actually a little lower) and felt my absolute best. But I if make the mistake of mentioning this goal to my overweight friends and family, you'd think I had just told them I wanted to become a living skeleton. How easily they forget that at my lowest weight, I looked fit and muscular, certainly not anything like a skeleton. :D
  • BurlzGettingFit
    BurlzGettingFit Posts: 115 Member
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    heiliskrimsli wrote: »
    rianneonamission wrote: »
    Newsflash: Not looking overweight isn't the point here. It might not be obvious that I am overweight, but I bloody well am unhealthy by having too much body fat and being overweight. So stop saying I don't need to lose weight because you don't have the first clue.

    People have just lost any semblance of what a healthy weight actually looks like because so many people are overweight. They have no idea. Normal weight looks weird and unusual to them because it's becoming weird or unusual to be a normal weight.

    QFT
  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
    edited May 2017
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    bbell1985 wrote: »
    Oh people have no clue what certain weights look like. Do you. That's a healthy weight for your height. With a decent body fat percentage you will look quite slim.

    This. If you have to talk about it (because somebody else brings it up), I find that a little vagueness goes a long way. My goal? "What I weighed when I started dating my husband." Which is when everyone was telling me how great I looked, so they can hardly say that's too low now. My real goal? Get there then re-evaluate (which will likely mean recomp).

    I think I must move in different circles than some of you, though, because I've never had anyone say anything discouraging about my weight loss. Worst I've ever had was someone commenting on me just eating fruit instead of baked goods at a work celebration. To which I just said "another time" and that was the end of that.
  • 2wise4u
    2wise4u Posts: 229 Member
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    Duchy82 wrote: »
    140lb seems perfectly reasonable to me for 5'7 that is a normal bmi. I'm the same height as you but are aiming a little higher (155lb ish) that's because personally I feel I would look too thin at 140 but I probably have a different build. Thing is people are so used to seeing overweight people they no longer know what normal is supposed to look like. Don't take any notice and do what makes you feel happy.

    I'm 5'8" and my goal is 155 lbs only because I have my mom's hips and chest so if I go lower, I'll probably look like I have a medical issue. Your goal seems completely reasonable to me.
  • LAWoman72
    LAWoman72 Posts: 2,846 Member
    edited May 2017
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    HeliumIsNoble wrote: »
    I feel like I'm missing out. :( No-one has ever asked me what my weight goal even is, never mind told me it's too low. Obviously I must still be faaaaaaaat as... ;)B)

    Maybe all this is yet to come? I'm down from an initial BMI range of 27.2 to a current range of 24.2-24.6, and all the comments I've had have been positive. Mostly, they come from people who only see me every couple of months. I'm not sure people who see me every week have necessarily noticed.

    Well, again, this very rational reaction - which compares to some others we're experiencing here - could be a clue that it's all BS (or has some other reason) anyway when people do say to others that they're getting too thin.

    I have almost NOBODY come up to me in my larger sphere, let's just say, to tell me I've lost weight (I've posted that before) except literally in whispers. Not kidding about that. And it's RARE. These tend to be compliments - again, rarely, and aside, very aside.

    But in my smaller circle, say for instance I post a pic on Facebook...I have very few people on Facebook; just literally people I would pick up the phone and call. So these are people I'm very close to. I don't have "extended" friendships at all on there, really. For those people - they will constantly note my loss and gasp "You shouldn't lose ANY more weight!"

    So which is it, folks? :)

    Obviously when people do say such a thing, unless the person is actually a stick with pallid skin and hair falling out in clumps from malnutrition it's probably more for their own motivations or psyche that they're commenting (or not), than due to one's actual weight loss (or not).

    I hope that made sense.

  • bizgirl26
    bizgirl26 Posts: 1,808 Member
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    It isn't anyone's business but I get told that too. If they persist I tell them it is more about body composition than the scale numbers . I am 5 '7' and my goal is actually 154 but that would put me at a size 5/6 as I weigh more than I look if that makes sense. I have a friend that is 5 '7 ' and she is around a size 10 at 155 so how one is built makes a big difference
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
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    I've gotten this before. I'm very short and I had a lot of weight to lose. My goal weight is right in the middle of the "optimal" BMI range for my height. I'm about 3 pounds away from it right now. My grandpa told me I would be ugly if I lost any more weight. My aunt told me no one should wear a size extra small (which I wear now).

    I chalk it up to a few things:
    1) Ignorance of what "obese" and "overweight" actually look like. Being overweight is so common that I don't think people have a clear idea of what constitutes being overweight. Most of us are just used to being and/or being around others who are overweight. I think it's especially true for people like me who are really short. My goal weight sounds low to a lot of people.
    2) Me having never been anything but obese until now, so people don't know what I look like when I'm not obese.
    3) Jealousy or similar feelings about their own bodies. The people who have made negative comments to me are themselves obese.
    4) Actual good intentions, poorly phrased.
  • LAWoman72
    LAWoman72 Posts: 2,846 Member
    edited May 2017
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    apullum wrote: »
    I
    I chalk it up to a few things:
    1) Ignorance of what "obese" and "overweight" actually look like. Being overweight is so common that I don't think people have a clear idea of what constitutes being overweight. Most of us are just used to being and/or being around others who are overweight. I think it's especially true for people like me who are really short. My goal weight sounds low to a lot of people.

    The more I think about it the more I really do think this ^ is such a huge (no pun intended) part of it.

    This may sound terrible but here goes. When I watch movies from the 70s or thereabouts, or when I look back at old pictures, I realize that MOST of us kids were what would today be considered literally frighteningly thin. As in, take-her-to-the-doctor thin. We didn't have any excess fat - or rather, we had very little excess; none and I guess we'd have been dead - and that was expected because kids "burn their food off". It was all very normal.

    As for adults, if you could "pinch an inch" at your waistline you were considered to be well beyond the point where you should have gotten things under control, according to the conventional wisdom.

    I remember MAYBE one "fat kid" (I know....I know that sounds terrible) in any given group of classes for any given grade per year. So MAYBE one big kid in all of the 5th grade, for example. But when I look back I realize that in many of the grades I was in, that kid would have been considered quite normal today and I know it isn't selective memory because as I said, pictures and movies and so on just prove it. Watch some 70s or earlier movie where the "big kid" is being ribbed by his friends...he will barely look chubby by today's standards, with few exceptions, really. (Check out Augustus Gloop from the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, for example. He was considered really really huge at the time...I look around in public today and see tons of Augustuses that are just considered "a bit chubby.") (BTW, you can surely find a kid from old-time TV or movies who was considered big and really was morbidly obese...I'm just saying this as a general rule.)

    Entering middle school, I suddenly ballooned up to 120 lbs. I was horrified. I couldn't look at myself and got quickly on a diet. That may have been unhealthy but I'm just again comparing to today...I don't see a lot of parents of 5'1" children freaking out over 120 lbs. Even my mother was so horrified that she was 100% behind me dieting - again, not a healthy thing, necessarily, but for the point of illustration here. FTR, I got down to 98 lbs. and nobody batted an eye and I was for sure not considered "too thin" at that height, by anyone or by any stretch.

    And again, as for adults, since after all that's what we are on the forum... :D The other night, Saturday Night Fever was on and my husband randomly flicked to it. Donna Pescow was unsuccessfully chasing John Travolta. I CLEARLY remember at the time that the collective assumption, not so much as questioned as it was so obvious to us, was that she wasn't attractive because she was "fat". We couldn't believe such a fattie would have the nerve to wear spandex to a disco. We thought she must be terribly embarrassed. Google pictures, Annette Saturday Night Fever, and you tell me.

    So yeah. Big part of this equation, IMO.

  • labblb86
    labblb86 Posts: 28 Member
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    I think it depends on what weight you can maintain at. I am 5'7, 146, at goal weight. At 140 'look' really thin, but that's just my build. Plus when I was 140 I was 25 (now 44). Do what you feel comfortable with :-)
  • Fit_Happens_2021
    Fit_Happens_2021 Posts: 303 Member
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    I absolutely agree people have forgotten what 'normal' weight looks like. My mother in law (who is obese) visited last week and told my husband he looked great and she was happy he had finally put some weight on, not so skinny anymore. We looked at each other and just started laughing, my husband is right on the border of overweight/obese bmi and is working on loosing.
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
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    Other people's opinions of you are none of your business.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    StaciMarie1974 wrote: »
    DapperDassie wrote: »
    It's really annoying. I'm 5'7 started at 215 and now at 183.5. My goal is a 140 and gonna see how i feel but might even want to keep going for 5 or 10 lbs. I've had multiple people say I'll be too thin at 140 and should stop at 150 or 160? I don't think I40 at 5'7 is thin at all and also don't see how it's anyone business as well

    It really does not work to compare. 140 @ 5'7" may work for you while it could be too low for someone else at the same height. You may find it better to not discuss specifics. IF someone is truly concerned about your efforts, let them know you are striving for a healthy weight.

    I agree. I'm 5"8 and i would look terrible at 140lbs. But someone else my height may look fine.

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