Do you tell.......

I do not tell people, I usually let other people tell me Getting compliments from people telling me I look so much lighter and happier and oh wow have you lost weight is so much satisfaction, something if you tell people you are losing weight you may not get.

i agree. I find people on here understand much more than people looking from the outside. you tell someone 'i'm going to lose 20kg by christmas' and then they see you with some chocolate and they're like 'ooooh should u be eating that? what happened to your goal?" i feel like telling em where they can put it. because we can still have that chocolate or fast food because we are, after all, trying to get over an addiction (well for me it is anyway so maybe 'all' was a general statement). also, i find the most critic ones are fat themselves. i guess where i'm going with this is sometimes it's just best to lose weight quietly and then when someone notices take the compliment. but telling people can sometimes hinder what you're actually trying to achieve. sometimes you can get friends involved by maybe going to the gym with them or something but don't actually tell them your goals. i dunno i'm rambling now but ya get the gist lol

well ive embraced a healthy lifestyle that resulted in weight loss. i am obsessed with healthy eating - which is only a good thing. but to my family im going 'over the top' and they tell me i should eat ice cream and eat fast food, the thing is i dont want those foods! its not a struggle for me to not eat them because i only want to put good tasty foods into my body and no crap! they dont understand, but i wish they would support me. i guess healthy eating is 'abnormal' these days. thats why i love this site. i can relate to people on here and i share the want to live a healthy lifestyle . it makes me happy

I think it depends on the person you tell. I have NO luck with my roommates, they always think I am ridiculous for trying to lose weight. But I told my mom last year and she joined me... and she has lost 82 pounds! She and I support each other really well.

I don't talk about it very often...I think since I am already in a healthy weight range, I don't want people to get the impression I have an eating disorder (I don't). I just want to improve my body, so I don't tend to say anything in real life.

I never tell anyone. I feel like I'm always trying to lose the same 10 pounds. In the past, people never made comments while I was in the process of losing weight. I just get to a certain weight and start hearing, "You've gotten too thin". I can never win.

It can go either way. I went very public with my weight loss this year, posting on facebook and talking about it with my clients, and its on my website. I have found that more people are supportive than not, especially my clients. In fact certain people seek me out to come and take yoga classes with me, knowing that I once weighed over 300 lbs. I have had people from high school contact me on facebook and ask for support and advice, saying they are motivated by my posts from MFP and my food pictures and recipes.

However.. the people that have been unsupportive are family and older friends. By older I mean long-time, not old in age. This seems hurtful at first, but when I look at it from a detached perspective it makes sense. My family, meaning parents and sibling, and old friends, were used to the old me, and were part of the problem, honestly. My parents are food pushers and my mother is a binge eater, yo yo dieter, and alcoholic. My father is a people pleaser that takes no responsibility for what kind of food he eats and they both force food on me (and others) when we are together.

This all makes sense because we are products of our upbringing, right? I acknowledge that my family and older friends have played a big role in my weight gain, but more importantly, I acknowledge that ultimately I am responsible for reaching my own goals, regardless of what patterns may have developed from past experiences!

One of my goals for this year was to cultivate relationships with people who have a similar mindset, other weight loss friends, trainers, exercise science students, athletes. I have been pretty successful with this venture, gaining several good new friends that are 'into fitness'. These are the friends that I go biking & hiking with, enjoy working out with, and sharing healthy information. The older friends... well the more I have immersed myself in this healthy active lifestyle, the less we seem to have in common. I ended a friendship just a few months ago, with a person who always insisted on meeting for lunch at a buffet, and always brought candy along on our meetings. She got bigger and bigger as I was shrinking, and she just wouldn't see her role in the weight gain.

Family...that is another story, they have never even acknowledged my weight gain or weight loss at all! They ridicule me for running and question why I left the corporate world to promote yoga & fitness. So I minimize my exposure to the negative, and create more positive whenever I can, (on MFP especially!) I am very thankful to have MFP friends as well as my Facebook fitness pals.

I have a few long time friends that I talk about it with, they knew me at my heaviest and they know me now so of course it will come up. Other than that I would say it depends, I get some negative comments as much as good ones. I have a co-worker who is trying to lose weight and she likes to ask my opinion and questions about things. I have family members who push food at me because I can "afford" it. My Dad just shared with me that his doctor directed him to lose 100 lbs and we started swapping diet tips and recipe ideas, so it really just depends on the person. I will not typically go out of my way to tell people, though. If it comes up I'm happy to share but otherwise I keep it to myself.

Sentiments like "you've been good all week", "one more won't hurt"

OMG - I *HATE* this one. What they don't understand is that one more *WILL* hurt. For me, dieting is about self control, and when I'm good, i'm really really good. But when I'm bad, it's like a free-for-all.

I tend to be obsessive about things and really don't want to antagonize my friends by being over-exuberant. That said, i bought 3 months of training sessions for my FIL, and now he's a dedicated gym goer. Tried to do the same thing for a friend, and she bowed out after six weeks. AND she always tells me i'm getting too skinny - when i still have 40 pounds to lose to be average.

My hubby has talked about getting fit for several years, and made some half-hearted attempts when i wasn't trying. Now that i'm at the gym every day, he loves the results, but has pretty much given up his own journey.

I think that folks can only make the healthy lifestyle choice when THEY are ready, and all we can do is be good role models.