Unsupportive Family?

I would take those comments and make them motivation. When someone tells me I'm wasting my time, or other comments like that, I see it as jealousy. Typically, others who are either overweight, unhealthy, or just constantly eating junk are envious of your efforts and the results you're seeing as a result of those efforts. Don't let that side track you or undermine your efforts to get healthy and lose weight. I make it an "oh yeah? well I'll show you wasted effort... You won't feel that way when my arms are beautifully toned and I can go up a bunch of stairs without feeling like I'm going to die"!!! And I just keep going! Hope you're able to work through these comments and continue in your journey. Don't let others bring you down!

its none of their business, so i don't even tell them.

Its hard for me to say, as I have an older brother who really did look sick and lost a huge amount of weight in a short period of time. It was basically because of a lack of nutrition as he was only eating a few different foods, and not a good variety.

I guess we were concerned at first, but perhaps it was because it was a "shock" to us - we were not used to seeing him so thin and frail looking.

I am lucky that my family is extremely supportive, but my husband is not. He makes me feel bad when I take time to go work out. Trust me, it is so hard to get the motivation to get up and go work out, that when he starts in on me or rolls his eyes, I just want to cry. I am trying to be a healthier mom for his kids, a healthier wife for him, and a happier person!!

I have great support from my immediate blood related family. They rock! My husband is moderately supportive, though unintentionally attempts to sabotage me by making really unhealthy snacks at night. He isn't doing it on purpose, this is just what he has always done and forgets. But I am a big girl and have realized I don't have to say yes to it. However, my mother in law is a whole different ball game. One minute she is telling me I don't need to lose weight, the next she is eyeballing my swimsuit and saying wow, I wouldn't wear that out of the house. She lives with us so I can't avoid her, but I just smile and say thanks, I love that I can look good now when I go outside and kill her with kindness. She is out of shape, mean, old, and spiteful, lol. I don't let anybody ruin my hard work. You shouldn't either!

As for feeling guilty for going to the gym, I used to feel that way all of the time. But then I realized that since starting the gym, I play a LOT more with my kids when I get home. I used to come home from work exhausted and just sit. Now I come home from the gym energized and my kids are benefiting from it. It is good for me and it is good for them. I don't feel guilty anymore.

My mom and other female relatives comment that I am wasting away to nothing all the time but they are from a generation where it was considered fine to comment on people’s bodies and my grandmother used to constantly tell my mom and aunts etc. that they were too fat. To be told that you look like you are going to blow away with the slightest breeze or some other comment like that is the highest compliment in their book. They believe they are congratulating me for the hard work and discipline it takes to get to/stay at a healthy weight when the rest of the world doesn’t do so and isn’t supportive. It is no longer accepted to speak that way, but I have bigger concerns about these 90 y.o women’s health so I am not going to worry about their lack of body positivity training when it is directed only at my body.

I do think that the US is conditioned to see fat bodies as normal though. People who qualify as obese don’t realize they are outside the norm. I myself had no idea I had as much weight to lose as I did. No one told me - not even my doctors. (BTW there are lots of very overweight doctors too). So people who are making these comments to others, not intending them as compliments but as demotivating, are probably doing so because (a) they don’t see the problem as being as bad a it is, (b) they realize if you have a weight problem, so do they, (c) they don’t want to take the effort to fix their problem so they would rather sabotage your effort, thus pulling you back down into their eat and drink and don’t worry about it mindset so they don’t have to change or admit to a problem. People with other substance abuse problems report the same behavior e.g.,from drinking buddies and family who don’t want to examine their own behavior. Change is hard. For everyone it seems.

I usually just make a lighthearted comment, or outright thank the person for the compliment saying “yes, I am trying to get to a healthy weight” and ignore the fact that what they said was clueless/not phrased as a compliment/maybe even intended as sabotage. The old advice given to politicians dealing with journalists: Answer the question you want to answer not the question you are asked.

I would ignore them and just keep doing what I was doing. According to the BMI scale I was still about 15lbs from an "ideal weight". Then I saw myself in some pictures, and they were right. I was pale, eyes sunken in, etc... At that point I decided that I needed to change something that I was doing.