Unexpected Things

So many things happen as we lose weight.  Most of the things that happen are quite wonderful and exciting, but I was surprised to encounter other things that were frankly uncomfortable and unwelcome.

During the many years I was morbidly obese, one thing I never had to worry about was that people would talk to me about my weight.  Perhaps I put out vibes that said "don't even go there," or perhaps people just didn't want to offend me, but I never got comments about my weight.  No one felt compelled (or had enough nerve) to pull me aside and express concern about my weight.  I honestly don't know how I would have reacted, so the lack of comment was probably a good thing.

Because of that, I was quite unprepared for all of the comments when I started losing weight, especially the questions asking me how much I'd lost or inquiries into how much weight I wanted to lose.  My weight and my struggle with my weight had been my deep, dark and very personal secret for over two decades and I was unprepared for this to become a topic of conversation.  That changed over time, of course (and today, as a health coach, I share my struggle with weight and my story all the time), but at first it was very uncomfortable.  For a long time, I tried to pass off the comments, especially if I was asked how much weight I wanted to lose.  Telling anybody that I wanted to lose 120 pounds would have given them enough information to figure out approximately how much my starting weight was, and the thought of anyone knowing was horrifying to me.

I was also unprepared to see that some people began to treat me differently, as though I'd grown brain cells at the same rate I dropped pounds.  That made me angry, and it also made me realize that some people made assumptions about my intelligence or ambition based on my size.

Most of all, I was completely, totally, 100% unprepared for the number of people who felt compelled to tell me that I needed to stop losing weight, that I'd gotten too thin, or who expressed concern that I was somehow becoming anorexic.  These comments started coming about the time I got into a size 12 and, at 5' 5" tall, weighed about 180 pounds.  I was clearly not even close to being at a healthy BMI, yet I had people expressing concern, even alarm, that I was getting too thin.  I couldn't help but wonder where all of these people were when I was 268 pounds and diabetic.  I wondered why my reaching a certain weight suddenly made it open season and made me fair game. 

I'm sharing this because some of you are experiencing some of these things now, and others may face some of this in the near future.  Perhaps you won't be bothered by these comments as much as I was (I hope not!!).  But if you DO find yourself struggling with unexpected comments, how are you going to react?

Some people are so uncomfortable with having people comment and ask questions about their weight loss that they actually begin to sabotage themselves.  They may retreat back into layers of fat, preferring the invisibility of obesity to feeling exposed in a smaller body.  I've seen this happen and it breaks my heart.

What I had to realize was that this was MY journey and I had to stay focused on what I wanted.  In the same way that I had to ignore off-plan foods, I had to ignore comments.  I deflected concerns about how much weight I was losing by telling people that my physician was supportive of my weight loss goal.  When asked how much I wanted to lose, I simply said that I just wanted to get to a healthy BMI.  I learned to appreciate - and even enjoy - the compliments that came my way.  They made me uncomfortable at first, but I understood that they were well intended.

All of this became an important part of my growth on this journey, because I had to choose to stay the course for ME.  I had to be clear on what I wanted and why I wanted it, and I needed to be firm enough about that vision to withstand the comments and questions. 

There are a lot of choices we have to make on this journey.  Some of the choices have to do with what we eat, while other choices may include how we respond to others who question what we're doing.    If we know what we want and we're focused on our goal, the choices we need to make will be clear and we'll choose wisely :-).