Yep. I remember feeling stunned and a bit outraged the first time someone (a new co-worker) saw me taking a cannoli from a box someone had brought in, and said, “I see you’re one of those lucky people who can eat whatever they want… If I ate that it would go straight to my thighs!”
Before I realized this was intended as a somewhat passive-aggressive (against herself) compliment to me, I shot back, “No, it’s because I budget myself the calories and run 12 miles a week!” Nonplussed, she said, “Oh, good for you!” in a congratulatory tone, but I could tell I came off more a jerk than her (and regretted it).
It happens to me all the time now. People assume that if you indulge in treat foods and stay trim, you must be “gifted”: “You’re so lucky…” or “I wish I could get away with eating like you…”, not realizing that I used to weigh 240+ lbs. with 31+% body fat, then spent the better part of an entire year lifting weights and running on a treadmill and learning to change my eating patterns to get to where I am.
If there’s anything I’ve done in my life that I’m truly proud of, it’s losing those 50 lbs. and keeping up the lifestyle/eating changes to keep it off. But despite having been on the other side of the fence, I now just reply “thanks” to these types of comments, as I soon learned an enthusiastic lecture on how I lost the weight by eating better and exercising is not what is being asked for either.
Over the course of a year I went from 241 at my peak all the way down to 170 and I definitely noticed some differences. I went to a party and females actually gave me some salacious stares for a change which was weird because I wasn’t used to it. I also think family members of people who lose weight tend to fear you might have some sort of problem. One morning after I got back from work my mom told me I needed to stop losing weight. I eventually backslid and gained the weight back, but in the last month I’ve been dieting and have lost over 20 pounds so far and plan to lose a lot more and already I am starting to notice some changes from friends. I also had another friend that wouldn’t stop offering me food at a restaurant after I casually mentioned I was on a diet, the friend is having some weight issues and I didn’t appreciate her pretty deliberate attempt at sabotage and I declined all of the numerous offers for her food.
I did lose about 50 pounds over the course of six months – from 215lbs. to my current 165, from a size 16-18 to a size 8.
The only real difference I noticed in how people treated me is that I caught guys flirting more often. I wouldn’t say I have to beat them off with a stick, but I definitely catch more eyes than I used to.
What I have noticed, however, is a huge change in my confidence. This summer I spent traveling the world and bought a whole bunch of slinky dresses I would never in a million years have considered wearing before. And naturally, when you are more willing to wear pretty clothes, you attract more attention.
I’m not saying it’s right, but I have felt less embarrassed to talk to people I don’t know, less embarrassed to talk to attractive people, more likely to join conversations and to try new outfits and new things.
So it’s not that people have changed the way they treat me (my husband, for example, barely noticed, other than to say, ‘‘Yay! I’m so happy you’re healthier now!’’)
It’s that I’ve changed the way I relate to other people, and they in turn treat me differently based on how my behavior has changed.
Again, I’m not saying it’s a good thing that my sense of social self-worth was dependent in part on my weight… but I do feel healthier and more active, and happier, and as a byproduct, more social.
My high weight was 260ish, and I’m down to around 165-170 or so. I did it in two stages; lost 70, gained 50 with pregnancy, and lost about 70 again.
I get more attention from men now. Salespeople are more quick to come to annoy me when I’m browsing in stores. I get better service in restaurants. I don’t get people yelling ‘hey fatty!’ when I’m crossing the street in their way (this happened once and I was mortified).
I had to renew my drivers license this past May. I asked for the old picture as it shows me at about 50 pounds higher than I am now; I keep it behind my current drivers license as a reminder. I never want to ignore my health like that again.
Yep. And to your point, I don’t bother sharing how I budget my calories or how I work out. Sometimes people ask, and then I might share a bit. But it’s very weird how people just will not consider budgeting calories in the same way we budget money.
Disclaimer: I’m not saying losing weight or keeping weight off is easy. We eat for a lot of reasons, many of which have nothing to do with hunger. I also acknowledge there are people who have documented medical issues or are on critically important prescription drugs that prohibit or drastically inhibit weight loss. However, lots of folks don’t have those problems and don’t want to do the work of counting and budgeting.
Yeah, don’t think that only women do it either. It is sad that people feel that “those not like me” are the enemy, but it happens. Envy is a strong motivator for hatred, or at least disdain.
I was 30 lbs overweight (20 now, I’ve lost nearly 10lbs) just a few months ago. I carried a lot of that weight in muscle because I strength train (not bodybuilding though), but I was still carrying a nice belly. My much heavier friends always chided me about being “skinny.” Many times teasingly, but I’ve heard them say mean things (twigs, etc) about those that are even “skinnier” than me.
Just wanted to add: “skinny” people are in no way exempt from such judgmental views. In fact even the media supports them in their endeavor to belittle the overweight. I hear the term “Fattie” all the time, as well as many other derogatory terms. I’m not saying heavier people are justified in being so judgmental, but I can see where they are coming from, the whole victimization thing (or at least perceived that way).
That and heavier people aren’t the only ones with such hostile views.
I found my self-esteem for the first time, finally got on the basketball team, and lost my virginity, in that order. It was pretty great for me. Then I went to college and put all 30 pounds back on. :smack: I lost 20 of them a year later, but since then I’ve put them all back on again plus a little on top.
It definitely changed how people treated me. I certainly had close friends before I lost the weight, and I wasn’t particularly unpopular in high school (though I was in middle school–but I forced myself to learn some social graces in 8th and 9th grade that I hadn’t really had before). But more people are willing to get close to you when you don’t have the extra pounds. It’s like being rich vs. being poor: when you’re rich you have lots of friends and sexual prospects, but when you’re poor you know the ones you have are the real deal. There are pros and cons to both sides, but on the balance, as Barbarella put it in her recent San Diego Reader cover story about losing weight (she recently lost 50+ lbs, and the contrast between her “before” pic and her “after” pic is pretty striking), “being fat sucks”.
IME, when you’re fat, people are more likely to underestimate you, and think of you as dumber, worse at stuff in general, less skilled. Sometimes it surprises and irritates them when you beat them at something. My best friend finally let slip something that had apparently been in his head for a while–I kicked his ass at Super Strikers a couple nights ago and he pouted, “You fat bastard!” I let it slide, since it’s really out of character for him, but it definitely contributed to a night that kept getting more and more awkward. (His girlfriend’s dog had just pissed on me a couple of hours before that.)
When you’re not, people are more likely to look up to you, to see you as cool, or highly skilled, or smart, or whatever. People are envious when you beat them at things. If you’re otherwise good-looking, people of the opposite sex have a kind of awe centered on you. And you make them nervous, but in an excited kind of way that makes them willing to do whatever you tell them. You can be bold and it’ll pay off a lot more often–and when it doesn’t, people respect and/or admire you for trying, whereas if you try that kind of stuff when you’re fat, either it works or people slink away in horror. You fit in better when you’re at a healthy weight or below, in general.
YMMV, though; Southern California is a pretty image-conscious place.
I never noticed the difference, but yeah, now that you mention it…
It’s unfortunate, but people really do have an ideal weight in mind for each person they know, and they get distressed when those people go above or below it. I remember you being pretty skinny from your pics a few years ago, so, as awful as it is, maybe there’s truth to what people were saying–maybe you were losing weight when you didn’t need to, or shouldn’t have.
While I have never been clinically obese (that I know), I did develop a lot sooner than most of my classmates. I already had 42" hips and C cups at age 12. My weight was stable (±2kg) for over 20 years.
My mother tracked which of my ex-classmates “finally has tits” (Mom’s sentence) by which ex-classmate’s mom had just told her that she’d seen me on the street and I was “so much thinner and better looking!”
And many of those women, who would never have tried to have a conversation about clothes with me pre-their-own-tits, started bringing the subject up at that point. Once our body shapes became more similar, suddenly my opinion on clothes matters.