I confess to responding one time to someone I knew like this with, “You’re right, you do look like you’ve put on weight. I’m happy to help with dieting tips.”
That would be awesome. 
The thinnest woman in the room wouldn’t get judgement if she didn’t feel she had to say it every time she was around us. Of course, this is the woman who also molested the intern at our office Christmas party, at the table with the rest of us, so there was more than a little judgement going on.
She was married, btw.
It was. I said it really kindly as if she had been someone actually overweight, who was in my close circle of friends, who was really asking for legitimate advice. It did make it stop, at least around me.
Too broad an issue to say. Name the specific thin person & we’ll go from there.
Someone who wears a size 2 and gains 5 lbs is not going to be able to get their jeans on without some major maneuvering.
Someone who wears a size 20 isn’t even going to notice that they gained 5 lbs when they go to put on their jeans.
So yeah, if I gain 5 lbs, I’m fat (for me). Not for the general public, but in a very real my clothes don’t fit right and I need to fix this NOW before it gets worse way.
I won’t sit around and bitch about how fat I am because I went from 112 to 117 in front of a room full of 200 lb to 400 lb women, but if I’m offered something I would like to have but can’t because of a recent weight gain, I’ll decline citing “I’m too fat right now” as the reason.
Or alternatively, you could just say “no thanks.”
Does anyone ever say “I feel thin”?
I’ve said it before. I lost some weight recently, and have remarked at how much thinner and healthier I feel. I’ve also made a comment along the lines of, “I still have a belly, though, I need to do something about that,” whilst grabbing the fat on my stomach…realizing halfway through that there’s someone much heavier than me there. What can you do? You finish your thought. Anything else would just be drawing negative attention. “I still have a belly, thought, I need…Oh, sorry Bob, didn’t see you there.” Not cool.
I know someone very well who is super thin and quite pretty who puts herself down all the time. She’s not fishing for compliments. She just doesn’t like herself, and is convinced that everyone else hates her as well. She thinks self deprecation will make her part of the group.
I’ve never said that, but I do remember a few months ago hooking my thumbs into my belt loops, and feeling looseness in my pants. I went to the bathroom and discovered I could just pull my jeans right down over my hips. That was a good day, and I told one or two people that! I hadn’t been steadily weighing myself so that was when I realized i had lost weight.
Women are constantly exposed to unrealistic images of glamour. They are trained to notice their flaws (even if no one else does) and to play down their strengths (to keep from seen as egotistical). It’s often the same for truly attractive women (and brutal for models or actresses).
So, yes, the honestly believe they’re not attractive. They’ve been trained for years to think that way.
As someone who once went from about 38% body fat to about 16% body fat, I’ll attest that it’s hard to gauge what you look like, even if you have big mirrors.
I mean, I was a big stocky fat guy at 265, and at 215, I was a big burly, but not particularly fat guy. But I still had a little bit of a gut, so I had it in my head that I was still overweight. It probably didn’t help that my workout buddy had gone from a rather skinny 165 to a fairly ripped looking 190 over the same period that I’d lost all the weight. So unfortunately, I compared myself to him.
In retrospect, I was in good shape- maybe not bodybuilder/NFL linebacker ripped, but within a healthy body fat percentage. I even had hot women interested in me, which I was attributing to me misreading the signals… there was no way a girl like that would be interested in me! :smack:
But looking back a decade later at old pictures, it’s clear that I was thin, and my wife was like “Wow- you were sort of a beefcake kind of guy back then.” I had no idea though; I still thought I was too fat for prime time.
I could, but I don’t because then I have to go through the whole dance with the offeree repeatedly trying to get me to have some of their home baked goods, expensive bakery offerings, etc.
Telling the truth on why I’m not having any works a lot better.
Oh my God, this very thing just happened to me on Monday, and the shame is killing me. I was telling some coworkers at lunch about how good I feel since going back to the gym this month, and I made a comment about still having to lose the 20 pounds I gained last year (calling my belly “the bane of my existence”), and I realized as the words were leaving my mouth that one of the people sitting at the table was my very overweight colleague, and I just wanted to stop mid-sentence and evaporate. Preferably, evaporate into a mist of ether that would wipe her memory of the conversation, and then disappear.
… Let’s just move past that! …
At the same time, I felt okay talking about my weight gain because I had lost a bunch of weight a few years ago and felt like the thinner self had become my “real” self. Back when I was really heavy and had never been a healthy weight since high school, I would never ever talk about being fat or feeling unattractive, precisely because of #2 on the OP’s list.
I still never talk about feeling unattractive to anyone except my therapist. I have no idea how “objectively” attractive I am, but I will carry the memory of my mother telling me as a little girl how pretty I was and my father saying, “Let’s not exaggerate,” to my grave.
I’ve been in this situation plenty of times. Never once have I escaped it by saying “I’m too fat right now.” It would only make the insistence that I eat worse because it would confirm in everyone’s minds that I’ve got an eating disorder.
You could say “No thanks. I ate already and I’m stuffed!” or “I’m not feeling hungry right now.” And if that doesn’t work, throw in some cuss words.
That said, I’m not averse to being brutally honest with a pushy person, regardless of their weight. So if they keep insisting, don’t spare their feelings. But I’m thinking specifically of situations where you are one of the slimmest people in the room. I can’t see how “I’m too fat right now” wouldn’t elicit eye rolls in this situation.
Yeah, I have been in this situation a lot. The worst offender, I talked to her privately and asked her to please stop pushing food on me, that it made me feel like I was at my grandma’s house. After that whenever she got a little pushy I would just say “Grandma!” and it always worked and got a laugh.
Saying “I’m too fat now” would just open the door to a discussion on weight! The VERY last thing i want! But “assertive” is not the same as “aggressive” and I am fairly good at being assertive. “No, thank you,” as many times as it takes is fine for me.
Me. Until I was about 30 I was desperately thin. I couldn’t put on weight. I was 6’4" and about 150 lbs. As a result I was very prone to illness. Now I’m over 100 lbs heavier and would really rather lose quite a bit.