I don't know how I could diet, etc. without my husband and son being in on it. They are both so supportive of whatever way I want to go that there is no problem there --- my husband will offer to cook or ask if there are things he should/shouldn't buy, etc. but doesn't get all into my face one way or the other unless I really encourage it.
When I started back in May, I did not tell my husband, my kids, my mom, my friends, or anyone. I didn't want to confront anyone's healthy skepticism about my ability to stick with it--especially my husband's. (At the time we were in a rough patch, and he was unable to believe I'd be able to stick with any positive changes at all.) So I didn't even tell him until I'd been off sugar and eating healthier for about 3 weeks.
Now, however, he is my biggest supporter. He works with me around my dietary changes and has made some big changes himself (consequently also losing around 70 pounds to date).
My mom is another big supporter--my giving up sugar has led her to work on giving it up, too.
People at work have been very supportive and positive too, as they notice the changes I am making--not just the visibility of the weight I've lost, which is really noticeable now, but also the very healthy food I eat and my daily walk at lunch.
So, I guess I'm not incredibly private about it now, though I did start out that way. Getting a bunch of success under my (smaller!) belt has moved that process along. It's easy to talk about success, hard to talk about hope.
It's easy to talk about success, hard to talk about hope.
Yep, this is so true. Once people are noticing and you have confirmed success, it's A LOT easier to talk about it. I didn't talk about it with anyone in my life (except my dietician) when I was starting out. Now my roommates know but we don't talk about it much, and I don't have a problem discussing it if others bring it up. But I'm still pretty private about it.
For example... my roommates know I'm going to kickboxing, but they don't know I went 5 times last week or that I'm planning to do the same this week. It's my little secret.
I didn't tell anyone, not anyone. I just began. Some began noticing about 30 pounds down. This last week I have had 3-4 people see me that I haven't seen in several months. I have gotten the "I didn't even recognize you" comment.
I do not like putting the pressure on myself that would come from discussing this in real life. Weight for me is very, very personal. Here at 3FC I share every aspect of it. It is safe and comfortable for me. There is real information and real support here. That's hard to come by in real time in my experience.
When someone asks me about I try to shut it down pretty quick unless it's some select individual that I think really wants to discuss it. Then, I am an open book.
I hate the comment that people ALWAYS give me, "oh, just one wont hurt" like my boss last wed, brought home some delicious looking cinnamon bread and offered me a slice. I said I think that I will pass this time, I am on a diet (she didn't know before hand). And she gave me the response, oh one piece wont hurt. I hate it, cause for me, yeah maybe the first piece wont hurt but the 2, 3, or 4 piece will... Man, that bread looked and smelled SO good.
I did stick to my guns and didn't have a piece, but it was hard.
I just hate it cause people just don't realize how hard it is to stick to the diet everyday and not make the bad choices. Obviously I am on a diet for a reason.
This rings true for me, but I'll offer a variation on it. I'm heavily padded, and that is for my protection. I put on the padding because it's a hard world out there & I am soft. I'm like an umpire, who needs a face mask & a chest pad. Or a hockey player, or a football player with padded shoulders. Or I'm like a fragile thing that's boxed up & being sent on a very long distance, in the back of a particularly bouncy truck, and I need bubble wrap so that I get there intact, without anything being broken off.
Wow. While I can relate to a lot of what other posters have said, Saef so beautifully articulates how I feel about my weight.
While the rest of the world sees me as a fat person (many of them making assumptions about why that is), I don't really see myself that way. The fat isn't "me". Not that it doesn't make me unhappy- and I do sometimes beat myself up about it. As difficult and time consuming as it is to lose the fat, I feel as though it is only padding- external to me. The rest of the world- their reactions to me- tell me I am fat. Most don't naturally see beyond the padding to the person within. I only feel like a fat person when I am around other people. So it is an excuse to maintain a distance, and there is protection in that.
My immedient family knows because they are VERY supportive and most struggle with their own weight problems so we are a very good support system for each other. Other than my family, I don't say anything unless someone ask about weight loss, then my only comment is "yeah, I've been trying to eat healthier," which is true. One of the nicest things is my office is a small office. Dieting and weight issues are never mentioned. It's a huge change from the last place I worked which was huge and everyone was always on or looking for the next fad diet. If anyone caught wind that I was trying to lose weight, they would hound me for my diet plan, even though no one ever wanted to here that it was simple whole foods, calorie counting and exercise.
Everyone knows. I've not kept it a secret and I kinda wish I did... hindsight is 20/20 right?
What I AM getting is the "did you get gastric bypass or the lapband?" comments... lots of them. It's annoying me.
I got that on another site where I blog time to time. A PM with someone I never heard of asking me that. I wonder if people in my area don't talk about that possibility too.
It's easy to talk about success, hard to talk about hope.
Quote:
Originally Posted by futuresurferchick
Yep, this is so true. Once people are noticing and you have confirmed success, it's A LOT easier to talk about it.
Yes yes yes, these two basically summed it up for me! When I first committed to doing this, it was a very personal moment of me switching my entire mindset... A total overhaul of my way of thinking about my eating/exercise habits... But I didn't tell a single soul. I eventually had to tell my mom, kind of, because I was home from school for the summer and she was paying for all of my food--so obviously I had to explain why I was choosing different things, and no longer wanted her to pick up unhealthy things for me anymore. But I downplayed it a lot. I didn't exactly say that I was trying to lose weight; I just let on that I was trying to eat a bit healthier.
I didn't say anything about it to any of my friends for a really long time, either. I started passing up on a lot of food items when we went out, basically under the guise that I was saving money for a trip to Florida that I took last summer (which was true, but it also provided an extremely convenient excuse for why I didn't want to go out for ice cream or go on a Taco Bell run, etc!). I exercised in private so my family wouldn't see, and I simply didn't mention it to my friends. And though I weighed myself dutifully every day, I never gave updates to anyone except my pals on 3FC.
I did everything totally secretively for the first couple months, and then by the time I had lost, I think, 35 lbs--a couple people started noticing. However, to me, at that point it didn't feel like quite a significant enough loss for me to take pride in it, or even act like it was something I'd done on purpose, so I kind of tried to play it off as a happy accident ("Guess I've been spending a lot of time at the beach!" ). Then my friends and I all restarted school, so they didn't really see me for a while... So finally when we saw each other again around Thanksgiving, and I was about 70 lbs down, the reactions were pretty strong! At that point it was pretty undeniable that I had lost weight, and that at least SOME of it had to have been on purpose. But even then, it was really weird to start talking about it. It had been *my little secret* for so long, that it made me feel a little exposed to "admit" to it.
Definitely, I think the reason why I was so afraid to tell people about it was because I wasn't 100% sure that I would succeed. I was terrified of announcing my hopes to the world, only for all of my efforts to crash and burn and for everyone to know that I had failed. Ick, I hate failing. And in some ways, being overweight made me feel like I had already failed - failed to take care of myself, failed to eat healthy and exercise, failed to have an "acceptable" body - and having to publicly acknowledge the fact that I really needed to lose weight would have been really embarrassing for me.
Now that I have make a fair amount of progress, and I've gotten to the point where everyone has noticed the loss, and there's no way I could deny that it was on purpose, etc, I find that it has gotten infinitely easier to talk about it. I still have a ways to go until I meet goal, but I have definitely accomplished something, and it's much easier to talk about weight loss as something I DID do rather than something I SHOULD do, y'know? I no longer feel so awkward, because now my body serves as "proof" that I am serious about this, and people who have seen my transformation thus far have no reason to believe that I won't make it even further and further, whereas it might've been much harder for them to believe the 163-lb me saying "Someday, I'm going to weigh 171 lbs."
Sorry for the uber-long post... This thread is really making me think! In fact, I feel like I could write tons more about this subject and STILL not be done, but I'll spare you all, heh.
I have to tell my husband because he is my first line of support. Also because he needs to know not to be bringing home any total junk. He is very supportive of me and my efforts.
I didn't tell my mom at first, but then I did because she is trying to eat healthier too, and so we do share some ideas and such. I did tell my sister in law because she comes over to eat or we go out with her and so I wanted her to know we aren't doing things like we used to, so we need to go somewhere with healthier choices. She is pretty supportive and is trying to lose some weight as well, but she is my height and is currently at or very near my goal weight.
So far I haven't lost enough for anyone to notice.
I didn't want to tell anyone partly because it was (maybe still is) a work in progress. You know if you are working on a project or a piece of art/craft or a home renovation, and you keep it under wraps because it's not done yet, and you want people to see the full effect only when it's complete? That's sort of how I felt about my weight loss. Only of course, that wasn't realistic, because I would have had to sequester myself away in an undisclosed location, like Dick Cheney or someone in a witness protection plan. (Also, losing 100 pounds ended up taking me about two years, so that really wouldn't have worked. Two years in seclusion -- ack!)
It's also why I kept wearing clothing that was too big for me for an inordinate amount of time. (I was not the person who goes down a size & celebrates by getting a whole new wardrobe.) Not only because buying something new in every new size would have been expensive, but also because I wasn't ready to wear anything really fitted & body-conscious until my "project" was further along. Those clothes were like the drop-cloth that you use to cover a picture or a sculpture when you're not working on it. When I was ready to show it, **then** I was going buy the expensive jeans with the label on the pocket. Or put on a dress & show my legs.
). Then my friends and I all restarted school, so they didn't really see me for a while... So finally when we saw each other again around Thanksgiving, and I was about 70 lbs down, the reactions were pretty strong! At that point it was pretty undeniable that I had lost weight, and that at least SOME of it had to have been on purpose. But even then, it was really weird to start talking about it. It had been *my little secret* for so long, that it made me feel a little exposed to "admit" to it.
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