When people say nothing....
 

Saw some friends I haven't seen in about a year yesterday....

I'm pretty used to getting the "oh my god, you lost so much weight..." comments...

But I've noticed that sometimes people say nothing. This was the case yesterday. So, I thought, oh, I must have seen these friends more recently than I realized and I forgot about it.

Only later my husband told me that when I first got there, they were looking through the window and the wife saw me she at first didn't recognize me and then looked like she was going to keel over from shock....

I can understand why somebody might think it was impolite to blurt it out when they first see me, but why are people embarrassed to bring it up at all? I've gotten this reaction occasionally from other people...

For some reason, I always attribute it to thinking that they must think I had WLS and they don't know what to say.... but really I have no idea what they think. The other day, I was with my mom and when somebody mentioned my weight loss, she said, "and she did it all on her own..." And later, I asked my mom, what did you mean by that, did you mean, "she didn't have WLS" and she said, well, yes, because people wonder.

And, first, I mean, I don't really know what difference it makes-- except that I'm sort of a private person and I really don't like the idea of people secretly speculating about whether I had WLS or not, and secondly, I'm PERFECTLY HAPPY to tell people how I lost the weight if they ask.... but I hate it when I feel like that WLS question is always hanging silently in the air...

Just wondering if/how others have dealt with this...

Sometimes weight loss can be a sign of illness so sometimes people may not want to ask and get personal. I don't know, sometimes it is something people don't want to bring up.

I had a funny situation where someone told someone else that I had lost weight and looked good (the person they told was someone that didn't know me prior to weight loss). The person who noticed never has said anything to me personally.

That's true. But, honestly, I can't imagine that anyone would take my loss as a sign of illness-- I used to looked much worse because I was fat and didn't exercise, but now, I look very healthy and fit-- not sick at all...

It's not that people are OBLIGED to say something. It just makes me feel funny when they're obviously thinking about it but don't SAY anything. Maybe it's my issue.

A lot of people that don't know me automatically assume that I have had WLS. I guess the general public just has that mind set now :/

If they ask me how I lost it, I tell them. If not, let them think what they want. I live in a small town & the rumor that I've had WLS has been around for almost a year :P at first I wanted to take a full page ad out in the paper but I can't manage to make myself pay that kind of money for it since we are going to Germany in September.

I think it is similar to someone thinking someone is pregnant... better to say nothing than be wrong :) I mean, many internal illnesses that cause weight loss don't always show on the outside immediately.

If I know someone is working towards weight loss, that is something but I'd hate to say "congrats on the weight loss!" and then hear "I have cancer".

LOL! A full page ad in the paper? Why didn't I think of that????

You know, my uncle, who was in his seventies at the time, lost 100 lbs a few years ago. He told everybody he did it by counting calories, but I absolutely did not believe him. I thought he must have had a lap-band put in and was lying about it. LOL. Then, one night at dinner, I saw him putting food on his plate, and it was lots of salad and a pretty big serving of meat and I was thinking in my mind... hmm that doesn't look like a lap-band sized portion.... maybe he's telling the truth. LOL and that's my own uncle!

I think the real answer varies person to person. Most of the time, I think they are haters. A small percentage of the time, I think people MIGHT consider rude to bring it up. In either case--KEEP ROCKIN' IT! The next time you know you will see *HER* make sure you are lookin' even HAWTTER! :)

I really didn't want people at work to think I had WLS because I work with The Most Unpleasant Person in the World and she DID have surgery and she talks about it to anyone and everyone in graphic, disgusting detail (I mean, talks about purging McD's with people she's never had a conversation with before. She has no boundaries). Because we were already the two biggest people on campus and because she is so, so unpleasant, I've spent the last decade distancing myself from her one way or another (people used to call me by her name sometimes. It was awful). The problem isn't her weight--it's just she's a nasty meglo-maniacal bully and I really don't want to be associated with her.

So once my weight loss was obvious I made sure to tell 3-4 key gossips that I did NOT have surgery, and that did the trick. They predictably told everyone else.

What's weird to me is when I meet people I haven't seen through this and who are only distantly connected to me (friends of friends, or teachers at other campuses) and they are clearly not surprised--which means that they've heard from somewhere. I think that extreme weight loss is so unusual that the news of it spreads as deeply as the news that someone had a baby or got cancer: it's big news, and people talk. I am not a huge fan of being the subject of gossip, but it's still better than being fat.

I get plenty of leading questions, where the person asking is obviously trying to find out if I've had WLS. And, wow, it sure does irritate me, not because I think that there's anything wrong with having WLS, but, you know, I didn't.

I have a friend who is a nurse who really hates the whole WLS thing so if anyone compliments me on weight loss in front of her, she IMMEDIATELY jumps in with "and she did it without surgery".

My brother had weight loss surgery and he is doing amazingly well. I'm really happy for him and how it has changed his life. I honestly do not have a problem with WLS and the people who have it done.

That said, I don't like people assuming I've had it. I don't know if that makes me a hyporcrite or a bad person. I had one friend directly ask me if I've had the surgery and I know that other people have speculated that I had it done.

When people ask me about my weight loss, I usually say "its been a long slow process and I'm nearing 3 years since I've been losing weight".

This happened to me recently; I ran into someone at a party whom I haven't seen in ages (and I don't know her very well, she's a friend of a friend). She'd lost a significant amount of weight and, although very slim she didn't look... WELL. So I didn't comment on the weight loss, just gave her a hug and said it was good to see her. Interestingly, our mutual friend said later that C. had lost a lot of weight but didn't look healthy, and she didn't feel good congratulating her on the weight loss either.

Gosh, there's a lot of "she's" in there; I hope it's sort of intelligible!

ETA: And maybe it's different in Canada - I think WLS is not so common here as in the States (at least for now). It wouldn't occur to me to assume that someone who'd lost major pounds had had surgery.

Last time, I not only lost a lot of weight, I cut my hair short. To me,I looked gamine. One of my colleagues asked if I'd finished my chemotherapy.....


and also

Sometimes people don't like to say Wow too much, in case you think they think you looked pug ugly before.....

I think it's this: WE know that WLS isn't the "easy way out", but I think other people THINK it's the easy way out and I don't want them to think it was easy, not for any reason. And let's face it, the sort of people that clearly want it to be WLS are often the ones who are looking for a reason to minimize our accomplishments/find a reason why they haven't done it.

Absolutely, couldn't have said it better.