I have received some rather snarky comments. I was with a guy who blurted out (as be massaged my back and could feel my ribs) 'DO YOU EAT?!'

A coworker told me to 'eat a sandwich'.

More commonly people provide disapproving commentary about what I am actually eating...they 'dont believe' in not eating carbs...or getting crap for just eating sane, healthy, well portioned meals.

Even my adopted Mom gives me crap for not grocery shopping most weeks. I rarely trust myself to have food in he house due to binges. And even though she KNOWS I have serious food issues, she doesnt have them herself and she unintentionally acts like its just...some short coming or some sort of uppity thing I do to eat out all the time...or I dunno. That one does frustrate me....only because she has known me for 20+ years and is one of the few people I trust/expect to respect my boundaries. But she isnt perfect.

Well ya know what - I wish I could eat carbs and didnt have disordered eating. I wish I didnt have an entire lifetime/childhood of obesity and binge eating to deal with. But I do the best I can do to be healthy, and they can suck it! Im rather blunt, and sometimes that is exactly what I say to people to get them off my back.

On the other hand...I live in Cali and am in LA pretty often...which is the opposite. People there totally thing a) I eat normally b) Im a little fat (at ~18% body fat!!)

Haha. It is insanity...you cant please other people. All you can do is make the best decisions for yourself in life.

Originally Posted by xty:
Haha. It is insanity...you cant please other people. All you can do is make the best decisions for yourself in life.

xty, I love this. This made me feel so good just to read it. I've been accused of anorexia, etc. I get offended and think people are making light of a very serious disorder.

I eat LOTS of healthy foods. I also eat fast food and drink beer. It's no one's business. All we can do is take care of ourselves.

xty Seems like LA is just brutal, I have read numerous articles that in order to be considered "attractive" in the fashion-forward scene, you have to be a size 2 or smaller, and that there is a huge industry for super-slim women to be on ketosis 24/7 to maintain their figures.

It is so hurtful when well-meaning people tell someone who has a problem with food to "just eat." If I were normal around food I wouldn't be gaining and losing 4 kg in the span of one week!

Lately I've been getting quite a few comments about how I'm too skinny. It's kind of irritating. I think I look really good. I'm pretty sure that all of these people were just so used to seeing me at a bigger size that they're shocked by the way I look now. Either way I don't like it.

Just a few:

You're skinnier than the zipper on my jeans (WTF does that mean?)
You're a stick
Don't lose anymore weight, you'll look sickly

My sister said something the other day "are you anorexic?". But, my sister was always the small one and I was always the bigger one. As I Lost 25 pounds she put on 25 pounds so I know it is jealousy and it didn't bother me.

I guess a lot of us are in the same boat. We can use the rest of this to post our latest grumblings!

I have a few examples: While discussing whether or not fat can turn into muscle (MYTH - fat and muscle are two separate materials like skin and hair are) the person I was speaking with blurted out, "Looks like somebody needs to eat a cookie!" and turned her back to me. ??

I get questioned all the time, some nicely, most snarky or obvious jealousy not sincerity.

I get the same about my height. I'm almost 5'10" and my favorite boots have almost 3" heals.

It doesn't bother me as much when someone said to me, "Can you BE and F*ing taller?!". I know she was envious of my height. I can't change my height so it didn't bother me.

I guess what bothers me about weight comments, and it may be the same for the overweight, is that my weight (unlike my height) is a choice. So when someone criticizes my weight, they are telling me they don't like my choice. As if they said, "I don't like that dress you're wearing." To which I would say, "So close your eyes." :)

Originally Posted by fitness4life:
I guess a lot of us are in the same boat. We can use the rest of this to post our latest grumblings!

I have a few examples: While discussing whether or not fat can turn into muscle (MYTH - fat and muscle are two separate materials like skin and hair are) the person I was speaking with blurted out, "Looks like somebody needs to eat a cookie!" and turned her back to me. ??

I get questioned all the time, some nicely, most snarky or obvious jealousy not sincerity.

I get the same about my height. I'm almost 5'10" and my favorite boots have almost 3" heals.

It doesn't bother me as much when someone said to me, "Can you BE and F*ing taller?!". I know she was envious of my height. I can't change my height so it didn't bother me.

I guess what bothers me about weight comments, and it may be the same for the overweight, is that my weight (unlike my height) is a choice. So when someone criticizes my weight, they are telling me they don't like my choice. As if they said, "I don't like that dress you're wearing." To which I would say, "So close your eyes." :)

Simply perfect!!!

It was about 10 years ago the first time I lost a lot of weight and got really skinny. Back then, I did get too thin and was probably flirting with an ED, but even so, the only person who actually did/said mean things was a coworker who used to be anorexic and had recovered (but then went into obesity). She gave me the cold shoulder (we'd been close friends before) and then went so far into actually, actively hating on me that I wound up quitting just to get away from her. I had absolutely zero stuff said to me by anybody else, although my BF at the time did say sometimes that I was super tiny (and sometimes he said that in a concerned way).

Now, people have started to notice my weight loss but they don't say anything negative, at least not to my face. I don't want to look emaciated, so I do walk that line of making sure I'll stop losing when I'm still at a very healthy weight. I sometimes dress at work in a way that de-emphasizes my smallness, actually, and maybe that seems to help curb comments that might otherwise be forthcoming. With friends and family, everybody sees me eat, so they know I'm not avoiding food (far from it!), but family and those close to me also know I work my keister off when it comes to exercise.

I think some of this is helped with age. I'm almost 36. Everyone I work with is older than me, and most of them are men (most of whom are married, some of whom are gay, and so they're hardly looking at me "like that"). My mom is actually super supportive, even though she's morbidly obese herself, and says that my recent rededication to health and fitness has inspired her. She's started going on walks, eating less, and has lost about 10 pounds recently. :)

What does bug me sometimes are friends who are on the heavier side who make snarky/disparaging remarks about, say, very thin actresses, many of whom are actually either my size or even larger than me. Maybe they don't see me as being that small or maybe they're trying to make a roundabout point, but it always comes off very petty. One woman in particular, she is very overweight and was recently diagnosed with some health problems because of it. Instead of doing the work to turn her health around, she's decided that to lose weight is a looksist, anti-feminist statement about beauty and body image expectations, so she's refusing to exercise or avoid eating just anything and everything she wants. I find this attitude to be kind of... odd. I feel like I'm a very staunch feminist, and I don't understand what wanting to be abjectly, flagrantly unhealthy has to do with feminism. In fact, I think my dedicated approach to health and fitness is a lot more empowering. I feel really strong and fierce and given a little martial arts training, I could kick some booty, whereas my friend isn't doing anything but empowering herself to illness. :(

Kat, that is VERY common. Just be supportive and suggest healthier living but in the end, it's her choice and leave it at that.

You're doing awesome! I've really enjoyed being a cyber part of people's success here. thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by fitness4life:
Kat, that is VERY common. Just be supportive and suggest healthier living but in the end, it's her choice and leave it at that.

Oh, absolutely. Ultimately, what it comes down to is choice and it's none of my business how she chooses to define those things for herself. It's maybe kind of sad, but if this is how she wants to make her life happy, I'd rather in some ways that she have a shorter, happier life than a longer, miserable one. Me, I'm selfish, and I want a long, happy life, and for me that means optimal physical health. :carrot:

Originally Posted by kat999:
One woman in particular, she is very overweight and was recently diagnosed with some health problems because of it. Instead of doing the work to turn her health around, she's decided that to lose weight is a looksist, anti-feminist statement about beauty and body image expectations, so she's refusing to exercise or avoid eating just anything and everything she wants. I find this attitude to be kind of... odd. I feel like I'm a very staunch feminist, and I don't understand what wanting to be abjectly, flagrantly unhealthy has to do with feminism. In fact, I think my dedicated approach to health and fitness is a lot more empowering. I feel really strong and fierce and given a little martial arts training, I could kick some booty, whereas my friend isn't doing anything but empowering herself to illness. :(

AMEN to everything you said. There is nothing more empowering than being strong and eschewing the idea that hard exercise and bodily strength is somehow inherently masculine or unfeminine. In fact, I think consciously letting yourself go in terms of weight management and healthy living is an obnoxious insult to the many women who work hard at maintaining and building strong healthy bodies. Struggling with your weight is one thing, but what's up with throwing in the towel and trying to turn it into a political statement?! I don't know what your friend thinks is going to happen with her decision; she knows Andrea Dworkin died of weight complications, right? Hopefully she'll come right when she realizes she's only hurting herself and helping no one else.

First off, krampus, I absolutely love your new profile pic.

I have never posted anything on the featherweights section, because honestly I don't feel like I belong here.

Anyway, I have 10-15 more lbs. to go to get to goal. I haven't really decided yet. I have gotten a lot of these cruddy comments lately. A few people have messaged me privately on facebook and told me that I look anorexic and that they are worried about me and think I should stop losing. I have never been anywhere near anorexic. I don't share with anyone else (except here on 3FC and with my doctor), what my weight is. I don't feel it necessary for me to answer these concerns with what I weigh and how I am eating very healthily, etc. If I thought for one minute that any of these people were actually concerned about my weightloss, I might consider it. However, where they have come from makes me seriously doubt that.

I have ignored these comments for the most part, but I do have to say that they sting. Isn't it awful, really, that when we are really working to get as healthy as possible, we still have to get the rude comments? I'm a big girl and I have a thick skin (literally), but these things don't help any with body image. I have suffered with my body image for a long time now and I could really use positive, uplifting comments. Certainly not these under-handed, nasty, mean-spirited barbs.

I try to live my life doing random acts of kindness and when those acts get acknowledged, I usually say, "Pay it forward".

There have been more times in my gym where people tell me I look strong, or cut than there have been where my low weight is questioned. If I notice a change in a regular client, or if I see a woman with great strength I always tell them how I noticed this positive aspect of their bodies. Almost always the response is a great big smile. It just makes me feel so good to give praise to someone's hard work, which helps me forget the comments of the ignorant.

It's weird, tho, that while the sting of a carppy comment subsides, I never forget who said those things to me and remind myself that this person is NOT my friend.

On the flip side, I get accused of being a hater of those who are overweight. This blows my mind! I am a fitness professional! If I hated peeps who are overweight, I'd find something else to do!

There is a woman I was once friends with and we were discussing the yo-yo weight gain/loss of another person. I was looking at it from a professional point of view and said that the person was always complaining about how much she eats and commented that if she watched her intake with more self control, she'd be having less of a problem.

The person I talked to said, "Hold on...You think she's fat?! Holy cow, if you think she's fat then you must think I'm obese!"

Never did I say that I thought the other woman was fat. All I said is that she compains about how much she eats, trying to get to the point that not maintaining a steady diet is not healthy. But she didn't hear that. The other woman is in great shape, but I can't stand to hear her moan and groan all the time about eating!

Sometimes it seems I can't win, but then I remind myself that it's not a popularity competition. We all should be happy for ourselves. When someone cannot be happy with or for us, it's natural to question if they are indeed our friends.

Lisa, yeah, you need to find new friends. ;) Goodness, that sounds like a nightmare. How did you end up with these women in the first place? Are they neighbors? Part of some organization you're part of? Co-workers? Yikes.

I'm lucky to live in a place where anything goes. I could dress to the nine and get lots of comments or I could dress in sweats and people simply wouldn't say anything. The only problem here, with relation to this topic, is that people are largely overweight here. I felt very normal and like I fit in everywhere at 200 pounds. For that reason, I do get comments about how I'm getting too thin, and truly I find that odd. I'm so not too thin and not even the thinnest woman I see on a daily basis. But I guess I am finally below average.