Sister!!! Argh!!!
 

This is a vent. I am having problems with my sisters.

My younger sister wants to lose weight and has asked me for suggestions. When I tell her something, such as to eat a more filling breakfast like oatmeal or an omelette she invariably comes up for an excuse of how she just can't do that. Yes, she is very busy, working 40 hours a week and going to school. I understand that she doesn't really have time to add in exercise. I told her to concentrate on getting good, filling foods such as broccoli or green beans. She says it takes too long, she doesn't like it, she would have to go shopping at another place. I told her to give up her daily hershey bar for maybe a 2 times a week hershey bar. She can't live without her hershey bar, it's what gives her energy before class. Sugar substitutes give her a headache, coffee with no sugar is gross. On and on with each of my suggestions.

I told her to stay fat then, since she obviously wasn't willing to change. You can guess how she took it.

My older sister has always struggled with her weight. Up and down, up and down, I think she weighs over 250 pounds now. She yo-yoed her way up, I remember as a kid she would always have one weird diet or another. Orange and cabbage soup kinda stuff. I told her that I was looking forward to looking great at my wedding. Few of my family has seen me since I lost almost 50 pounds (it will be over 50 by then), so even if I have some problem spots, I will look awesome.

She told me to enjoy it while it lasts, since I'll gain it back twice as fast. No, I told her. I'm not on a diet. I'm not depriving myself. I can eat an ice-cream bar (50 cals) right now and not blow my week, day, or even afternoon.

No, she says, once I have kids (like 2-3 years from now) I'll gain weight and won't be able to bring it down. It's impossible to keep it off, especially if I plan on having kids after. You'll see, she says. And she is the right type of person to say I told you so.

These conversations were last night and this morning. I swear I feel like a dump truck of pressure has been added, in addition to other pressures such as planning a 150 person wedding, or finishing my dissertation research, and even attempting to keep my sanity, which would be the icing on the cake. Now I have to be this super-weight-loss genius that can gain and get back down. I can't just do it my way without having one say 'I told you so' and the other say 'I think you just lost weight like you always do in Peru'.

I don't even know what I can say to them. Either one.

What kind of support am I looking for? Camaraderie, empathy, any suggestions, or frustrating family fables. OR maybe the thread gets hijacked but this time by bird people!

I don't know much about birds, except that a friend has a pet bird that scares me, but I do know about women. There is a dynamic that can express itself on occasion (maybe men have it, too, don't want to be sexist), but that dynamic is to push someone down to make themselves feel better. I'm not sure why we can't all be kind and supportive all the time. It is very sad.

I am proud of your weight loss and your chipper attitude and the incredible work you are doing on your dissertation. Find joy in these achievements. Some women gain weight after birth and don't lose it, but weight and birth responds to the same behaviors as weight and anything else. Surround yourself with the successes on this website. Long term weight loss (& maintenance) is possible. There may be speedbumps along the way, but it IS possible. And when something is possible, those with stout hearts and determination will press on for a worthwhile goal.

I LAUGHED when I read that you told your sister to stay fat! Way to go! Haha! That is the kind of person who isn't ready to lose weight-- DAILY Hershey bar that she just can't give up? Whatever! She has to want it bad enough to work for it, and she doesn't sound like she's willing to.

And as for your older sister, she's probably a little (or a lot) jealous of your success and wants to make excuses for her own weight problems rather than just being proud of you for losing.

I've got two sisters, too, so I know it's tough. Hang in there and just be proud of yourself and know that they're not trying to hurt you, they're probably just wishing they were in your shoes (or skinny body?).

Archy I know how you feel about family and dieting. My mother is the one that is always trying to sabotage any success I have. Every time I loose enough more so that it is noticeable there she is trying to get me to eat everything under the sun that isn't good for me.

I've come to the conclusion that she is jealous because she wants to lose weight and can’t because she won’t use her won’t power (her will power works just fine-I will have a candy bar, cookie, whatever) and work at loosing weight.

After a session with her it can drive me to eat!! But I have discovered that all it does is make me feel more miserable so I’ve decided that if they ask for my advice I give it and if they don’t like it then it’s their life and they don’t have to like it. Hard to do sometimes but I decided I have to take care of my health first.

Good luck with your sisters, your wedding and your dissertation.

It's apparent that they're just trying to bring you down in order to excuse their weight issues.

Just keep your head high and once you prove to them that you CAN keep the weight off after you have children and whether you're in Peru or not, maybe they'll start to understand.

Just give it time and until then don't let them bring you down or feel pressured... you're doing this for you, and on your time.

Ok, *deep breath*

I gained the chunk of my weight after I got pregnant and had 2 children in 4 years. On my small frame 50 extra pounds was a huge amount of weight...and at times it seemed to me like I was never going to be at a healthy weight ever. And it would have been impossible if I hadn't really stuck to it.

What has this taught me? We are amazing creatures, capable of far more than we ever try to do. You may gain weight, a lot of weight when you decide to have babies, but then you may not. If you do gain weight....being on this sight and never losing track of the bigger picture is how you can make that gain an impermanent part of your life.

You make me laugh!

Archy~younger sister: "I guess you don't really want any of my suggestions, so please refrain from asking me again (unless you are ready to listen rather than nix everything I offer)."

older sister: "I can't wait to say I told you so." It IS possible to lose weight and keep it off--regardless of the fact that you've had children, you're older, etc.

You are an incredible person doing an incredible job. Look how far you've come! Don't let your siblings make a mess of it!

Wow, everyone has had such good things to say!

I just wanted to say, there is only one thing more annoying than a younger sister, and that's an older sister. :lol:

I'm the oldest in my family, and I'm also the heaviest--or rather, I was. I was even heavier than my brother for awhile. But no more.

Still, my younger sister the athlete tried for awhile to subtlely help me to lose weight by saying how such-and-such program had helped her. Like she has ever been more than 10 pounds overweight in her life! Ha! My youngest sister is more like me--not highly active, gains easily. We help each other quite a bit. My brother never talks about weight--but at one time he was becoming overweight, and he reversed it. I don't know what he did--I expect the same thing that works for everyone! But now he looks so buff for an old dude. :lol:

My only suggestion, I think, is--don't talk with them about your weight. If they press the point, tell them it's off limits as a topic. If they say "Why?" just repeat "Because I choose not to discuss it" until they give up.

As for your younger sister--our dear Meg on 3FC once said (and I'm paraphrasing):

"If you really want it, you'll find a way. If you don't really want it, you'll find an excuse."

Hang in there, archy!

Jay

archy - hang in there...obviously you sister has some jealousy of the fact you are doing so great..and even more obvious...she is not ready to lose weight!! with all those excuse, she'll never lose weight. my recommendations to you is just to tell your sister that you have too much going on right now that needs you attention...and you want to help her lose weight however everytime you suggest something, ds shoots it down. and that at this point...you don't need the added stress

you're doing great archy...just hang in there...and ignore her silliness at this time. .good luck with the wedding planning.

Wow, a lot of great responses and so quick! Thank you guys for the support (and even the attempted hijacking, it made me laugh!) You guys have made me feel a million times better.

I just called my Mom at work and she laughed at me. "Oh, you know that Les [younger one] is stressed and Sil [older one] is nuts!"

Yes, I do think Silvia is a bit jealous. This is my first real, give it my all try at losing weight. Before my attempts were private and lasted for a day, and when I failed, no biggie. No one knew, and I was still proud of myself because I hadn't really tried. I should ignore her, but she knows my buttons!

And for Leslie, now that I have really tried it makes me feel angry that she sees it as another "Eva goes to Peru and loses 20 pounds, like she does every year". Yes, I always lose weight here, but never this much. And never with this much effort! I should ignore her, but she knows my buttons!

About kids, I shouldn't worry about it! I'm 2-3 years away, I should be more concerned on keeping the weight off once I'm within 500 miles of a Taco Bell!

I will lose the weight after I give birth (in like 3-4 years).

I will keep it off because I like being healthier, I like spending less for food and clothes, I like running, I like jumping on my bed and not worrying that I will break it!

Thanks everyone, I just went from about to cry to laughing at myself!

My middle sister tends to yo-yo a bit with her weight - she's only ever occasionally tried to lose it intentionally though. Most of time if she is losing its because she's stressed...she's one of those people who loses their appetite when they're under pressure. Most of the time she's a good 10-15 kilos (20 - 30 pounds there abouts)over where she probably should be for her frame.

My youngest sister is a rake - but then she IS only 18 lol. She has this annoying switch in her brain that tells her "I'm full" and she can't eat a bite past it. It's the most uncanny thing to watch. It's frustrating for her - she'll be eating the most delicious meal and have to stop and watch it go cold on her plate because the mere thought of one more bite makes her sick.

How I wish I had that! I missed it somewhere in the gene pool methinks.

Me...I lost a bucket load and had one very jealous middle sister - so much so she ignored me for a year and told everyone she could I was a whore. Nice hey? Oh well...she got over it eventually. Family!

As for having babies - that doesn't mean you'll gain weight. My mum gained NOTHING when she had me - she gained half a kilo with my middle sister and a kilo with the last. Thats a whopping total of 3 pounds between three babies over 5 years.

*hugs* You're doing so well!

:hug: I SO feel you. My younger sister has been pretty supportive all in all, but it's her habits to try to lose weight that annoy me. Like the week she turned 21, she did NOTHING but drink booze heavily for the ENTIRE week and then (knowing how hard I've been working to lose weight) told me: "Yeah...I lost 10 pounds this week--I guess the answer to losing weight is just drinking a lot". Or when I was downstairs in her room talking to our cousin, Ashley (who practically lived with us this summer) and I see a bottle of Xantrex 3 on her dresser.

I was just WAITING for my sister to gloat about her weight loss drug working SO WELL for her. When she came up and we got into a conversation about weight loss, she said that it hadn't worked, so she ordered ephedrine off the internet. She talks about how it makes her heart race if she takes too much and I express to her OVER and OVER how it's dangerous and unhealthy, and she doesn't listen.

My younger brother's a natural-born twig and his answer is: "Eat less. Exercise." Great advice coming from a kid who eats bags of oreos for a snack and lives on pizza and boxed macaroni and cheese without gaining a pound. He's pretty active, though...but he's also got a GREAT natural metabolism. What I'd GIVE to be able to eat whatever I wanted and stay lean...ah well.

:hug: I'm sorry your sisters are psycho. Use older sis' pronouncement of doom as inspiration! Sometime when you're feeling like not going to the gym, use your sister's snide remark as fuel to get you there! You'll show HER!

archy, I almost laughed out loud because this problem you're having with the sisters is almost EXACTLY how my two friends are.

Your first sister sounds like my former roommate! She wouldn't give up anything, find healthier alternatives, or skimp back on portions. I hear her say "I'll just have one" and then later catch her filling herself up to a balloon! Unfortunately, because's she's not as close to me as a sister is, I can't say to her anything rude, so I just let her make her own decisions. She pays a lot for a gym membership that she never uses, she KEEPS on telling me that she wants to lose weight but never changes anything in her lifetsyle plan (I'm not being bitter- she really DOESN'T do anything differently) and expects to lose more than 50 lbs. She weighed around 160 when she lived with me and now she's around 175 ish and keeps on packing it. What a lovely girl, what i can't say anything rude to her about her almost non-existent efforts. She's asked me for advice and never takes it, and she complains to me when she fails at her plan even though there's no real way I could help her or comfort her. I guess that's what friends are for?

My other friend blames her genetics. She tries and then completely stops dead in her tracks. She's taken my advice before but then for no reason, stops. I'm guessing that its just hard for her to change her lifestyle!

1) I tried ephedrine based products 9when they were legal) when I was younger and we didn't need to be 18 then to purchase it. (I was... 15? around there.) It gave me heart palpitations that made to collapse on the floor, I now have a strange cardiac arrythmia when starved (wich is why I never starve myself anymore), like how I used to be when i took the drug 7 years ago. It made me feel full ALL the time even when I didn't eat a THING, and my heart cried night and day. Stupid dumb teenage mind. I really should've seen myself in my perspective now, but we do get wiser with age, don't we?

2) Right after I stopped taking ephedrine drugs and they were outlawed, I got Xantrex 3. I think I was around 17-18 years of age then. All it is, is a extremely uncomfortable laxative. Again, stupid dumb teenage mind working at that time. It never worked.

Azure, as a person who really regrets taking this stuff, I'm sure your sister will regret it after college and realizes that it'll never work this way. From the way i see it now, all it was becomes a waste of money and time and lost hope with added low self esteem. I hate fake diet products mainly because I was a dummy who didn't understand that diet was a lifestyle choice, not a temporary weight loss drug...

FWIW you can tell your older sister that I weigh LESS than I did before I had children so there. And I gained 46 lbs with my second pregnancy which is a bit more than I was hoping for, but I lost it and about 20 more so nyah nyah nyah.

Veggielover-- Thanks...my sister's actually not in college (I am), she's chosen a non-academic way to live. She's unfortunately got a really addictive personality. She abuses whatever she's using. Alchohol, drugs, and now diet drugs... I think it's really more psychological for her (she's said before that she can't "deal with life" if she doesn't drink, smoke pot, etc. on a daily basis). Unfortunately, she's an adult and there's really nothing my parents or I can do. We've talked to her, expressed our concern...she's very resistant.

So, like drugs and alcohol, she's found diet pills and is abusing those, too... I'm hoping it's something she'll grow out of. She's not even very overweight--MAYBE by 10 pounds? I think she really does need professional help. But again, she's one of those people who won't listen to ANYONE--she does what she wants to. I'm hoping she'll figure it out for herself soon--she worries me (I'm the oldest child, so I'm, of course, the worrier).

Archy- My advice is to go hang out in the Maintainers Forum- do some reading in the old sticking in the Maintenance Library, take part in the current threads. They way you are living and eating to lose is pretty much what it takes to maintain. In hindsight, losing is just practice for maintaining.

I know that you'll be successful- you are tenacious, have a tremendous sense of humor and joie de vivre!

And that's why you'll be a maintainer!

I gained 65 pounds with my first child primarily because the prevailing feminist attitudes of the time (25 years ago!) were militantly against doctors who previously insisted that their patients gain no more than 15-20 pounds. After a few weeks of force feeding (and truthfully, no one exactly held a gun to my head, I just liked the idea), it became FUN to eat everything all the time. I took most of the weight off, but I'd started out far thinner than I should be. I put real weight on between kids- eating whatever, whenever will do that. Pregnancy #2 was a whole lot smarter- I continued to exercise everyday and ate scrupulously because I had gestational diabetes. 19 pounds gained with 10 pounds of it being baby boy.

You can have healthy, reasonable weight pregnancies and lose the weight again. Look at ennay! Hop over to Maintainers and you'll find moms, some very recent, who have lost the pregnancy weight and then some and kept it off.

There are always excuses, and there are also some of us who have to work at it harder; if that's the hand we are dealt...so be it.

YOU are going to be a maintainer, I have no doubt :hug:

Mel

I'd tell your younger sister that the next time she goes looking for advice, to make sure she actually wants the advice she's asking for.

And tell your older sister that AH says she lost over 100 pounds, had a baby, got back to the pre-preg weight, is 42, and is STILL 100 pounds down. So she can believe what she wants, and 10 years from now, when you're still skinny, she can keep telling herself the same lie.

Just makes me glad I've only got brothers. They've got two weight related comments, "hey you're getting fat" and "hey, you're not so fat as the last time I saw you". No ulterior motives, just simple statements of fact and they don't really care anyway.

At least your Mom sounds like a kick.

You can chose your friends, but you can't chose your relations!

Don't let the sisters keep you down, I bet you look terrific and will be a gorgeous bride. All the best.

I had a roomie like that as well. You can't help them if they don't want to be helped.

Thank you everyone. I am feeling less freaked out.

I am amazed at everyone who lost the post-pregnancy weight and kept it off (AH, ennay, Mel, etc!). Kids, work, and exercise? Makes me dizzy just thinking about it!

Mel - 10 pound baby boy??? :faint:

I'll be looking through the maintainers forum more, though!

Azure - I am lucky that Les is too smart to go for ephedra or the like. She is just stressed, and even though eating isn't the best mechanism and I am concerned, she has to be the one who says "that's it" and go for it.

I think she will soon enough, so far in unofficial weigh ins I've kept off the weight I lost when I was sick, so that would make me 3 pounds lighter than she. One comment from my Mom that now I'll be the skinny sister and I'm sure those Hershey bars will turn into carrot sticks!

Sis no. 1 sounds a bit clueless. I've lost almost 60 lbs & I have people asking me what my "secret" is, but don't want to be bothered with exercising or cutting portions. If it's someone I haven't had the discussion with before, I tell them what worked for me. If it's someone I know isn't going to pay attention, I nod sympathetically & change the subject.

Sis no. 2 sounds extremely jealous. Right around the time I made the decision to make some changes for myself (was shocked by a dr's office weigh in of 250), one of my then co-workers started to show the results of her Weight Watchers efforts (she lost a total of 60 or more pounds). There were several other co-workers who were overweight, including some folks supervisory/senior to me. They started making comments about her, how she probably had an eating disorder. Rather than do that, I realized if she could work out & eat better working the same schedule as me and having just as many personal issues with family as I did, what was my excuse? I realized my rationalizations were excuses and I needed to change my behavior. I noticed at about the 50lb point, 2 of the supervisors started singling me and her out for criticism. Nothing we could do was good enough. Long story, short, I eventually left that job. I get a lot of postive feedback on my work performance, which has helped enormously in restoring my confidence. And I work with 2 other people who are motivated to be fit & healthy. Just think, if the 2 supervisors had put half the energy they put into scapegoating me & my other co-worker into changing the eating & exercise habits, they'd probably be a lot happier. Living well is the best revenge in my book! :)

Congratulations on remaining calm
 

Congratulations on remaining calm, Archy, facing both a dissertation and a wedding. And best wishes for both.

Your story made me think of a comment made when I started my journey two years ago. When told I'd joined a gym, SIL told my DW "I'll give that 6 months." This from a friendly, loving person. My best guess is that my step triggered some bad feeling in her about her on again/off again dieting efforts. Now, when she sees me, she makes a supportive statement about my continued maintenance, but always adds something like, "But I just can't give up my afternoon snack."

Has anyone else found that their mere physical presence seems to put some dieters on the defensive?

Misery loves company, it's so true! I think we all know what you're going through, I have overweight family members and friends who have made me feel like you're feeling. When I got pregnant with my first baby and was 140 lbs at the time one of my friends said to me, "You're pregnant, you're going to get HUGE!" Wow, thanks! Well, guess what, I did get huge, I gained 60lbs and lost every pound of it by the time my boy was 15 months old, then I got pregnant again and I'm 7lbs away from goal and he's 17 months old. So it is very very possible to lose pregnancy weight. By the way, that friend that told me I was going to get huge is pregnant, she called and told me the other day and I said to her, "you're going to be the cutest pregnant woman."

Archy
I am sorry you are not getting the support you need. You are doing it the right way. Changing the way you think about, look at and eat food. These changes stay with us a life time. That is why we don't diet.

As far as babies. With my first I gained 11lbs, with my second 8lbs. I weighed exactly the same before i got preggy as I did when I left the hospital with my baby's 120lbs. A person does not have to gain a lot of weight. Some woman do some woman don't.

The weight I have to take off was caused by lots of meds from being sick for so many years. My children had to have been at least 9 or 10 and 13 or 14 before this weight started happening. Having children does not = gaining tons of weight that will haunt you all your life.

My sister has to tip the scale at 300. Unfortunately she went right back to her old eating habits once she got to her goal weight. One time I remember her getting down to 105 or something like that. Wore a size 3. Sure smaller than I was lol.

She hadn't seen me in a long time. When she did she was so surprised, " my gosh you look like a butter ball she said ". I called her the other day and told her I have lost 22lbs. You would have thought she lost it herself. She was so excited for me.

I asked her if she wanted to do this with me. She said na, to much work.