Girly friendships changing (question for ladies) with weight loss
 

How can you tell when your girl friendships are changing, and how can you maintain them and avoid jealousy issues?

I ask because I have an inkling that jealousy issues may be springing forth as I lose weight. Some of my friends I have had for years, but there are some new ones where these friends have only known me as fat. As I slowly change from obese, to overweight, and eventually, to a regular size and then, at goal, fit -- I anticipate changes.

I don't want to over-think people's statements but I am starting to wonder whether certain friends of mine are trying to hold me down or hold me back and do not have my best interests at heart. One person in particular has given me several reasons to think she does not have my best interests at heart, due to some of her comments and actions.

How can you tell if someone is being true to you or whether their insecurities are getting in the way of their honest opinions?

That is a good question...but a tough one. I've always said, let their character be your guide. Sometimes even those of profound character will have momentary lapse of tact or insensitivity but at the end of the day if said person, is someone I respect and I know deep down, they are genuine, then I don't find myself asking those types of questions about them. If you are unsure about someones intentions, then your gut is more than likely right, if you know this person quite well. A true friend is supportive of positive changes in your life..period! :)

I don't know what "being true" means. We are only human. It's possible that the friend you're talking about is jealous if she is also overweight--so sometime when you're alone with her, ask her about the things she's said and done. See what she has to say for herself. I don't mean start an argument--just let her know that you've noticed her comments and actions and are confused by them.

Nothing beats open communication.

Jay

I have a (very good) thin friend who started acting strange around me. (Actually she avoided me...which was strange). I finally asked her about it because I felt abandoned, and really thought she would be happy for me to get healthy. She confessed that she had a hard time around me because she was used to being the center of attention when we were together and *now* every time we are together in public, people stop ME and comment on my weight loss/ appearance. She said she felt like the "ugly side kick". (HA! she's a beauty!) I explained to her that was how I felt for the last 10 years of our friendship. She was really embarrassed , and never realize how much of a 2 way street our relationship was. Anyway, life is back to normal and we have fun..

Advice: Let go of the ones that don't fell right sooner rather than later.

My long time friend, the one I thought I would have till I died, the one that I thought love me the most- the way I love her the most out of my friends turned out to be the one thing that needed to be weeded from my life. Our journey started out together, ended quickly, and became polarized. As I dropped weight, felt good, and began getting out in the world she began gaining weight and closing down. At one point I projected my journey on her, I didn't think I'd make it by myself or if she gave up, it became about her. So she dug in her heals, accused me of becoming a different person, and began pushing her poor diet choices on me ("it won't kill you!" "Yes, actually it will eventually"). I just wanted to shout at her: "I'm not a different person, I'm just finally able to really be me. I'm finally accepting myself and not hiding." I thought that we were unshakable, unbreakable, and that she was friend with the real me (the one inside, not outside), but really... she and I became fat friends of convenience, hiding behind each other. Like weak animals, strength in numbers. I am different now, though, I've learned the signs of negative influences in future friends and I don't stand for that sabotage via jealousy anymore.

This thread is making me a little sad. :(

But it's nice to have a place to talk about these issues, and so far you've given great advice.

To clarify, by "being true", an example would be our discussion on our goal weights. My goal weight at our support group is 145, and when I told her that I wanted to change it to 140, to weigh the same as at my wedding, she seemed irritated and mentioned that I shouldn't change it but just go on medication to solve any unresolved health issues. Her goal weight is 150. So I do not know whether she is giving solid advice or just wants to weigh the same or less than I do -- which is silly because I'm shorter, but she's done a similar thing to one of our other friends, in the past.

Edit -- regarding the whole "health" thing, I had a physical before starting my weight loss journey, and I need for some of my "stats" to change (BP, for example) after I lose weight.

With regard to your friend's comment, that's all about her, and not about you. That bit about medication is just weird! Tell her you'll set your goal wherever you like, thanks.

Jay

I lost a lot of weight a few years ago and tbh I was more upset by how my friendships with men changed. I tend to have more male friends than female friends, I just relate better. But when I was big none of the guys took a second glance at me. Once I'd lost weight I became something of an 'object' to them and they only saw me in relation to whether they wanted to have sex with me or not.

In the end I ended up sleeping with a couple of guys who had been more like best friends than sex buddies, and it ruined the friendships.

I hope that when I lose the weight again (!) none of my friendships will change too much.

Wow, I am so with you. I know. It is a sad thread. Sad we have to have so many things change when we change. But it's the price we are going to have to pay. I've asked many many people about this because I saw it last time I got down to about 200. I'm not big chested and it's usually in my hips where I am biggest so when I'm down that low my upper body looks pretty good. I had friends' spouses start watching me alot and talking sorta weird and several women didn't chat as much. Just really was a problem to where I didn't want to lose any more. Yeah, I know. Nothing is worth not losing. But it was. And there are other issues for me. Like not wanting to be seen as 'small, weak, tiny, vulnerable, etc' because I'm tiny bodied. But my dad has health problems, mannny, because of obesity and I must change it for me. Now.

He gave me wisdom recently when I visited him. He said, Anything people say or do is about them. If they are rude or unkind because you are helping yourself to be healthier then you don't need them anyway. Find people who support you. And about being tiny and weak. He said that's all an illusion too. A false sense of security, and my husband agrees too. They said if I'm fit I can fend off someone because I have energy and strength more than now. Which is so true.

I just have to get over all this and over the fact that I will have more facial wrinkles, not much but some, as well as loose skin between my legs and on my stomach. But like someone on here just wrote, that can be concealed under clothes, obesity can't!! Bravo for that comment!!!! :cb:

Ok, off my soap box :soap:, just wanted to share my thoughts. I'm done with all the fears. I'm me. This weight isn't me. If they don't like me as myself, I sure don't need them.

:D

Hugs, Selina

I have one female friend who really struggled last time I got low, she of 'but you're the same size as me!' comment I've mentioned before. (it was the 'but' that was the killer.

I do sometimes find her comments a bit irritating but I try to have compassion for her: I'm 13 years younger than her; I have better skin than her; I am more academically able than her. Maybe, although this may be over-thinking, maybe being thinner than me is the only thing she has to put in the balance of her self-esteem.

friends?
 

I'm primarily of the opinion... if they cannot get beyond their jealousy and be supportive of you, then they're not really your friends to begin with :)

~ tea

I'll talk from the other side, from the side of the jealous friend that broke off the relationship.

Something changed for me, but not with my loosing weight, just with my friend's loosing weight.
She got in shape before I even decided to, we've always been 'fatty' at school, when we were in the same class, but you know life divides people, I have started working in a field and a city completely different from hers, we started seeing eachothers always less, and everytime I kept on noticing how the differences between us were getting bigger. Not only a matter or weight, but also our clothing style, friends, preferences, just about everything. we were like twin sisters in high school and 5 years later we were completely opposite people, that was a bit shocking.
In the middle of it, I was very down on my weight, and I felt I could do nothing about it. Instead, she picked up her butt and put off the pounds, I think the last time I had seen her I was about 210 and she must have been about 140, not quite the same, she was talking all the time about clothes, stiletto heels and whatever, I didn't feel able to tell anything in that conversation, I couldn't fit anywhere, and kept on wearing the same old pair of jeans because that was the only one that fit. I had not the same choice of clothes she had, I didn't fit anywhere, everything I tried on couldn't fit me, I couldn't feel sexy as much as she did as well, in a while I felt we had nothing to share anymore. More, talking to her was continuously putting me in a worst place, if I was depressed, after talking to her I'd be suicidal, felt a complete failure. I'm glad it's over, with her and with my 210 pounds.
We separated out ways, not bad I guess, if we didn't 'click' anymore, but yes that's a demonstration that weight can influence a friendship.

When you lose a lot of weight, it can be hard on the people in your life, whether they are jealous or not. People are generally resistant to change they can't control. You have fulfilled a certain role in their lives and now you are shaking things up!

To give people in your life the benefit of the doubt, they might just need time to sort of "re-negotiate" their relationship with you. If they are being outright rude, you might need to cut them off or confront them about it, but otherwise it might be better to be patient and give them some time to adjust to the new you. If they are true friends, then things will settle down soon enough.

Rainy, that was a very honest post, and I think a valuable one. I think we focus a lot in these forums on some pretty high ideals, which is great, but for every one person who actually posts their real experience and feelings, I think there are hundreds who don't - and therefore end up feeling like they're the only one.

If we lose a friend when we lose weight, it may be because it's too painful for them, or lots of other reasons. But I do think there's a difference between what you described, and being outright rude or sabotaging toward a friend. That's a choice.

Hey all, a newbie here...

Almost all of my friends are overweight, and my sister, who's my bff, is the most overweight of the bunch. She's never been a typical overweight person with the self-loathing that most of us can relate to. She knows being overweight is unhealthy, but she is not concerned with losing weight in the slightest. All of us other girls in the group are trying to whittle our frames down. Since i've made a noticable progress in that direction, the topic turns to health and weight loss much more than before. And my sister is starting to get completely annoyed with the topic. Then, when we see family we haven't seen in quite a while, they will make comments about the "new me", and I can just feel her eyes rolling in the back of her head. I don't think she's jealous, I think she's bored of the whole thing. She's got better things to talk about, and she's annoyed that we are always talking about that topic.

She told me that she thinks we don't love ourselves because we are always trying to change, and why can't we just accept ourselves. I tell her that I tried accepting myself at 253 pounds, but it never felt right. It felt like I had given up. It is love for myself that motivates me to take care of me now.

Anyway, both people change, not just the one that gets left in overweight land, and I think there are abandonement feelings too.

Rainy, you rock.

Bumping this old thread because i have been dealing with this.
Seems like females in my life have been really supportive up until my current weight. (where i have gotten thinner than/same size as some of them.) I can just tell by the looks on their faces...comments like "you are too skinny..your're disappearing..." Seems like they wanted me to lose...just not be smaller than them. I've always been the fattest one and now i'm in the middle of the pack. Weird how the reactions are changing.

In peoples little "group/pack" of mates, often theres a funy one, a rude one, a shy one, a fat one etc etc, things shiftwith weight loss & sometimes you dont even fit into your Hole anymore, suddenly you are more suited to a hole someone else is already in! Esp if your confidence grows & your hobbies change!

Not sure that I can answer your question directly... but I can tell you as you are more interested in healthful eating and fitness... you may "outgrow" some friendships because they will not share those interests. You are changing how you manage your daily life and either those friendships will adjust or realistically you may not have as much in common.

When I was fat and a friend or acquaintance lost a significant amount of weight and was looking great, I was envious. But in the "boy, I wish I looked like that" kinda way. But I would never have sabotaged them or gotten annoyed at them or anything of that nature. I might have been guilty of not wanting to go out much.....but I didn't want to go out in public in general, no matter who was with me.

There's a difference between being envious and being resentful. Being resentful of a friend who lost weight hints of having some serious issues to me.

So the question is not..."was the person ever really your friend?" It's more like "do you really want to have a friend with some serious issues?"

deena :)

I've had it work both ways for me. Two friends I have who are quite small (at my highest I probably weighed almost as much as the two of them put together!) and very into shopping, laying out at the beach, and fashion. They were always extremely complimentary and tried to get me to do things with them, but I was always bitter and being nasty and sarcastic if we were doing something that made me self conscious about my weight. I was a size 12/14, so yeah, I could shop at some of their stores, but I always felt that everything looked terrible on me, and I was just squeezing into the largest size the place had. And going to clubs/the beach was just a nightmare!

Now that I've lost weight and gotten more in shape, we all get along so much better! They are so happy for me, and I can go shopping with them and be a 6 or an 8, even if it's not their 0's and 2's, I don't feel so bad about it anymore. I still have problem areas in a bikini, but I'm not adverse to going out and having fun anymore. I think my attitude change brought me closer to them.

On the other hand, I have a very old friend from jr. high who has been extremely weird since the weight loss. She was never super thin, but she is blessed with the most charismatic personality ever, so she's used to being the center of attention, even in high school when I was a lot thinner than her. Now, she feels down on herself constantly because she had a baby and just kept gaining weight from there. She's stressed because she's a single mom, and I can definitely relate to her about struggling to lose weight. She'll say I look great, but it's almost like she's forcing herself to say it. She's been talking about me behind my back lately, too, and she has NEVER done that. It's a hard situation, but I am blaming it on her own insecurities, which I myself have had in the previous situation! So yeah, empathize with your friends but don't let them bring you down or outright sabotage your efforts!

I know this is an old post, but I very much agree with that too.


I think sometimes we see how people change around us when WE lose weight, but we do fail to realize how much we are changing too.

Perhaps not deliberately, but still it's bound to happen. We are caught up in our successes and how great it feels to be making these positive changes.

There is a reason that 'birds of a feather flock together'. In our changing, we tend to start to gravitate to those that have similar current interests, and away from those whose current goals do not match our own.

Sometimes our friends aren't abandoning us . . . sometimes we are leaving them in the dust without realizing it.

I'm glad this old post was bumped, I've enjoyed reading it. What rainy said really made me think. I had a good friend of mine lose a significant amount of weight some years ago. I was also losing at the time but I didn't lose nearly as much as her (she started quite a bit heavier and ended up thin, whereas I ended up slightly overweight still).

We're still friends to this day, although, we've moved away from each other so it's not quite the same thing but I could tell even at that time the dynamic between us changed. She talked about her weight loss non-stop. I know she was overweight her whole life so it was a huge change for her but it was also overwhelming for me at times too.

Another thing I struggled with was that she was in a relationship with a guy who was very obsessed with her weight (as in he wanted her thin) and I was genuinely worried she was losing for the wrong reasons.

I never intentionally tried to sabotage her but like I said I just wasn't as committed to weight loss at that time so I'm sure I probably asked her to go out to eat to places she shouldn't have. I honestly can't remember! It definitely wasn't intentional on my part but me just living my life at that time.

I think it's important to think of it from both sides and ask yourself is the friend is really sabotaging you or if they just want to eat foods that they like? Granted, this is coming from someone who had a friend with a nut allergy and I kept trying to offer her nutella (I seriously kept forgetting she was allergic to nuts). :o I'm someone who likes people to be pretty upfront with me because I forget things easily/am not always completely socially aware so if I was doing anything to upset a friend who was losing weight I'd want them to tell me.

I made a post a while back on how a friend popped up on IM that I hadn't seen in person for a long time (we live in different countries now). We've both struggled with weight issues and used to diet and exercise together when we both worked at the same place. Anyway, she mentioned losing some weight, and since she brought up the subject, I mentioned how much I'd lost since I'd last seen her (which ended up being four times the amount she had). She suddenly had to go and I didn't hear from her again for months.

That was hard on me. I wasn't trying to make a comparison with her or do anything to make her feel bad, and I don't like to think of weight loss as a competition.

Yet at the same time I think about a high school friend that I got in contact with again when my father died since I was returning to my hometown. She mentioned on the phone that I might not recognize her when I saw her since she'd had gastric bypass. I was at my highest weight at the time (hadn't seen her in a good five years) and felt so horribly ashamed around her. We met at a bar and all she wanted to do was hit the dance floor, which was the last thing I felt comfortable doing at 360 pounds.

I hate to think that weight puts us in different places, but that often seems the case. I'm sure I was a downer in high school (and beyond) simply because it was so hard to relate to the girls that yapped endlessly about the clothes I felt I'd never fit into.