This is definitely how I look at food offers now (even insistent ones). In the past, every time someone who knew I was dieting offered me food, I'd get angry and consider it "sabotage."

However, if they offered food to everyone but me, I'd get just as mad that they were playing "food cop."

If they didn't comment on my weight loss, I'd feel like they were being nonsupportive, and if they did comment on my weight, I'd also feel unsupported - because the comments either seemed critical or insincere (or too pressuring, or not pressuring enough)...


I eventually realized that their behavior wasn't the problem, it was my interpretation of their behavior that was the problem.

When I stopped seeing sabotage, and stopped blaming people for my response to their words and behavior, I stopped feeling pressure to eat.

No one can make you eat. No one can make you lose weight or stop you from losing weight. Just as they can't make you do what they want, you can't make them do what you want.

In most cultures there are food hospitality taboos. It's often seen as terribly rude not to offer a guest food, and just as rude for a guest to refuse. There's just as much social pressure to offer food, as there is to eat what's offerred.

As hard as it may be for you to decline food, it's probably just as hard for them not to offer it.


As to uncomfortable subjects, if you don't want to discuss a subject, just refuse to. Change the topic every time they attempt to lead it towards the subject you don't want to discuss. Tell them it's a topic you won't discuss, and if they press - leave the room every time they raise the topic. Walk away.

It works, if you're consistent. If you do it every time. I had to do this with my mother to the point that I would leave her house and go home (an hour away) every time she refused to let up on a topic I'd told her was off limits.

She talked about me behind my back to my sisters "Colleen's so sensitive about her weight, you can't say anything to her," but she stopped talking about it to my face, which is all I needed (and I told my sisters I didn't want to hear what Mom had to say behind my back. I didn't need or want to hear it).



I don't believe most people are intentionally unsupportive. They just do what they've always done. They don't even think about it. Your health and weight is never going to be anyone else's top priority, so they're not going to remember what you want and need from them (you can tell them as many times as you want to, but there's nothing you can do to make them learn and do it to your satisfaction, especially since you may not even always know what you need).

That's a really great response, kaplods.

I stand by my recommendation to talk it out since the problem is with someone who is so close, but I totally agree that we all need to be conscious of how our way of thinking is shaping our weightloss journeys. I'm definitely going to be cognizant of your advice as I move forward.

I don't think you need to talk to her, just do what you are doing. "No thanks I'm not hungry. No thanks, I'm cutting back."

And if it does get worse just stop going over. Tell hubby grow a backbone and tell his mom to back off. From the way she sounds if you snap at her she'll just make a huge deal out of it and make you look bad- but if her own son tells her to let it go she won't have much to say, once her son is in your corner she's pretty stuck unless she wants her son to stop speaking to her.

Gosh messing up your labor like that I'd have told her go home it's your freaking baby from your own vajayjay and next time she pops out a kid she can name it whatever she wants.

This is why I'm not telling anyone but my sister when I'm going into labor lol.

Yes, the whole thing with the delivery has very much hurt me, and I admit I am still a little bitter. I have forgiven, we get along now, but I still think about it all the time, and still feel the hurt from that.
I think that our conflicts in the past have helped me shape her even more negatively, even with my losing weight and the food offers. Maybe it was an act of hospitality. It could very well just have been that. At the time I posted, I was just feeling all those negative feelings towards her again, like "Oh here she goes again." And it was irritating. I guess I will just have to continue to work on forgiving, and realize I don't have to eat what she offers.. And if I do I should view it as my own fault. And if I keep that in mind, it should be even easier to say no.
As far as her wanting to talk to me about my weight loss, I suppose I should just try and take it with a grain of salt and really try to show her what is considered healthy with my age and height.