I just talked to a co-worker who had been off work sick for the past month. He asked whether I’d lost weight again and how much I’ve lost now. He had asked me about it several times before and complimented me on it so I didn’t mind his questions. I told him I’d lost about 25 kg now. He said how that was quite fast and asked whether I had any health problems because of it. Why would I though? I am a lot healthier now than I was 8 months and 25 kg ago. I think people assume that I must be eating very little or having some sort of nutritional deficit because of the amount of weight I’ve lost, when really, it’s the complete opposite! He then said that I shouldn’t starve myself. I replied that he shouldn’t worry as I still eat a lot of food.

This is where things got weird. The co-worker who was sitting with him joined in the conversation saying, “yeah you won’t be able to stop that either. Once you start eating big servings, you’ll always be doing it.”

I honestly thought, “what the hell is he talking about?” I had been meaning to say that I was eating normal servings, and not starving myself, NOT that I was stuffing myself with huge portions. Not to mention that I also disagree with what he said. Of course you can get used to smaller portion sizes if that was your problem with gaining weight. For me it wasn’t. I always ate quite normal-sized portions at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My problem was the junk food I ate between meals.

He then went on and asked, “haven’t you lost weight on this program 4 or 5 times before?” I found that so offensive.

First of all, no, I haven’t. I have lost some weight a few times before, but I have never lost this much weight in my life ever before. The only time I was close to the weight I am now was six years ago when I lost 16 kg with Weight Watchers and managed to get down to 73.3 kg which I maintained for a month or two at the most. I have also attempted to lose weight a few times since, but I never lost more than 5 to 10 kg at a time, and ended up gaining the weight back. Is that healthy? No. But I also didn’t yoyo back and forth losing and gaining crazy amounts of weight. I never did any fad diets or starved myself. And what program is he even talking about? All I do is eat healthily and count calories – that isn’t really a ‘program’ or ‘diet’ at all.

I did wonder how he got that idea though, and I realized that people have probably been talking about me. I did probably mention to some people that I’d tried losing weight before, and I do not mind people knowing that, but when the truth gets distorted and I get the feeling that people are just waiting for me to fail and gain back the weight, that does bother me.

But the madness didn’t stop there.

He told me about a friend of his who had a lap band surgery and he is now doing great, and I could talk to my doctor about that.

At which point I couldn’t believe my ears. Did he really just suggest to someone who is a healthy weight to have lap band surgery?! What the FUCK? Excuse the language but what the fuck?

Now, I realize that he clearly has no clue what he’s talking about, because no one who did would even suggest such a crazy thing. Lap band surgery is a last resort for morbidly obese people. Not only am I virtually normal weight with a BMI flucutating around 25, I was never morbidly obese at any point in my life. I am pretty sure that I never would have qualified for lap band surgery even at my heaviest weight.

Not only that but he seems to think of lap band surgery as a convenient and easy solution to losing weight. It just seems so absurd that he would suggest that in reply to my co-worker’s comment not to starve myself. How would lap band surgery be any better? I am sure that there are people that lap band surgery is a good, maybe the only, solution for. But for 99% of overweight people, it shouldn’t even be considered. There are a million better and healthier ways to lose weight.

I just said that I wouldn’t qualify for it anyway, and also why would I want to get a lap band now that I’m a healthy weight – not even mentioning that that would have never been an option for me even at 97 kg. He said, I could probably get one if I talked to my doctor. But why? Why?

Basically, the conversation was a big fat WHAT THE FUCK from beginning to end which resulted from a misunderstanding on his part leaving me wondering whether to be offended or laugh because clearly he is completely clueless.

I have been getting comments like “don’t starve yourself”* or “you’ve lost the weight quite quickly”** a few times lately, and although I know they’re not true, they do bother me a bit. They imply that I lost the weight in an unhealthy manner, when I did it the right way, eating healthily, never going hungry or denying myself anything, and exercising regularly. I have also had a friend mention a few months ago how my way of losing weight had been quite extreme. I asked her what she meant, and she said she meant the amount of exercise I did, and that she would rather lose the weight slowly and healthily. However, while I do exercise a lot more now than I used to, so I would agree that the change has been quite extreme, I do not think that there is anything extreme about what I do.

It feels a little like an insult to insinuate that I did not lose weight in a healthy manner, and it takes away from my achievement. I know that it’s not true but it’s hard not to let it get to me all the same.

* I eat at least 1500 calories a day, but usually more as I eat back all the calories I burn during exercise as well.

** I lost about 25 kg over the span of 8 months. Is that fast? Probably, though not unheard of. Is it too fast? No, I don’t think so. Weight Watchers recommend to lose between 0.5 and 1 kg per week, and I have averaged about 0.7 kg which is perfectly normal.

I am quite lucky in that both my family and my friends are very supportive of my weight loss. One of the best ways they do this is by choosing healthy restaurants for eating out. Or by cooking a healthy meal together when eating together at home. I don’t think that is something you can take for granted, especially as it is only natural for people to resist change, both in themselves and in others.

A few months ago, I read this article on CNN, and it rang true for me for the most part.

“People who are obese live with obese people. They find obese friends. Most (patients) don’t recognize how bad a lifestyle they have, how self-defeating a lifestyle is. They think that culture’s normal.”

As human beings we have a difficult time with change, Walz continues. So when someone we love alters his or her lifestyle, we have a problem dealing with it — even if that transformation is positive.

“Deliberately or not, the family, the friends, the other people who are part of that individual’s culture will resist the change,” Walz says. “(They) will try to change them back to what the culture tolerates.”

Luckily, I have not found this to be true for my friends. Hardly any of my friends are overweight, though, and they have been very encouraging. I never feel like they are trying to sabotage me nor have I felt any jealousy from them. But then, they already have what I want.

Today, I told my mom about how I am now at 74.7 kg, so under 75 kg (down another 0.4 kg from yesterday), and she told me not to get too skinny because she doesn’t think I am built to be real skinny. I remember getting these comments when I lost weight in 2005/06 (when my lowest weight was 73.3 kg, just a little under my current weight).

I do agree with her that I am not built to be skinny. I have a curvy figure – and I am not using curvy as an euphemism for fat – I mean, I am pear-shaped and I like the fact that I am.

But people, I am also not aiming for a goal weight of 60 kg. I do think that 65 kg is a realistic weight for me, at a height of 170 cm. I am currently still overweight at a BMI of 25.85, and I am definitely not too thin yet. I still have plenty of weight to lose from my tummy, butt, thighs and my upper arms. If I decide that I am happy with my figure at 68 kg, I am not going to force myself to lose another 3 kg just for the sake of weighing 65 kg. If I notice that my body is resisting losing another 3 kg, I won’t torture myself. I do want to be a healthy weight though, with a little buffer. And it may be my vanity talking, but I do want to weigh under 70 kg.

My mom mentioned how slim my face has gotten, and she is right that it has, but I don’t think that it’s too slim, and I also know that my face is one of the last spots I gain weight in so it only makes sense that it would be one of the first spots for me to lose weight in.

I still have about 10 kg to lose, and I don’t think that is overdoing it. I am actually eating a lot. I am working out a good amount but not too much. I eat back the calories I burn during exercise. I am not starving myself or denying myself anything. I don’t feel unhealthy or have a lack of energy. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. And my body is still readily shedding the pounds, it’s not resisting the weight loss and holding on to the weight. I am doing this the right way. It is sustainable, healthy, and consistent. So I won’t stop. I’m not at my goal yet. I don’t think I am getting too caught up in this weight loss thing, and I am not aiming for an unhealthy or unrealistic goal weight. I am doing great and I am doing the right thing.

I explained this to my mom, and I think it reassured her a little.

How do people in your surroundings react to your weight loss? Do they support you? Have they expressed worry that you might be losing too much weight?

It seems that when it comes to losing weight, ignorance and false information are incredibly wide-spread. In the past few days I have had both my sister (who is also overweight) and a co-worker (who is normal-weight) try to tell me that in order to lose weight, you should be eating 800–1000 calories. Umm no. That’s how much you should be eating if your goal is wrecking your metabolism.

The problem is that because I am overweight, people assume that I can’t possibly know anything about nutrition, because if I did, I wouldn’t be overweight. A discussion with co-workers today showed again how many people think that overweight people are ‘fat’ because they are too lazy to work out, and because they have no self-control when it comes to eating. But that is over-simplifying the issue. Of course overweight people got where they did by eating too much and by not working out (enough) – gaining weight, like losing weight, is biologically a matter of creating a calorie surplus or deficit. But it’s not that easy. And it seems that most people don’t get that. Or they don’t want to. Or they just don’t care.

The irony is that while I am overweight, I probably know more about nutrition than most thin people. Because I have actually educated myself on nutrition, and I didn’t do it by reading Cosmopolitan. I have done a lot of reading on how to lose weight healthily. The problem is not that I don’t know how to. I have known for years. It’s just hard to actually do it. And that shouldn’t be a foreign thought to skinny people. I have a co-worker who is very skinny but for a while she ate an entire box of Pringles at work every single morning. She probably knows it’s not healthy, but she ate them anyway. Is her eating that box of Pringles proof that she knows nothing about healthy food? Yeah, I didn’t think so. What is it that makes skinny people think they know anything about losing weight? They may know a lot about being thin, but losing weight and being thin are not the same thing. Heck, there are plenty of skinny people who don’t know much about healthy food. Of course being thin does not per se disqualify you from knowing anything about losing weight but, in my experience, most don’t because they were never in the situation where they needed to know anything about it.

Unfortunately I feel that as long as I am overweight, I am always going to be the one who is talked about, the one who is belittled and ridiculed, not the one who is listened to. Is that okay? No, it isn’t but even though I know a lot about nutrition, I have no credibility because I don’t look like what I know what I’m talking about. After some very insensitive comments by a co-worker today – ironically the one who knows about my insulin resistance and my changed diet – I have decided to keep my mouth shut on the topic at work unless someone shows genuine interest in what I have to say.

I had told my co-worker a week ago that I started running again, yet, when she asked me if I worked out at lunch today, and I replied that I go running three times a week, her reply was ‘oh please, since when? Yesterday?’ I am not sure if she knows how insensitive her comments are and while I have no plans of confiding in her again about this topic, I try not to be too angry. Unfortunately these are the kinds of comments that an overweight person has to deal with. If a thin person said they worked out three times a week, no one would question it. I am not sure if she thinks that just because I really did change my diet and really did start working out I am going to be thin within a week or two? Or even that she will see that I have lost weight within days. And that because she doesn’t, it must mean I am not actually losing weight or working out?

My weight loss has actually gone amazingly well. I have lost more weight in the past two weeks than I have ever lost in two consecutive weeks before. I think I will just have to remind myself of how well I am doing and that nothing my co-workers think or say can diminish that. I know that I am living healthily, regardless of what others think or say. I know that this is the right way for me and it is working. Regardless of how overweight I still am and will be for a while, I know I am on the right path.

For now, I suppose, that knowledge will have to be enough. And one day, they will see that too, and maybe then they will listen.