You Don't Need to Lose Any More Weight - Say's Who?

In 2 days I'll be 4 months out from my RNY.  I've had people tell me lately that "you look great, but you don't need to lose any more weight".  I really appreciate them noticing my weight loss as it's been a difficult and rewarding journey... but it also irritates me a bit.  I'm 166, down from 226 at surgery - I've lost  60 lbs and could easily lose 50 more and still be within a healthy range.

My personal goal is to lose 31 more lbs and get to 135.  As we all know, my body will decide when it's done but for now I will stick to my plan and take care of myself so I can be healthy.  The weight part will be what it wants to be! :)

Congratulations on your great success!  I am hearing the same thing from several people now and they want to know if I am done losing weight and what my goal is, etc.  I tell them that I don't really have a goal in mind, though I would like to lose 30 pounds or so more, if my body cooperates.  They are stunned when I also tell them that I just recently go below 200, and that there are more pounds to come off.

I am getting the same messages.  My standard response is to tell the person: "Thank you. I appreciate the compliment, but you are used to seeing me large and to you, I look very small right now. If you were not used to me being a large person, you would be able to see that I am not yet at the proper weight. Don't worry - I chose my goal weight with my surgeon and he is watching me and agrees that I have the right goal weight."

Usually they tell me after this that as long as my Dr is watching me they feel better.  I even had a few people lean back and look at me again and say that they saw my point about their expectations for me.

Enjoy the attention!

That's a really great and well articulated reply.  

Yes, this response is perfect. It's been mentioned here before that people are used to how we looked before surgery, and so once we lose some weight we automatically look "better", and so they think that's fine. They're not really looking at us with a good frame of reference. Also, I've read that after losing the weight we can initially look a little gaunt for a while until subcutaneous fat redistributes itself a little, so people may become alarmed at that.

Fantanstic reply, I'm going to use it.

Last time I lost weight, when I got close to 200 pounds I had people asking if I was through losing weight and suggesting I should stop. I went on to lose 40 more pounds. Looking back at pictures, my face was rather gaunt right around 200, more so than when I hit my goal. I don't know if this applies here, but it's something I didn't realize at the time.

It definitely applies - one of my friends said she wished she and her husband knew that about the weight redistributing later.  He listened to people saying he looked too slim and stopped well before his goal and has gained weight.  Reading on here has let me be prepared for those responses so I won't let them effect my choices.