Getting noticed and feeling all kinds of ways about it!

Post Date: 2/11/11 2:39 pm
I have been doing this WLS journey almost 16 months now. As the weight has come off month after month the comments and attention have intensified. Folks can be really sweet and also pretty damned intrusive! I know it is often just the personality of the person talking so I try to be light about it but damn it can get wierd having my body commented on all the time.
 
I am now 6 weeks into a 12 week weight lifting/cardio program that has begun shaping my muscles and this last week has started the buzz all over again. Strange how I felt safe and invisible almost 80 pounds ago yet longing for my inner athlete to make her way back out from the inside of me where the world could see it.I also felt lonely being invisible. Now I am here and I am grappling with being seen. It feels wonderful and validating yet infuriating and nerve wracking too. Like " hello.. where were all of you 80 pounds ago. Didn't you like me then?" ( not my most evolved self speaking) and shy and uncomfortable with compliments and like a friggin' adolescent again. I have started dating as of the last few months so I am also trying to manage these new conflicting feelings as I address dating for the first time in 17 years!! Yowza!!!

Would love to hear about how all of you have done managing these things. Any sharing of experiences of words of advice would be great. 

I know what you mean.  I do get comments all of the time now and I am trying to learn to take a compliment gracefully.  Just the other day 3 of my friends had a conversation about how my butt is shrinking and how I look like a completely different person from behind...which is nice to know but kind of weird to have it as a topic of conversation.

You just gave an example of the kind of stuff that just leaves me cringing! People have asked questions about whether my breasts have started sagging. I honest to God stare at them like " did you really just ask me that?" Kind of like how folks treat pregnant women I think. Boundaries get all wierd and suddenly people feel more free to make comments that just seem like they go over the line, ya know?

I want to be careful not to sound like I am not amazingly grateful to be losing this weight and finding my way through this journey but the attention sure can be jarring. There is something to be said about learning to be graceful in accepting a compliment. Thanks for that!

 Ah yes, this has been one of the most interesting parts of my journey.  I like when people notice the wt loss and compliment me and yet..it makes me cringe as well.  Especially ones who ask every intrusive thing they can think of.  What works for me is a simple thank you and a changing of the subject.  If they are very persisit..want to know how I did it, I say "low carb and exercise"...which is the truth.

Looking foward to the day when ppl say that to me. I had lost alot of weight over 100 lbs.and my sister was trying to have a baby. well one of her conditions was she had to lose weight. well here i had been working on weight loss for over a year and starting to look and feel great and she started losing. Funny she only lost 60 and was skinny, I lost down to 201 and she was starting to make feel like a fatty again. Everyone that I would talk with would say "WOW your sister has lost the weight, or your sister looks amazing, etc." and i was like what the heck. UH can you not tell that I have lost alot of weight too. It put me in such a disaray that I quit dieting and got depressed and ate my heart out. I gained all that weight back plus more up to 340. So when I say I am looking forward to that day, I mean it with all my heart and soul and body. I am slowly getting there.

I can totally see how this would be upsetting for some.  I am a very open person (sometimes to a fault) and am very comfortable talking about my journey.  I realize that some people are not comfortable or as comfortable as I am and that is fine!!  Everybody is on their own journey.  I guess if I was to become uncomfortable about the way the conversation was going, knowing me, I would probably as them something equally as intrusive like "How was your last colonoscopy/pap smear?"  But that's just me!!  LOL! 

Good luck to all and CONGRATS!!!

What a great attitude you have! Love it!

I hear 'ya. Having my weight loss noticed and commented on is wonderful, exciting and scary!  I'm mostly still in the timid, feels weird to be noticed stage -- of course it depends an awful lot on who is doing the commenting.  For instance comments coming very good friends, and family  -- people I totally feel safe and comfortable and at ease around I LOVE their comments and am so happy they made it.  One elderly lady from church that I'm friendly with always cheers me on and last week she was beaming when she told me how proud she was of me. THAT felt great.
 
Comments from others I'm not so comfortable around, especially the kind of comments that are like "I hardly recognize you anymore!" make me uncomfortable and nervous. It's almost like they are saying the old me didn't exist  or something. Intellectually I know that's not the case and they are trying to make a positive comment to me, but I just take it the wrong way.

Trixie