TLDR: I've lost more weight than my coworker and she's taking it poorly. Share your stories of salty friends and family.
I've seen it happen over and over both to me and to others: people should be happy for you when you succeed at weight loss, but sometimes people go the opposite way. They start claiming you're losing weight too fast or you're not using the right methods. They criticize how you look or claim you have an eating disorder. They invite you over and prepare a meal you've told them you can't eat or insist on restaurants without healthy options. Sure, some of this could be carelessness. But when it's being done on purpose, you know.
So I decided that my wedding next year is the reason I need to buckle down and lose the weight. I had already been trying to eat healthier and be more active, but for the wedding I decided to up it a notch.
I work in a small department with two women who are within 5 years of my age, 39, and one man who is late 50s or early 60s. I'm the heaviest person, 40 pounds heavier than anyone else at my high point. All four of us have struggled with being overweight in various ways. One day mentioned casually that I was going to really focus on weight loss.
One of the women, let's call her Amy, says she used to be in an office weight loss pool. Every week they would weigh in and the person who lost the least would buy coffee for the person who lost the most. I'm not in love with the idea, but it would be nice to have a goal in common.
I say I'm in, but I'm not going to weigh in at work. I'm only weighing once a day, naked, right after I wake up and pee. I can make my peace with sharing my weight with my coworkers, but I decide it's outside my comfort zone to get on the scale with people watching. Even at home I kick my husband out of the bathroom when I weigh in. I want that moment of privacy. Everyone agrees this is fine.
I figure I better budget for buying coffee sometimes. I believe I will succeed at losing weight weight, but, for a lot of reasons, progress will be slow. I'm okay with that. I'm not doing it for the free coffee, and I occasionally buy coffee for my boss anyway, so it's not a big deal.
I suggest that we go by % of body weight lost. It's easier for a 230 pound person to lose a pound than a 180 pound person to lose a pound because it's a greater percentage of their body weight.
I thought we were all in agreement on that, but at the first weigh in I found out Amy misunderstood and thought I meant we would calculate our body fat percentage. I said I didn't want to get into the weeds with body fat percentage, I'm focusing on total body weight, but they could do that if they wanted and I would just not participate in that part.
Anyway, we end up weighing in and going by number of pounds lost instead of percent. Fine, whatever, that benefits me anyway. Amy loses four pounds and the guy, Bob, has to buy her coffee. She's very pleased with herself, although less pleased when Bob just buys coffee for all of us--he's the boss of all of us, but he's also Amy's direct supervisor. I'm just pleased that I don't have to buy anyone coffee.
Well, since then, Amy has gone up and down losing the same three or four pounds over and over. However, she claims she's losing inches and she looks legit skinnier. She looks great. She's into a lot of workout stuff and we've all talked about how she is probably gaining muscle and that's slowing down the progress on the scale. As of today, she's only down 3 pounds overall, and I know she's frustrated. I'm down nine since we started the competition and down 20 in the last year. I'm not being smug or celebrating or even really talking about it. I am pleased with myself, but I'm trying not to show it, especially since I have the body type where I lose 20 pounds and it barely shows.
A few weeks ago I had a whoosh and she gained so she had to buy me coffee. She was NOT happy about it. It's hard to explain, but she was very brusque and dismissive about it when I won, but hasn't been that way when anyone else wins. Also, we have unofficially always bought coffee the next workday morning, but she got coffee for me in the afternoon. It felt a little passive aggressive, but not a big deal. I'm losing weight for the wedding, I can buy my own coffee.
So we weigh in today. We're looking at the results and Amy says Bob and I both lost three pounds. I'm using my home scale, but both my scale and the one at work are digital and measure to the decimal.
Me: Welllll, technically I lost 3.2 pounds and he lost 3, so I'm a little ahead, but I'm fine with a tie.
Amy: Oh, we've been ignoring the decimals.
This isn't really true. I've reported my weight to the decimal every week and the scale they use measures in decimal. It's just that no one else has been writing down their weight to the decimal in the log.
Me: Okay, a tie, yay!
Amy: Actually, we really should be doing it by percentage.
Um, since when? Whatever. We calculate our percentage and Bob has lost 0.1% more weight than I have. I'm totally fine with Bob winning since I wanted to do percentage from the beginning, and I'm fine with a tie. I'm just pleased not to be last.
Amy: So Bob's the winner!
Margo (the 4th person here and my direct supervisor): Well, if 0.2 pounds doesn't matter than 0.1% doesn't matter. They're still tied.
Amy doesn't really like this, I can tell. Fortunately, Bob was gone for the last weigh in and we had decided before weigh in that Bob was buying everyone coffee for missing the weigh in. I don't know how we would have decided to handle coffee otherwise. I would have suggested we just call it a draw and do no coffee.
So now Amy is literally having a mini binge. She and Margo decided to go get fast food, which Amy rarely eats because of allergies as well as calories. Margo invited me, Amy pretty obviously wasn't going to include me.
A few weeks ago Amy waited until I was away from the office, which happens the same time every day, and took Margo to go pick up lunch for the two of them and Bob. The task that called me away takes the same amount of time every day, but that day, when they came back, Amy said she wanted to include me, but if they had waited for me it would have been too late.
I don't care what Amy thinks of me as long as we have a good professional relationship and I don't have to put up with too much passive aggression. I find it funny that she didn't want to calculate the weight by percentage until I was about to win.
We got along a lot better before I started losing weight. I have had other people pigeonhole me as "the fat one" and, on past successful weight loss journeys, seen them grow unfriendly as my weight went down. I think some people compare themselves to others and take their value from that, and when the comparison changes they don't react well because they've attached their identity to someone else's identity.
Do you have anyone who is not handling your weight loss very well?
