I (45F) have friend from university (also 45F) and we have pretty similar boring suburban married lives with corporate careers and whatnot. Let's call my friend Mary.
Mary used to be the hot sorority girl in university. I was the fat friend. Despite being the hot sorority girl, Mary has always been a great person and we kept in touch over the years, as much as possible, given family / work. She moved to the US so we don't see each other in person that often anymore, but still chat online frequently.
Mary followed my weight loss journey a few years after I got married and is very aware of everything I did, how I did, and that I have kept it off over the years, with minor fluctuations here and there. It's been a long time.
I saw Mary recently at a work thing in the US last week. I was really surprised since we haven't seen each other in a few years and she doesn't share pictures of herself online. She's extremely obese - extremely. I didn't say anything but I didn't even recognize her at the event, with all the other people around. I excused myself by saying it was her hair that changed, but she laughed and said she knows she's morbidly obese.
Mary then proceeded to say (unprompted) that her current BMI is "the same as her age" (so, like, 45), and that her doctor has been talking about gastric bypass. I said that I know people who did it and while successful, it's a rough recovery. Then I said that something I did was to add a lot of exercise to my lifestyle, and portion control. I run, cycle and lift (like a lot of people on this sub)
Mary got really upset when I said that. She said right to my face that "dieting does not lead to long term weight loss and everyone gains their weight back, I can send you lots of links about that!" and that "restricting what you eat with portion control is unsustainable, makes you depressed". Finally, she said "I am very healthy, I go on walks and eat healthy but there's something with my metabolism that makes me gain weight - I'm looking for a doctor that will understand my new body and will not fat shame me".
I mean, to each their own but I was taken aback by these comments since she was telling ME - someone she has witnessed first-hand losing weight AND keeping it off for almost TWO DECADES - that losing weight is IMPOSSIBLE. What the hell is going on here? Is this a social media thing?
I didn't engage further. It was a work function, keep it professional. But it was very weird. She can be fat if she feels ok with that. I just felt it was very inappropriate to tell ME that what I have been doing for two damn decades is going to eventually fall apart because some social media influencer said so. It's almost like she *hopes* it will fail, so she can justify to herself not doing what her doctor told so.
Very upsetting, and I needed to talk to someone about it. It was kind of sad, too - she is (or wasn't) the kind of person I expected to say these things. It caught me by surprise.
I don't have any questions, I am just feeling disappointed and sad.
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