Everyone has a right to lose weight and feel good about how they look but I'll be honest, it does bother me to hear someone complain about 5 or 10 pounds.

I have around 40-50 pounds to lose and I just stopped discussing my weight problems with friends who weren't really fat. It would bother me to hear a size-4 complain about having a little belly fat (that can't be seen while she is dressed) when I'm looking at a size 14 every morning.


But then I figure that someone with 100 pounds to lose feels the same way about me complaining about my 40lbs.

Although I do have a problem with the whole skinny=beauty culture that we live in, I can't blame people for wanting to lose weight, and good for those who catch their weight issue early - and I well know how easily 40lbs overweight can become 200lbs overweight.

My main issue comes when the person with not a lot of weight to lose calls themselves gross, disgusting, huge, full of blubber etc etc I think they should get a grip on reality, they could have a real weight problem - like me.

Also I've reserved all of those derogatory terms for myself

Lee

I think the person who said you wouldn't complain about a sprained ankle to a paraplegic is spot on---it's a matter of being polite and aware of those around you.

At the same time, and here I'm imagining because I've never been in this position myself, someone who used to weigh 115 but gained 5 lbs and feels bad about it: they have gained 4.3 percent of their weight. For me, that would be like me gaining (right now) 15 lbs! I absolutely KNOW all the ways in which I'd feel bad, physically and mentally. In that way, and along with the skinny-worship our culture has, I think I can understand someone feeling that their 5-lb gain makes them [fill in pejorative adjectives].

I think a person that moans they have to lose weight, and only like 10 pounds, especially in front of a person with real weight issues, like me, is looking for attention. "Look at me and how much smaller I am than most of you" They may not even be aware how ridiculous they sound, and if there are others around to listen to them moan, they get even more attention. "Oh your so thin you don't have to lose weight etc.," getting exactly what theyr'e looking for ....complements and attention, all the while humiliating the overweight people in listening range. It reminds me of the time in a public restroom when a lady came out of the bathroom and washing her hands looked at her face in the mirror and commented what a huge zit she had (it was hardly visable) then looking at a gal next to her with really bad acne, how awful she must have felt, and the little zit girl just smiled and said "hi" and left. Callous, selfish, attention seeking and delusional...must have been raised without manners I guess.......

Wow yeah. My best friend is constantly telling me she needs to loose her 5 to 10 pounds. I have had it out with her many times and she finally says I know you hate to hear this, sorry but I am still struggling. I always answer back too bad I don't care. Then she goes on to tell me how nice I look and I'm not really fat. Yeah right.

I guess if I would have been more vigilant about my initial 10 pounds I wouldn't be here.

I remember about 7 yrs agim I wiorked in a factory and they hired some colledge help. 2 of the girls were those teeny-tiny things that you want to feed. They were eating salads with a little ham and MAYBE, I said maybe, a touch of dressing, fat free of course. I couldn't understand what the hell was wrong with them. They were HOT! One girl told me that on her tiny frame 5 lbs really shows. She lifted up her shirt, and she had a tiny pot belly, tiny. She said 10 lbs ago, she didn't have that.

It took me years to understand what she was getting at. I try not to think badly of those really skinny people, they do have issues with there looks and some, try hard to keep themselves slender. The ones I get furriouse with are the ones that sit there and eat junk food all the time, like it will never catch up with them. Talk about how they can eat anything and not gain a pound. Those are the ones that bother me. Of course, no one likes a mirror hog, or a self obsessive person.

My ex husband can open a bag of chips and forget there there for months. I've seen him open a bag of m&ms and cart them around all day in his shirt pocket and pick at them for several days at a time.

its okay by me...sometimes that 10 pounds is the hardest to lose...so I could see why they want support. It doesn't make me feel abd cuz I have 104 to lose...I got this way of my own choices. Peace out---

If they want my help and support, I don't see why I wouldn't help and support them. Doesn't bother me much at all, though I don't know how much help I can really be, coming from a totally different situation.

I feel like these are the people who are most affected by media. I can't complain about them not seeing my perspective if I refuse to see theirs. For them, from their perspective, they look at models and the difference between them and a model is 10 pounds. It's realistic, that model skinny look. To them, their weight range is THEIR 'normal', and they look at someone who has 100 lbs to lose, and they can't see that as 'normal', that's someone with an actual weight problem.

Now US, because of OUR experiences, we look at a model and we know instinctively that that image is total BS. They don't. There's only a ten pound difference between them and what is portrayed as beautiful. They buy into it, in their way, based on their experience of what is 'normal', and we buy into it in OUR way, based on our experience of what is 'normal'. Some of us, when we look at a naturally skinny person, if we were honest with ourselves, don't think of that person as 'normal'. 'Normal' supposedly is having to work and struggle to maintain a healthy weight. We're two different blind men touching the same elephant, and one of us is touching the trunk and insisting that elephants are long, skinny, and flexible, and one of us is touching the side and insisting that elephants are broad, hard, and pebbly.

I think there's a difference between someone who says:

'I know I'm slim, but I just want to lose a few more lbs and tone certain parts of my body'

and someone exactly the same size who says:

'I'm so fat and digusting I need to lose weight'.

Now I might wonder about the reasoning and influences of the first person, think they look great, but in the end its their body and their choice. Though I would probably believe they were unduly influenced by super skinny images in the media and in fashion.

The second person has a real problem. Either they genuinely see themselves as fat and disgusting, in which case they are having serious body image issues and may already be on a path to an eating disorder. OR, they are a twisted individual who knows very well how good they look and says things like this to get others to contradict them and tell them how good they look.

Lee

^^^ This.

My perspective on this is interesting because I am no longer someone with 100 pounds to lose, even though I was. I'm now one of those people who wants to lose 20 or 30 pounds. It's different. I definitely can be critical of myself now, perhaps even more than I was before I lost weight. I think when I was heavier, I just didn't think about it at all since it was too painful; I had mental blinders on. Now I can look at the issue objectively and see that, yes, I do have more weight that I should lose. I am not aspiring to be a model--that is not in the cards for me. I can see that I still have quite a bit of fat on my hips, butt, thighs, and stomach though. It would be nice not to see my stomach under my clothes when I'm wearing a shirt.

I can never forget sitting in a chorus class in 7th grade being overweight (not yet obese, that happened when I was in high school), and hearing a girl who was probably a size 0 complain about how huge and fat her thighs were to another girl. I sat there thinking "if you think your thighs are fat, I wonder what you think of mine", because my thighs were probably triple the size of hers. Saying things like that in front of someone who is obviously heavier than you is either truly mean or completely ignorant.

--Melissa

I would emagine to her, her thighs were fat, I dought that she thought about the pain it would cause you though. Kids aren't always known to think first, talk later.

I was in high school when I started noticing my things were chunky, and I had a bit of a tummy when I sat down. I wasn't bit, but I had a little padding. I remember looking at the other girls that were slender and had sleek thighs wishing I was like them. I wonder what they were thinking? On the other hand, I was curvy and had boobs, so I did get the boys They did because they were popular, I did because of my build. I still get the boys, they notice my attributes and like me for me. I dought very much if they liked each other for themselves.

I don't want to be model thin, although I am 5'10" and would make a great model But, I can't help but want them last 30 lbs off myself. When I was 240lbs, I thought Id be happy if I weighed 175lbs. Boy did I lie to myself!

Every wonder what people think when they walk through the store and see both heavy and slender people? I'm more in between, wonder what they think of me.