Conflicting Perspectives on Weight Loss - Me, Friends/Family, Strangers

(Rob) #1

I’ve been keto for 4 months and made great progress in many ways. I’ve lost 35 lbs (after losing another 40 lbs via CICO/excessive exercise), lowered my RHR by 10 BPM and BP by 10-15 points all without much exercise. I feel better physically, mentally and emotionally.

Recently I had a bunch of normal interactions that have really shown a few perspectives on my progress.

  1. Those who see me regularly remark on the visible changes (thinner face, smaller gut etc.). Always nice to have external validation, especially those that have seen me through the worst times.
  2. As a lifelong fatty, I have never had a good self body-image so I typically swing between ‘wow, this is the lowest weight I’ve seen in 15 years’ to ‘look at that belly flowing over the trouser waist - you’re still objectively fat. Stop feeling good about this!’
  3. I just met up with someone I hadn’t seen in 20 years. His first statement was… ‘you used to have hair’. Through our lunch conversation we eventually got to nutrition and keto. After explaining it, he said 'if it’s so good, are you actually doing it?" I thought, ‘can you not see it, pal?’ and then I realized, I was about the same weight as I was 20 years ago. He had no idea I had ballooned up to 80 lbs more. I let him know my progress and he nodded, appreciating the progress, in theory, at least.

Anyway, just some musings on how the same thing can be seen in so many ways depending on the perspective.

I shall continue to KCKO.

(Michele) #2

In recent years I ballooned to 104kg. Lost 20kg the put on 11.5kg and have now lost that again. I too swing between wow look what I’ve lost (and the improved and thinner me) and will I ever get rid of this fat belly (still a lot of fat and inches to lose!) It can be Fargin frustrating. Patience Grasshopper. (Now I’m showing my age!)

(Gargantuan B. Widebody) #3

Two years ago I had an amazing run on keto losing a substantial amount of weight. I dropped 4 pant sizes and 3 shirt sizes (although I bought the same basic clothing just in different sizes). My wife would remark how good I looked, my parents would too. But my friends and my co-workers never noticed. I went from like 565 to under 400 and not one comment from people I see 4-5 days a week. I think that people perceive big as big. Unless you go from big to not big, they don’t really recognize it unless they are specifically looking. Since I never advertised my new found eating method or weight loss goals, they never perceived anything.

(Karen Parrott) #4

Great observations!!! Congrats on your weight loss and navigating the social environment. :smile:

(Jan) #5

Many years ago (pre-Keto), I lost about 50#. Several people asked if I had “gotten a new haircut or something…” I’d worked so hard, and this was what they saw (or thought they saw…)

(Michele) #6

Do you think they didn’t notice or it was something else? People might notice but don’t know how to make a comment or are afraid to comment in case they offend.
If we reflect on all the crap that goes on in our own heads it is likely others are also caught in the same kinds of mental spaces. So a person might think “if I say ‘you’ve lost weight’ you might be offended because…” Then there’s “you look great, you’ve lost weight” - 'oh but they might think I’m saying they didn’t look good before … Peoplecould just be optimg for sayimg nothing because they perceive silence as a safe option!

(Gargantuan B. Widebody) #7

No, they didn’t notice. But at the same time I didn’t care. I prefer to not bring a bunch of attention to it anyway. Plus I was born blessed with an amazing super power, and that super power is the innate ability to not care in any way what other people think. It’s really quite amazing. :muscle:

(Michele) #8

That’s an awesome super power. :grin: More of us need to cultivate this. I get the not drawing attention. I personally just want to get on with what I’m doing and don’t want to have to talk about or say much about how I’ve loss weight as most people won’t understand the choice and may even what to give their stupid uninformed/misinformed opinion. I haven’t got time to be bothered with trying to convince people to change their opinion. If they are genuinely curious and open-minded that is a different story.