Tamar,

You did right by keeping your mouth shut. Appropriate response is just to smile and say thank you.

Speaking as a fat person, I'm sure that diet and exercise is not alien to this woman. She might have lost weight in the past and gained it back. She might not be at all interested in getting skinny. You have no idea.

So giving her a pep talk could be totally inappropriate not knowing where she's coming from. It's not like the writing analogy -- it would have been more like if someone said that your kid was so cute, and you started telling them that they should have one.

Personal, private territory.

If in the future she wants to do it, wants to know how you did it, she'll ask.

Posted by Allison at November 25, 2003 03:23 AM

I know you're right, Allison. I think what got me was the sadness in her eyes and the stilted way she spoke. Like this is a painful subject; she's clearly not comfortable with her weight. And that made me wish we could just talk frankly about it.

I also do know that just about everyone who's overweight has flirted with dieting and exercise at least once, probably several times. I did, a good half dozen times (at least). I'm still not sure why it stuck this time.

Posted by Tamar at November 25, 2003 08:45 AM

Tamar,

You are right, weight is such a sensitive issue. Being overweight myself (morbidly obese, if you go by what the doctors say), I get backhanded compliments a lot. For instance, working out at the gym (which I do 45 minutes every day),people will often express amazment at my stamina. I get comments like: Good for you coming here, keep at it, it's good for you. What they don't know is that I have always been active and have exercised, whether it was at the gym or at the pool, for years.

I don't take offense, usually, because I know they are trying to be kind. However, their preconceived notions exist: Fat equals lazy.

Congrats on your weight loss - just remember that the "keeping it off" part is the hardest.

Posted by Renate at November 25, 2003 10:38 AM

Just because someone is really fat now, doesn't mean that they only "flirted" with dieting in the past. People lose dramatic amounts of weight and exercise regularly and then something throws them off track.

The statistics are really tough on keeping weight off -- the trick isn't doing what you did, it's staying the way you are in the next several years....

Posted by Allison at November 25, 2003 10:40 PM

Honestly? When I said flirting, I was thinking of myself. I was just talking to someone today about this (not about this entry but about weight loss and gain). She said she bounces like a yo-yo, she's lost all her excess weight a few times and gained it back again. Me, I've gained slowly but surely over the course of years, and when I've tried to lose, I've never lost more than five or ten pounds before hitting a wall and going splat. So for me flirting was absolutely the operative word. Since this is such a taboo subject, I don't think I knew how many people lose a lot and then gain it back.

But yes, I keep hearing about how tough it is to maintain. I'm scared of that part. Easy to say you'll never let yourself slip, but exercise especially is hard to keep up as an ongoing discipline. Will I? Stay tuned. I'm not nearly at my goal yet, though.

If I've put my foot in it in this entry, I apologize. It's very hard to talk about this stuff. Which is what I was trying to say. It's relatively easy to talk about how I feel about myself but extending that... it's more complicated. I do keep my mouth shut but sometimes I wish there was a graceful way to say "Want to talk about it?" There obviously isn't. I can't even address it gracefully in my blog.

Renate, I apologize on behalf of well meaning idiots everywhere. I do not even remotely equate fat and lazy, but I have in my life said equally stupid things. I know better now. I hope.

Posted by Tamar at November 25, 2003 11:40 PM

Don't apologize. This is what blogs are all about, n'est pas?

Posted by Allison at November 26, 2003 10:16 PM