Yesterday, while I was talking with my cousin, she asked, “Haven’t you just lost some weight?” Because it’s the main thing on my mind these days (I’d rather have fat on my mind than on my body!), I was delighted that she brought up the subject. My cousin was excited for me. I know she was. But during our conversation, she made one of the unbelievably inane statements that are often made by friends of dieters.
Okay. Here’s a fat person. Probably been fat for years. This rotund person finally decides to do something about it. She starts dieting. She loses some weight, twenty or thirty pounds. Maybe half or a quarter of what she needs to lose. Of course, dieting comes up in the conversations of this little chub-o-lard. And, of course, her friends ask the inevitable, “What weight do you want to get down to?” The faithful dieter replies, “X pounds.” Then comes the all-time discouraging, unmotivating, thoughtless response from the alleged friend: “Oh, no, you mustn’t lose that much weight. You’d be too thin!”
Oh, please! Give me a break. We are talking twelve years of fat and 140 extra pounds of beef on the hoof here. Do you think I would mind if someone thought me too thin? Do you think I’d feel insulted if an anonymous caller told me to eat a few Butterfingers between meals? Do you think I would write a new book on the despairs of being a size seven? “You mustn’t lose that much weight,” my eye!
Let’s be realistic for a minute. How many people do you know who have ever been 100 pounds overweight and then dieted till they looked vaguely normal, let alone thin? Or too thin? Can you honestly name one? I can’t! So what are the odds of my ever making it? Lousy. What are the odds of my losing even another thirty pounds? Lousy!
So, for heaven’s sake, why discourage the poor fatty before she quits of her own accord and goes blimping back up the scale? If I say I’m going to reach 125 pounds, respond with, “Wow! That’s great.” Help me. Believe in me! Don’t add one single, negative note. If I am too thin at 125, don’t worry or fret; I’ll be the one who has to cry myself to sleep every night (in my sexy, new, black negligee).