Something my mom said
 

We were out for dinner with family last night, and one of the people there was my cousin's wife, who has always been fairly big. We hadn't seen her in about 6 months, and she's lost a ton of weight. My mom's reaction was to say "I didn't even recognize you! You look so good now!" She kind of looked at my mom like "yeah, I guess I was a hideous monster before," but my mom was so oblivious that she said "seriously! You look so great that I wouldn't have even known it was you!"

Would you have been offended by that? I would be, and my cousin's wife was, but my mom clearly thought she was complimenting her. Of course if I lose a bunch of weight I'll be happy if people notice and say something, but the way she said it was so backwards, like rather than saying she's thin now, she was pointing out that she was fat before.

What have people said about your weight loss that feels good, and what would you/do you hate to hear?

First off, I am totally in favor of a thread, this or another, entitled "Stuff My Mom Said." Good grief, could we fill that one!

What I hate, that I used to get from my mom, is the "you're too thin" comment...once I got close to and reached my goal weight, that's what it was. I come from a family of women on the heavy side and even though I was a healthy weight, I guess by comparison I seemed quite thin. So that was a battle for a while.

However, last Thanksgiving when I visited, a cousin I hadn't seen for a couple years said the same thing. And my mom, bless her heart, jumped right in to the conversation and said, "She's all muscle, just look at it!" It felt good to have her defend me and to finally recognize what healthy looks like :). That was the best comment I've had, and from a very unexpected source.

Stuff My Mom Says. Oh my, that can be a book. Or several.

I think it's something we have to learn to accept as a compliment. When people tell me I look great or that they like a new hair style occasionally I wonder if I looked that bad before. If we want people to notice the improvement we have to accept that they noticed how we looked before. Last week a co-worker told me I was looking great. She went on to say I must be taking good care of myself. I found that a nice way for her to compliment me. Mary

I get the "omg, you look SO different!!" And yeah, I know I do, but at the same time....it's still me. Other than my mom's comment last weekend (?) of "you're arms and face are looking real thin, but you've got a long way to go on that belly", all of the reactions and comments have been super positive. Yay!!

People mean well, they just don't know how some things sound.

My MIL said after I lost 30 pounds "you actually have a cute face" Thanks.

My husband noticed I had smaller wrists????

My sister says I have more wrinkles.

My family is so "special"

My hubby said my shoulders have gotten smaller. Just what I was hoping for, haha.

My mom says "you could be so pretty if you weren't so big." But she said the same thing 60 pounds ago, so I take what she says with a grain of salt. I think I'm more offended by what she says to other people than to me because I've learned to shrug it off.

hmmmm . . .
 

Backward compliments. It's something that I have to work at in taking graciously. I try to take it as a compliment & leave at that.

I also try to learn from what people say to me so that I learn what is a nice, gracious compliment.

Thinking about what bugs me about compliments like your mother's & others listed here ->
COMPARISON (Before & Now): Wouldn't it sound better to say, "you look so good" and leave out the comparitive word "now"?

RELATIONSHIP: Another factor for me is what kind of relationship I have with someone. How close am I with them? Do they have the "right" to comment on something personal?

TONE/EXPRESSION: Has a lot to do with how I perceive the compliment.

INTENT: I believe most people intend to be encouraging. That helps me to let the not-so-nice part of the compliment slide on by.
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I had someone tell me once, "Weight loss is easy. You just eat less and exercise more." This coming from a person who to my knowledge has not dealt with weight loss like I have. Also, I did not ask for advice. She's trigger happy at giving advice. I think she does it because she cares & wants problems solved, but it comes across as know-it-all. I don't trust her to know my mental/emotional needs.

My mother tells me, "I can see you're losing weight. Your face is looking thinner." This is in context of she being supportive with my weight-loss.

I have an older sister who will say things like, "I like your skirt" or "I really like your hair cut." That was said today. She does not imply anything about the past, but encourages what is in the present. When I told her I lost 10 lbs, she said, "That's wonderful. I know you worked hard."

I'll wait and see what happens further down the road when general acquaintences see my weight loss like at 20-30 lbs. That will feel a lot more touchy with me because I need to work on being more secure in who I am.

I think most backwards compliments are caused by the person's low self-esteem, and I try to be understanding of that, but I got so mad last night when she directed it at someone else. My mom's never had much going for her besides her looks, and now her looks are gone but she's still thin, so she has to make other people feel bad about their weight. It's this weird kind of body dysmorphia directed at other people. It's all she ever sees. She'll watch a tv show and every single person that comes on, she'll say "she's gotten big!" or "she was so pretty when she was thinner," and so on. I know she only brought up my cousin's wife's weight to make herself feel better by making her feel bad.

I had a roommate once who would always give me clothes but she'd make sure to say "do you want this? It's waaaaaaay too big for me, so it should fit you." I tried to just think, "woo hoo! Free clothes!" but really she was just giving them to me so she could point out that she was thinner than me. But she was miserable and lived on one pepperoni stick a day.


My mom gives me unsolicited advice about my weight too, but most of it is just telling me I'm fat. I say "don't you think I know I'm fat?" and she says "well obviously not; if you knew you were fat you would stop being fat." She thinks she's helping me by pointing out that I'm fat. Like, oh my goodness! I didn't realize! Sorry, I'll get thin tomorrow.

She visited me in the hospital when I had my baby and asked me what my game plan was for taking off the baby weight and offered to sign me up for a weight loss program. Yup, I haven't slept in 5 days and I have a screaming pooping maniac to tend to, but my priority is losing weight. Uh huh.

But she hates herself and needs me to be fat so she can feel good and I try to keep that in mind.

You bring up a good, good point. Usually, what people say and how people act isn't because of you, it's because of the baggage they bring to the situation. Many people, especially family members, feel (consciously or unconsciously) that if a previously-overweight person gets thin, things will change, and some folks are just really, really threatened by that.

Omg, I hate when people say that. As if being thinner makes your facial features any better. If you're pretty, you're pretty, regardless of your weight.

Then again, I would probably have been offended by a comment like that, but I get offended about almost anything having to do with weight, lol. I just try to understand what people are thinking when they say those kinds of things and realise they're not saying it to be hurtful.

Actually I'm not sure that's completely true. When Oprah is thin, her eyes look too far apart and too large for her face, when she's heavier her eyes look fabulous. Seriously I think my own face looks better when I'm a little heavy, at my lowest weight I looked like I'd been in chemo.

As for "stuff my mom says", I think the hardest backhanded compliments were when she told me "you're too thin already and need put a few pounds back on" and "what was I going to do about all those new wrinkles?". My mother is actually very supportive, but her own habits are abysmal, so I forgive her. She's not an expert on everything, I would go to her for advice and/or help on lots of different things, but I've accepted that she's not a brain surgeon, a mechanic, a dietician or a personal trainer.

I think the weirdest thing said to me was something said by both BF *and* my father in the same day - I had been discussing my weight goal of 140 (at the time, it's now 130-ish) and they both said something to the tune of "Oh, you should/could go way lower than that. Don't sell yourself short." It was a weird compliment but at the same time very offensive to the hard thought I'd put into a goal! BF suggested "You should go for 105."

At 105 I would probably look like someone who had been through starvation. I'm 5'4.5" and built fairly "sturdy" - I've got wide shoulders and hips and at 160-ish currently, my hipbones are RIGHT THERE and easy to feel, even though they're not quite poking out (they do show when I'm laying down). I think I'd look awful at 105. I think it's just a weird number stuck in his head about a perfect weight and I want to smack it out of there.

I've otherwise been fairly lucky with the compliments I've gotten. Once I started to lost 25+ lbs. it seemed that my friends and coworkers started to notice, and I tentatively got asked "Hey...uh, have you been losing weight?" And I responded really positively and they all seemed relived, because they hadn't wanted to imply that I was fat (I was) but rather that they noticed the effort, and they told me so. My sister, mother, and grandmother have all just asked me once in awhile "So, how's the diet going?" without prying, though I'm not near them as I live 1,000 miles away.

When I went home to visit for a party and for Christmas I got a lot of "looking great, you must be working hard!" comments. I like those better. I think I agree with others here that comments which speak only to the present ("You look grea!t" "Hey, those jeans look great on you!" etc.) are the best.

Well something the originator of this post said rung true. When people see me say, "Oh my gosh you have lost a TON of weight!" No, not really a TON (2000 pounds?!?) 40 pounds. Geeze how fat was I?

And yes the "Well don't get too thin..." that one really makes me steam, and the other one I just loathe, is when someone sees me and says, "Ohhh your FAaaaaceeee!?!?" Yes, I work out and eat right so my face looks different... really? and for some reason the term "Skinny" is very offensive to me. "You are so SKINNY!!!" defined skinny: adj: unattractively thin.

Best compliment ever is just when people smile. Men say it best, they just smile... Gotta love those men!

Actually my boyfriend lost a lot of weight about a couple years ago and he always gets pissed when someone tell him he's too thin, like my own mother, who keeps commenting on how bony his shoulders are. I get it, he spent most of his life getting crap for being fat and now those same people who gave him a hard time tell him he's gone too far. What the heck?

I think for me right now the best comments are the ones where others who need to lose weight are asking for my advice. It lets me know that they notice that I must be doing something right but not that they are pointing out that I was extremely obese before ( I was!).

I always hated the comments about how you could be so pretty if you would just lose some weight. I dont' happen to think I am a beauty but I don't think I am ugly either, not even at my highest weight. I was sloppy and wore frumpy clothes and didn't do my hair up nicely or wear makeup for a few years and that is probably when I felt the worst about me.

I really love when my hubby picks something specific out to comment on like, "Your eyes are really sexy today." It doesn't have anything to do with the nearly 70lbs that I have lost and I love that!

I hate when they say...

Ok, you need to STOP now
Now you like you're on drugs

"You've come so far, and you still have so much further to go!" Yes, these were the words of encouragement from my most dedicated work out buddy after I broke the -50lbs mark. We started the journey together and he was beaming with pride when he said them.That quickly changed when I burst into tears and ran into the ladies' room.

What I heard: You were fat. Now you're less fat, but you're still fat.

What he meant (he explained once I returned from the restroom): You are awesome and I'm so proud of you! You're one of the most driven and amazing women I know and one of these days you're going to take over the world!

At the time I thought he meant well...and just screwed it up horribly. Looking back, I'm not sure how much he screwed it up and how much my being SUPER self-conscious influenced what I "heard".

I'm sorry. I honestly feel for you, but I laughed so hard at this. Smaller wrists? More wrinkles? Oh, dear.

Something MY mom said: "If you keep losing weight, with your thick legs you're going to look like a pear." (She meant thick as in muscular. I think)

Wait untill you hear this
 

A couple of years ago, I went to my friend's wedding. Before that I try to lose weight of course. I lost about 10 pounds. I got to the wedding and said "Hi" to my friend's father. He looked at me and said "You are fatter!". I like "humm". Then I kind of walking away. Next month, I will attend her brother's wedding, and I am afraid to see her father again. Because I know how he greet me.
Mai

That is just rude. Some people need to filter their mouth!

My mother's never been annoying about this, but her mother is extremely unpleasant about the subject. She's always been very fat, but that has never stopped her from making me feel horribly self-conscious. My mother knows so and last time we went over to my grandma's she commented that I'd lost weight (which was undeniable, so my grandma would have to agree) and the only thing she said was: 'It doesn't matter, her tits are so big she still looks the same size'.
Also, when I was a child she would always tease me saying things like: 'You'd love to have a body like your aunt's, wouldn't you?' (just for the record, yes, my aunt is very skinny, but her body has a horrible shape, I would NOT trade places with her).
My other grandmother is not that rude, but she is definitely a piece of work. She won't stop making comments on how big I am and then will proceed and try to force feed me. Every time we have lunch together she complains I don't eat anything. WTF??

New one! After complimenting me for looking so toned and my weight loss, my mother took my boyfriend aside to ask him to watch me while she and my dad are away on vacation, because apparently I can't be trusted with food and privacy. Thanks mom! :D

as I mentioned in the other thread, sometimes weight loss compliments sound like the equivalent of "good dog!"

Maybe she assumes that you must be eating a lot (because she thinks you're fat and fat people always eat a lot in her mind probably) but she thinks you are just not eating with her, and that's what offends her. It could be a weird perception on her part that's totally wrong.

My mother in law hadnt seen me in a few months, and when she saw me, she said,
"OMG you look terrible! You look sickly now stop losing weight"

Im 5'3 and I weighed 148 at the time. According to BMI that puts me Overweight by about 7 pounds.

Really? Sickly? ummmm.... NO! Good thing I don't let her words sting me... anymore.

a mothers love,Really?
 

I never been my mothers favorite, you see she got pregnant with me before she married my dad and as I heard growing up,I was the reason she had to get married. To make things worst I take after my dads side of the family and we are built alittle bigger and my sisters are of course built like her side of the family, which is tiny. At gatherings, she would always introduce them first and then when it came to me she would say,"this is my bigger and oldest daughter, you would of never guessed she was mind, would you?" It has been 18 months since I have talked to her, and have lost 50lbs. I might ask her for lunch and see if I qualify to be her daught now. I probably wont because I still have 40lbs to lose.

To be honest, it sounds like SHE is the unqualified one.
Don't let someone's bitterness bring you down, you've done a great job and I'm sure you'll go even further.
Good luck! :)

My mom's been on me to lose weight since I was in the hospital having my kiddo. A couple weeks ago she tried to give me a plate of cookies; I said "no thanks," and she said "but you love cookies!" I reminded her that I'm trying to lose weight and she said "well it's obviously not working." I told her I had lost almost 35 pounds and she looked me up and down, rolled her eyes and said "where?" When I got mad she started crying and saying I was so mean to her - she was just asking a question to be supportive, because she couldn't see where it had come from, and if I just told her what part of me had lost weight, she could compliment me on that.

So yeeeeeeaaaah...

There is no freaking way she couldn't see 35 pounds had disappeared from you. I hate passive agressive people. Either that, or she's blind as a bat.

Thanks for your reply, it appreciate it.

My sister recently got the compliment, for real, "Wow, look at your collar bones! I don't think I've ever seen them before. They look so lovely!"
What made this exchange even funnier is that just a couple of days before this, my sister had come up to me and asked what these *pointing her collar bones* are called. Before she lost the weight, she never really paid much attention to them, but she was super excited to see that they were more visible now.
My sister didn't mind the compliment, in fact she loved that something she had taken such pride in a few days before was all ready noticed. The person is a dear friend of ours and has been trying to encourage us to try and lead healthier lives for a while now. She's just been rather giddy after seeing us finally stick with it for once. We knew what she meant by saying that, and it was really sweet.