Arrrgh.

I feel I need to vent this bit of poison, partly because I'm looking for advice or anyone with similar experiences, and partly for the catharsis of it.

I'm 21, currently at a weight of 146 down from 155, not a huge drop in weight, but with my build the 9 lb loss shows immensely.

A bit of background; I'm the only one in my family who has never been overweight, I've always been careful because my genetics show a long history of heart disease and diabetes.  My parents both of the tendency of eating very poorly and never exercising - which is their choice, of course - and yet frequently complaining that they cannot lose weight.

However, since I lost the 9 lbs, they have taken to constantly discussing my weight.  This ranges from them saying I need to eat more (I don't.  I eat 1600-1900 calories a day), calling me obsessive about my weight every time I exercise or refuse to eat unhealthy foods, and scoffing every time I log my calories.  They also fill the house with junk food (recession has put me in the situation where I can no longer afford my own place) and throw out the healthier foods I buy, claiming they're 'going bad' when they are most definitely not. 

In their kinder moments, they ask me about diet and weight loss, and when I explain the simplicity of it to them (calories in, calories out) they claim I'm talking down to them.

They have also given me a new nickname - 'fat kid', or sometimes just 'fatty'.  They believe it's hilarious, and they've been calling me by that name for the last 3 months, constantly.  I have told them to please stop, and they get irritated and tell me to get a sense of humour and in the end, I feel as though I'm in the wrong for telling them to stop.  Can someone please give me a bit of advice on what I should do here - am I over-reacting?

Hi, sorry to hear about your situation! Vent away I would say. Off course support and motivation are the most important things for sticking out a diet.

Can't really advise as family relations are so complicated and I haven't been in your situation.

Hope you stick with it and find your motivation and support from your friends or this website. Sometimes proving 'doubters' wrong is the best motivation. It's how I got through A-levels and Uni.

You're 21.... ignore them.  Some families do a great line in winding each other up If it wasn't weight-loss and healthy eating it would be something else, I can guarantee. (I used to get ribbed for being an 'intellectual' because I preferred books as a teen... LOL!)  It's a form of bullying.... Adult birds push the baby ones out of the nest to make them fly.  Some parents do the verbal equivalent with their offspring.  Maybe they think it's 'character-building'?

So don't react by getting upset... a few cutting comebacks about their personal failings might be more satisfying.  Stick the knife in if that's the game!!   But treat it as an added incentive to get on your feet and find a place of your own.

At the end of the day parents are people too. They're most likely just jealous because they're fat and you aren't :)

I have to admire your self restraint.  I would have blown my stack by now, or burst into tears.  You're really strong and I hope you can stick this out, because sooner or later they'll get tired of doing what they're doing.

Is there any way you can afford a little refrigerator for your room, where you can keep your healthy foods? 

Original Post by clairelaine:

Is there any way you can afford a little refrigerator for your room, where you can keep your healthy foods? 

 Thats my answer too!

Kudos to you for not blowing up on anyone. It sucks when your own family isn't supportive of you but you always have us random strangers :-) A lot of people don't really realize the health risks that come with being overweight. You clearly aren't overweight but it sounds like most of your family is. Try sneaking in little tidbits about how you are Decreasing your risk of Heart disease by eating healthier, or about how your energy level has increase since exercising more. You've probably already tried this but invite them to exercise with you (maybe on a light workout day or even just for a walk around the neighborhood).

Original Post by girlfighting27:

Original Post by clairelaine:

Is there any way you can afford a little refrigerator for your room, where you can keep your healthy foods? 

 Thats my answer too!

 Ditto!

When they start being jerks, just leave the room.  You've already spoken to them about what you're doing and how their comments make you feel.  You can't do much else at this point.

This is my obese grandparents attitude also. They've always made my mother feel horrible for being healthy, like she has a sick attitude towards food if she doesn't eat until she's gorged.  Anytime anyone is on a "diet" they act like that person is so vain and doesn't live life to the fullest. Meanwhile, they can't walk because they're so fat.

I've always ignored their comments, which is easy for me since I don't live with them.  I feel horrible for doing this, but there have been times when they get sick from their habits (knee surgery from excessive weight, heart problems) and their doctor begs them to lose weight and I say "I told you so".  It's not nice but I do feel vindicated when it happens.

Other than being mean or bored or ignorant...that your family may just find your 'new' lifestyle very foriegn and it's possible that they just don't know what to think or say about it.  If they've always been unhealthy and overweight, than they may just assume that you think that they're unhealthy and overweight and that you are better because you are trying to be healthy.

Have you tried to get them to join you in eating well??  Maybe you could make meals with/for them?? 

If that's a big no, then I guess you just need to ignore.  It's obvious that this bothers you and I know that my family LOVES to poke at the thing that clearly bothers me...so maybe they are just doing it to get a rise out of you and once you've ignored them long enough, they will just get bored.  I hope.

Pat yourself on the back: you are very brave, changing the eating habits that have been foisted on you from childhood and that have made you the size and shape you are.  Some people are just plain ignorant (despite all the messages around these days on healthy eating and exercise), and others choose to scupper the efforts of those close to them.  You are clearly rocking the boat by doing things differently and it irks them.  My advice would be to continue to do what you are doing and prove by the results that you are following a path that works. You stick to your guns, nomnom.  Great moniker by the way!

My neighbour Dee is fat and her children were raised fat.  They were fed on fizzy drinks, cheap pizza, ready-made microwave meals and takeaways.  Vegetables are rarely prepared by their mother, nor does she cook meals from scratch, with real ingredients.  As a chef I am appalled at what they eat, but I do recognise that for Dee, it all seems far too much of an effort. 

I have to report that when the boys left school and started to earn their own money, they started to buy their own ingredients and make real food, in a complete volte-face of what they'd been brought up to do.  They still live at home and they still have pizza but not every day as their main meal and they want to see vegetables - more than one paltry sprig of grey overcooked cauliflower - on their plates.  Dee veers from amusement to annoyance at their changed eating but even she can see the difference they have made to themselves.  The boys also took up running on a machine and that made a massive difference to their shape.  It gave them confidence to buy clothes that fitted them properly and were not black, and each of them finally became attractive to the opposite sex.

Keep going.  No one's going to call you fatty when you're not fat.   

You know you are in the right, so stick to your guns and find support else where.