Family Weight loss etiquette (or lack thereof)? Passive-Aggressiveness

Status
Not open for further replies.
G

Guest

Guest
Hi, All-

I want to lose weight (and am working on it), yet I'm having a tough time with my mom. A brief background: My mother's mother (my grandmother) was always very critical about her daughters' weights (mom and aunts)...to the point that it has impacted my cousin who lives near her (she is anorexic). My mom tries to be the other extreme...pretending not to care about weight (except she freaks out if she gains any) and she does things like pretending I never gained any weight after my pregnancy (I gained 50 pounds—a lot of weight on my 5'1" frame).

Anyhow, whenever I am on the heavier side, Mom starts talking about herself dieting obsessively...like she's trying to pull me into it. Normally this doesn't bother me (she did it last when I was a kid in high school and it helped me out).

Well, now I'm an adult now, and this time it's really annoying that she's doing it. She weighs 40 pounds less than me, and obsessively talks about her "Flat Belly" diet. I'm getting really sick of hearing about it. I'm not a believer in fad diets (no offense to anyone who loves them...they just don't work for me and I never seen anyone keep off weight with one). I also *know* how to lose weight (lost 60 pounds and kept it off for a long time 8 years ago).

So anyhow I was wondering if anyone else here can relate to this and offer any advice on how to help me figure out how to deal with it. I really want to stay motivated about getting fit and healthy again since I gained this postpartum weight (without killing my breast milk supply), but when I talk to my mom I end up feeling bad about myself.
 
Last edited:
Maybe you can try turning it around and convince her to lose weight with you in a way your comfortable with.
I think its much easier for someone to try and convince someone else to go along with their own ideas if they feel that person doesn't have a clear idea of their own. I think she's just doing what she thinks will help you, not trying to be malicious or annoying.
Make it very clear to your mum that you want to lose weight and you have a game plan you are going to stick with and invite her to go along in the journey.

Good luck! :)
 
Sounds like an honest talk is in order. I'd be respectful but blunt, tell her how it makes you feel, that it hinders your progress, and that you're a bit old for the head games.

Losing weight is hard enough even with a GREAT support structure. Don't let anyone who is not on board throw you off your goal.
 
Thank you so much. I've been thinking about it, and I ended up not saying I anything to her. She stopped doing it on her own. Maybe I was reading too much into it—or maybe she noticed I've been losing on my own and so she decided to let it go. She's in her 50s and when she'd talk about this flat belly diet she kept commenting about the new studies that'd claim "belly fat=death" (increased risk in cancer, heart attacks, blah, blah, blah). My grandmother is ill, and I think maybe this obsession with dieting is my mom's way of coping with it.

The crappy thing is my mom, me, and my super skinny sister all have round bellies. We have wide pelvises and our bodies tend to want to store fat on our tummies. It's the way we are built. The only thing that gets rid of it is practically starving ourselves to the point we lose all our other curves (including our breasts), or doing some kind of exercise (which doesn't really get rid of the fat but tones our tummies so they don't look like pouches).

But I'm not going to tell my mom what to do. I love her and know this is her way of dealing with things. But while I'm working on getting healthier and in better shape, I'm also working on making peace with my round tummy. Maybe we can do a belly dancing class together someday. :)
 
Just remember this fact.

You cannot target specific areas for weight loss. You are going to lose fat based on your own genetic makeup. No diet can give you a 'flat belly'. Only your own regular weight loss can.
 
Jericho said:
Just remember this fact.

You cannot target specific areas for weight loss. You are going to lose fat based on your own genetic makeup. No diet can give you a 'flat belly'. Only your own regular weight loss can.
Click to expand...

Oh, yes. I totally agree. The only reason I'd do belly dance is to become more comfortable with my own body/belly (and to strengthen it) and to have fun.

The only time my belly has been near "flat" was when my BMI was 18-19, and the rest of me looked flat too (including my breasts—I looked like a skinny boy). Then I started running and put on weight (fat and muscle). My belly got round again, but I looked good. This is part of why hearing my mom obsess about the "flat belly diet" has been driving me up the wall. We (she, my sister, and I) aren't really built to have "flat bellies" to begin with and the only way for us to get even near there is to trim down everything else, too. With our bone structure, super skinny is just not a good look. I've grown to prefer curves. :)
 
Impish said:
Hi, All-

I want to lose weight (and am working on it), yet I'm having a tough time with my mom. A brief background: My mother's mother (my grandmother) was always very critical about her daughters' weights (mom and aunts)...to the point that it has impacted my cousin who lives near her (she is anorexic). My mom tries to be the other extreme...pretending not to care about weight (except she freaks out if she gains any) and she does things like pretending I never gained any weight after my pregnancy (I gained 50 pounds—a lot of weight on my 5'1" frame).

Anyhow, whenever I am on the heavier side, Mom starts talking about herself dieting obsessively...like she's trying to pull me into it. Normally this doesn't bother me (she did it last when I was a kid in high school and it helped me out).

Well, now I'm an adult now, and this time it's really annoying that she's doing it. She weighs 40 pounds less than me, and obsessively talks about her "Flat Belly" diet. I'm getting really sick of hearing about it. I'm not a believer in fad diets (no offense to anyone who loves them...they just don't work for me and I never seen anyone keep off weight with one). I also *know* how to lose weight (lost 60 pounds and kept it off for a long time 8 years ago).

So anyhow I was wondering if anyone else here can relate to this and offer any advice on how to help me figure out how to deal with it. I really want to stay motivated about getting fit and healthy again since I gained this postpartum weight (without killing my breast milk supply), but when I talk to my mom I end up feeling bad about myself.
Click to expand...

Get used to it. That's just what moms do. I'm 28 years old and my mom still does that sort of thing to me. She consistently says things to me in order to try and persuade me to do something that she wants me to. It never works, but she keeps on bugging me anyway.

So, just deal with it. Your mom is just another mom.
 
ChefChiTown said:
Get used to it. That's just what moms do. I'm 28 years old and my mom still does that sort of thing to me. She consistently says things to me in order to try and persuade me to do something that she wants me to. It never works, but she keeps on bugging me anyway.

So, just deal with it. Your mom is just another mom.
Click to expand...

There's being a mom and then there's being obnoxious and manipulative. Most of my friends' mothers don't do that kind of nonsense. Neither does my husband's.

Her obsession with weight isn't healthy. It never was. I have childhood memories of her staring at herself in the mirror and calling herself "fat" when she was in fact a very healthy weight and looked beautiful (we're talking 5'2" and 120 pounds—NOT at all overweight).

This has run deep in our family. My grandmother (Mom's mother) is so hypercritical and obsessed with weight it's somewhere between comical and sick. It has destroyed the confidence of my mom and her siblings. They all have eating disorders. My cousin who lives closest to Grandma is anorexic—to the point she's been hospitalized several times.

This is a chain I'm breaking not just for my own sanity, but for my daughter's sake.
 
Impish said:
There's being a mom and then there's being obnoxious and manipulative. Most of my friends' mothers don't do that kind of nonsense. Neither does my husband's.
Click to expand...

That's because they're not YOUR mom. My friends' mothers don't do that either, because they're not my mom. Every mom wants what's best for their child and sometimes it can cause them to become forceful and overbearing.

My mom is one of the sweetest women on the planet. She is the nicest and most caring person in the entire world. She treats everybody she runs into as if they are her best friend and she treats them with such a huge amount of love, support, comfort and respect that it's almost unbelievable. But, trust me...she's a completely different person with me.

My mom may treat other people with an enormous amount of respect, and I'm not saying that my mother doesn't respect me, but she treats me like a completely different person; because I am a completely different person - I'm her son. When my mom deals with me, her motherly instincts kick in and, to be completely honest, they are quite overbearing. Even though I'm a well educated 28 year old, she still looks at me as her "little boy" and she treats me as such. She babies me constantly and overbearingly tries to force me to do what she thinks is best for me. Even though what she wants for me may not be the best thing, she still tries to shove it down my throat. It's just what most moms do.

Impish said:
Her obsession with weight isn't healthy. It never was. I have childhood memories of her staring at herself in the mirror and calling herself "fat" when she was in fact a very healthy weight and looked beautiful (we're talking 5'2" and 120 pounds—NOT at all overweight).
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to underestimate the reality of your situation with your mother, but...

Dude, there's a shit load of 5' 2" and 120 lb women who think they're fat.
 
Please note that part of posting on public forums is that you get responses from a wide variety of people. That means that there may be some people who will say things you don't agree with or express things in a way you don't agree with.

Unless the posts violate a rule of the board, no one will be reprimanded or edited for simply expressing an opinion. If you have an issue with an individual, please take it up with them in Private Message. If you don't want to read posts by a particular individual, please use the "ignore" function on the board.

Please do not report posts simply because you think someone is being "rude" or you don't like their opinions. If a poster calls names, personally attacks someone, or otherwise breaks a posting rule, then feel free to use the report post feature.

Thanks for your understanding.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top