Category: etc.

Can I just throw a question out there?

Uh, is weight loss really something you should have to mention to other people? I mean, after a certain amount of weight loss, shouldn’t it be, you know, noticeable?

The background:

About 3 years ago, I started working out hard on my cool new mini trampoline. Not the kind you buy at Sports Authority with the cheap short coils, but a top-of-the-line smaller one with long coils for a good deep bounce. MB bought it for me for my birthday because he’d seen me visiting their website and pining away for it for quite a while. I’ve always loved working out this way because it seems more like fun and less like work.

Anyhow, I lost weight, right? Like, oh, about 20 pounds. I’m at my “appropriate” weight now — or whatever. I’m in good shape these days because I’ve worked hard at it and I’ve stuck to the regimen. This has been 3 years now. (Somewhat shockingly, the boobins did not decrease. I’m really starting to think they’re fake. Like at some point, I was drugged and woke up in a tub in Vegas — not with a kidney missing — but with big fake boobs and that I just have amnesia about the whole ordeal.)

MB’s family comments on it every time they see me. (The weight loss, not the boobs.) They make a fuss about me and it every time, which is nice. (Again, the weight loss, not the boobs.) They say something nice like, “Oh, you look great! Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.” So it validates to me that it IS noticeable and that all that work/bouncing “ain’t been in vain for nothin'” — to quote Lena Lamont (Singin’ in the Rain).

But here’s what’s odd to me:

No one in my family has ever said a word about it. Not a word. Nothing. In 3 years.

A few weeks ago, we were at my brother’s house and at one point in a conversation with my SIL, I briefly mentioned “losing weight.” (She is a workout FIEND, that one.) She looked surprised and said, “Oh! How much have you lost?”

“Uh …… about 20 pounds?”

“Oh! When did that happen?”

Long pause.

“Uhm …….. about 3 years ago,” I said drily.

“Oh.”

“Oh”? “OH”?? Really? That’s it? “Oh”????

Now, again, it’s been like this for 3 years, but somehow this little exchange sent me into a long-expected but long-delayed tailspin. I ranted about it the whole way home to MB, who quietly contemplated suicide.

I raved about it again at bedtime, in bed, and the next morning while MB methodically loaded his gun.

But, seriously, shouldn’t weight loss of 20 pounds be noticeable and …. well, comment worthy?

Or is it unfair to expect comment on something like that? I mean, maybe it is. I don’t know. My family dynamics are a bit odd, I think, so I don’t know what “normal” is. It seems more “normal” to me that MB’s family has commented but maybe commenting makes them unusual. On the other hand, my girlfriends have commented, but not my mom or my sister or my SIL.

So, really, what’s normal here, pippa?

Now I didn’t lose the weight so people would comment. I lost it for various personal reasons that most people have for losing weight. Nevertheless, it seems normal to at least think that people might comment, not that you do it for that, but that that is an outgrowth of your efforts — people who know you/love you commenting on your efforts.

Am I wrong?

Again, what’s normal here?

I actually don’t know, so please explain normal to me.