- I'm so fat today! No, you're you today. No more, no less.
- The people on The Biggest Loser lose 4-8 pounds a week and I only manage (0,1,2,3,etc) pounds. I suck! If your bff said that, what would you say to them? Would you let them beat themselves up? The people on the television show are ON A TELEVISION SHOW. They work out for six hours a day and even past winners have had a serious yoyo effect, regaining weight just as quickly as they dropped it.
- My legs/thighs/face/pinky finger is SO fat! Maybe it is. This is not a judgment or a failing. Geneen Roth suggests that every time you find yourself making these kinds of observations, you repeat in your head "and the sky is blue" after each one.
- I was good/bad because I gained/lost a pound this week. Your weight does not make you a good person. The number on the scale does not affect the person inside your head.
- I can't have chocolate because I don't deserve it. Eating something is neither good nor bad. There are no moral implications (unless you're bogarting your coworkers ----- e out of the office fridge).
- This skirt wouldn't look awful on me if I weren't such a pig. How does an ill-fitting piece of clothing make any kind of statement about you? The assumption there is that the skirt is "right" and your body is "wrong." Maybe the skirt just sucks?
- I won't find anyone to date/marry/shag until I lose weight. Except that you know this isn't true, and the people who would only date/marry/shag you if you met a certain cookie-cutter standard are not the people you want to be around anyway.
- If I ask for low fat or no oil, people will think about or comment on my size. Oh come on, have you been to a Starbucks lately? Everyone special orders everything and honestly, they're all too busy thinking about their own worries to even pay attention to what you're doing.
- That girl is so thin. Why can't I be like that? Of course, you have no idea what her circumstance is, how she got that thin or what she is doing to maintain it. And even if it's just the luck of the DNA lottery, isn't it awesome that people are all different and we don't live in some kind of Stepford town?
- I'm so hungry, but I can't eat between meals because I'm on a diet. Would you purposely not go to the bathroom even if you had to go? Would you hold your breath until you turned blue and then curse your lack of willpower because your body needed to breathe? If your child's stomach were growling, wouldn't you want to feed them? If you're hungry, eat something!
- Does my ass look fat in these jeans? Does your head look stupid under that thought bubble?
- Oh come on, you're not fat, you're skinny! I'm fat! Don't let someone layer their insecurities onto your own! It's like herpes! Protect yourself and don't buy into their negative crap. It doesn't even make them feel marginally better, because really, if they are talking about how bad their cellulite is, then it's an unspoken judgment on your cellulite.
Related Links from Elastic Waist and SELF:
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- Video: Tune in to today’s Daily Special!
- Celebs: Elastic Waist dishes on the latest celebrity gossip
- Body of Work: One woman’s amazing weight-loss surgery transformation
