Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The "You Look Soooo Great" Speech


4 years of exclusively working in obesity medicine later, I've learned a few things that certainly aren't taught by society, medical school or weight loss books.

One of those things was the, "You should stop losing weight phenomenon" which I blogged about in the past.

Today I'm going to share another.

It's the "You look soooo great" great speech and why you shouldn't deliver it.

Now I realize that on the surface going on about someone looking great doesn't sound insulting, but let me give you a different way to hear it.

Let's say that over the course of the past year you've lost a significant amount of weight - enough weight let's say that it makes folks you haven't seen in a long time's heads' turn and eyes bug out.

Let's say that they're then so inclined to come over to you and deliver an oration on how great you look now, how much better you must feel now, how wonderful it is you've finally done this, how much happier you must be now, and so on and so forth.

You might thing, "So what's wrong with that? Those are all compliments, no?"

Sure they are. But of course their effusive enthusiasm about how great you look now translates into you hearing how terrible you looked before.

My advice?

If someone's lost a great deal of weight and you're so inclined to say something, three simple words, "You look great" is much better received than a full-on speech.

Think I'm nuts?

Let's ask my readers. Can you relate to what I'm reporting here or are the folks who have mentioned this phenomenon to me overly sensitive?