I know. We hear it all of our lives.
"You can't judge."
"You shouldn't judge people."
"Who are you to pass judgement?"
We are all human. It is in our nature to judge. No matter what you have been told, our own survival, according to Darwin, is based on choices that help us navigate our way through life. Those choices are made based on judgements we make. Our survival, which is based on thousands years of evolution, is predicated on the basic rule that we do not have the time necessary in life to assess every person we meet and make an educated judgement on them. We do not have time to know their motives, their ethics, or their deepest fears and neurosis. We have to make our judgements quickly. In some cases, cases of self preservation, very quickly. This means we are going to judge people first and foremost by that which is most obvious to us...their appearance.
So we judge. Now comes the painful part of this. We are going to BE judged. That's right. When we look at others and make those choices about them, they are doing the same thing.
"Why are they judging me? What did I ever do to them...?", you say. It gives one perspective doesn't it?
It is a cruel reality that the first judgement a person makes will be on your appearance. The second judgement will be on your behavior. The last judgement only occurs after significant exposure to you. That is the only way someone can get to know the real person inside your shell. So 90% of the people are going to judge you based on your appearance. If you are fat, and I know this from experience, that can be uncomfortable. For some, it can be downright frightening.
Most of you reading this are trying to be thinner. You are trying to lose weight and the goal for most of you is to look and feel better. Some of you remember what it felt like to be thinner. Some of you don't. Some of you have no idea how it will feel to be thin because you have truly never been there. Deep down, we all know we are being judged on our looks first. We learn that at a very early age.
So keep 'judgement' in mind when I tell you one of the big lessons about losing weight that you will experience in year one.
YOU ARE GOING TO BE PERCEIVED DIFFERENTLY BECAUSE YOU ARE A THIN PERSON.
I don't mean they will look and think about you being thin. They won't. I mean the perception of who you are as a person, now that you are thin, will be different than it has been in the past. I also don't mean just a little differently. I mean a lot differently. The bigger you were, the more radical the experience will be for you. I also do not mean to imply that 'different' means they will see you as thin versus fat. People are not just going to look at you and see a thin, or thinner, person. They are going to assess you differently, react to you differently, and ultimately make judgements about you that are different than what you have experienced.
Here is something you should know. Looking and feeling great is an advantage. It is an advantage socially. It is an advantage professionally. It is a success tool that can give you a definite edge. That part you probably know. Now, the strange part, and the part you sometimes can only learn by moving back and forth along the appearance continuum, is that looking and feeling better than you look right now is not something everybody wants for you. That's right. Not everyone is going to be happy with your new found thinness.
As I said before, we judge. Life is a competition. We look at people and judge because we want to know our chances. We all do it as a natural reaction.
"Can I compete or not?"
Making a dramatic change in your appearance will change the competitive assessment. If you are a woman and your girlfriends have always seen you as a jolly fat pal, they have not had you on their radar as competition. Now they do. Expect that they will first be excited for you about your weight loss, then the catty remarks may begin. This doesn't always happen...there are good people and friends out there. But you can expect levels of this within social circles.
If you are a man, and you have a strong presence at the office, expect similar experiences. If your personality is strong and you are well spoken, but you also are a very large jolly guy, you will find that being thinner suddenly means that the funny remarks that everyone used to laugh at are seen as biting sarcasm. This happens when you transform from being a jolly colleague to a professional on-the-job competitor.
I mention that first because it is the opposite of what you probably thought would happen. Everyone should love the new thin you, right? Welcome to reality.
There are many benefits as well, particularly if you are always meeting new people professionally or socially. People will assess you differently right from the first meeting. That first impression will be distinctly different and create different opinions about you, even if the opinions are not valid. Perception is all too often the reality for people. I will use myself as an example. I have changed jobs 3 times since 1997. I have, however, applied for new positions more than ten times in that same period. EVERY time I was hired, I was thin. I NEVER got the job when I was fat. Don't say it...'that's discrimination.' Again, welcome to reality. How you take care of yourself, if you are two small clicks from being obese, typically will tell people about your feelings about yourself, your discipline, your judgement, etc. They leap from that to the first opinion about you. They do not make the same excuses for you that you make for yourself. They don't have time.
So you have it. Judgement. Perception. Your year is going to be very different. Not all good but certainly more good than when you were a large person. It is going to be fun if you approach it with an open mind and allow people to react the way they need to. You can change you, but you will never change them. Some will support you, some will wish you were 'you' again.
Be happy where you are when you get to thinness. As Harry Chapin would say, 'it is a better place to be.'
Congratulations.
Next: Your new outlook and coping with everyone else
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