The Over-Complimenter

Is there such a thing? In all my years of weight-gain and weight-loss, I've never really learned how to take a compliment.

In 2003, when we did South Beach for the first time, I remember my boss telling me to buy some new jeans because she was tired of watching me hitch them up all the time.

When I fell off the WW wagon a three years ago, a friend told me how disappointed she was because she'd been so proud of my weight loss.

My dad is famous for making comments...some positive, mostly negative. I didn't even tell him I'd joined WW this time...until last week when he called in the middle of my meeting and I sent him a text message that said I would call him after my meeting. Of course, the first words out of his mouth were, "What meeting?" Damn. My cover was blown. (And I GAINED last week, too, of course.)

This time, I was so nervous about it not working...so embarrassed about all my ups and downs--The world is a witness to my yo-yo--I didn't want to tell many people. I told a small handful...and the Internet. At work, I told K, of course, and confided in one other woman, in the break room while we heated up our lunches.

I love her, but she's kind of an Over-Complimenter, if there can be such a thing. I never know what to say to her. She always wants to know how I'm doing--which is great, having one more person to answer to. But she's too much. She tells me I must be "redistributing," because she thinks I look like I've lost way more than 4, 10, or13 pounds.

What do you say to the Over-Complimenter? "Thank you" seems painfully inadequate when her comments often make my day. "Oh, no I don't," seems rude since she's trying to be nice. But when it's every day...and on the days when I'm feeling my fattest...I run out of appreciation for her well-meant words.

I've never liked the way I look. I've always been too fat. Too tall. Too...something. At the eye doctor today, the assistant told me my glasses needed adjusting, and I told her, "No, my nose is just crooked."

I'm trying. I am. It's hard for me to accept that people could see me as anything other than...a Fat Lady.