To be upset with what my friend said?

I can only put it down to being self focused and not paying attention to other people. As when weight goes down this much it is also visible on the face. Either that or it’s a justification for not wanting to pay a compliment. But as there is no reason for that on here, I assume it’s just not paying any form of remote attention to someone’s appearance.

The only way someone could legitimately not notice a four stone weight loss is if the person who lost weight was around 30 stone. I'm going to assume OP was not that big, as it is statistically unlikely. Friend is rude and a bit mean.

I think it depends somewhat on starting weight. If that was 15 stone or less, I think she was being disingenuous.

Even if she didn’t see signs of weight loss, most friends will nod along and say yes, you look great, well done.

Do you think she might be jealous?

I probably wouldn't notice tbh. I don't really look at other people's bodies that closely and I would never comment them. Being asked to comment would make me uncomfortable.

YANBU. I also don't understand all the people on the thread who claim to be 'weight blind'. I mean, I guess I can understand not picking up on an incremental weight loss, but not noticing after someone has lost over four stone!? C'mon.

I’ve lost 6st, I was 16stone to start with and nobody really noticed until I’d lost about 3.5 stone.

its crap cos losing this amount of weight IS an achievement, but keep going! Don’t let her dent your resolve.

eventually everyone will notice! 😊

To be charitable, could it be that she's constantly seen you throughout the process, therefore it's not as obvious a change to her as it would have been if she hadn't seen you for, say, 6 months? Sometimes people just aren't as observant in that situation.

4 stone is amazing, well done.

I have a friend that has lost 5 stone this year. She was upset after a recent night out that nobody seemed to notice. But she’s very, very big and I think it’s not that obvious yet.

In terms of weight loss being noticeable, it can be helpful to think of it as a percentage or fraction. If you're 12 stone and lose 4 stone, you've lost a third of your body weight - it's going to be obvious. If you start at 24 stone and lose 4 stone, you've lost 1/6 of your body weight, which is a great achievement, but less likely to be obvious when fully dressed.

That said, I think your friend was tactless. I wonder if she is used to you being 'the big one' in your friendship, and feels threatened by the idea of you losing weight, changing the dynamic. She could have said 'You're looking really good' or something to that effect if she felt unable to say your weight loss was noticeable.

But, never mind your friend. You've lost 4 stone - that's amazing! Keep going towards your goal and soon it will be obvious to everyone and you'll start getting compliments from all sorts of people.

I’m on the fence. At 3.5 stone neither myself nor anyone else (honestly and objectively) could tell where any weight had shifted. It obviously had as my pants had started to wriggle down and had to constantly be pulled up, but it was that my overall shape had not shifted at all. It really wasn’t until going past 5 stone that you could genuinely notice it visibly even though my clothes had noticed earlier. I think it’s noticeable in people who lose it more off specific areas rather than as a general all over?

i have a friend who has lost quite a bit of weight, although not as much as you.

she still wears dark, loose clothes and you couldn’t tell the difference in her body, however, her face has dramatically changed and it’s impossible to not notice.

She was being honest.

you asked a question and she replied… honestly … and apologised as she knew you would be upset.

i would rather have an honest friend.

i agree that weight loss is often not noticeable.

i work with someone who has just been to turkey to have excess skin removed after weight loss.

we have worked together the whole time she was losing the weight. I didn’t notice.

well done on your journey and feel proud. But remember others are on their journeys….

I can be very literal and not understand what people explicitly mean. She may have meant that there is no difference between she saw you last (recently) and that particular night not realizing you meant since the start of your journey. I can be really dumb like that.

Or she is a total cow.

I don’t get that, would a compliment of you look great or something really have been that hard, even saying janie said you’ve lost 3 stone, well done, what an achievement? If I was sitting there I’d just assume you were so jealous you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

I'll be honest, I am totally blind to my friends weights. Like I know one of my friends is obese, but only because she's told me. Like I'm not friends with her because of her size. In your friends shoes I would have probably felt the same(difference is I would have lied) I don't see people I love by size.

I’ve lost a similar amount, some friends have mentioned it and complimented me so much so that it’s a bit embarrassing.
I also have a couple of friends who haven’t mentioned it at all, they’re both friends I have known for many years so they will have seen me at this weight in the distant past. They also didn’t mention when I gained weight!
I certainly wouldn’t be asking anyone if they could tell. I can tell and that’s what is important. It probably is quite obvious because I am happier with how I look so I am wearing more fitted clothes rather than hiding under loose clothing.

I hate being put on the spot and being manipulated into saying whatever someone is angling for. Maybe she was just annoyed by that?

Congratulations!! I need to lose 4 stone, how did you do it OP?

I agree. I recently met friends for lunch, who I hadn't seen for months. Whilst waiting for DF3 to arrive, DF2 told me DF3 had lost 3 stone. I couldn't wait to see and congratulate her. When she arrived she looked exactly the same. She didn't mention her weight. I felt as if DF2, at least, would be expecting a reaction from me. It was awkward.

Starting weight nearly 24st, after a 3st loss, everyone noticed but that was colleagues who hadn’t seen me for a few weeks. Maybe someone who sees you frequently hasn’t noticed a loss? I don’t know. Meeting friends I haven’t seen for ages was cool, they all raved.

Hi OP. Well done on your weight loss so far. I've lost 10 stone in the last 20 months and I know how hard you are working.

A couple of things, if I may.

A lot depends on how tall you are and how you carry your weight. I'm 6' tall and the first 4 stone genuinely wasn't that noticeable - my dress size didn't change dramatically during this period. A lot of it was visceral fat, which is the most dangerous for your health and therefore the most important to lose. If you Google the 'paper towel theory' you'll see that your weight loss will become more apparent as time goes on.

Secondly, depending on how quickly you've lost the weight and how frequently she sees you, it's entirely possible that your friend has just adjusted to your new shape. Humans are really bad at making absolute judgements as opposed to comparative ones, and if she had compared you directly to a picture of you at your heaviest she would undoubtedly have seen some difference.

Yes, it would have been kind of her to tell a gentle lie, but you caught her on the hop. In future, don't ask questions if you don't want to hear the honest answer. More broadly, whilst compliments and congratulations on weight loss can be lovely, you won't complete your journey and maintain your new weight if you are primarily motivated by external validation. You have to do this for yourself, and see anything else as a bonus.

Sending masses of good wishes for the rest of your journey

Well done! 4 stone is a lot of weight!
She may not have noticed though. If you dressed to ‘hide’ your weight for example it can then be hard to accurately see any weight loss. It also could depend on how this has translated to clothes sizing, if you’ve dropped from a 24 to 20 this may be hard to notice as well. Don’t let it discourage you.

I don’t think weight or hair “blindness” is a thing as such. If people don’t notice big changes in someone, then it is simply as they don’t pay much attention to someone’s appearance.

and I can’t decide if that’s better than paying too much attention,I have a family member like this, she has a signficant weight issue, but is very attractive facially, or was, her face is puffy and fat now, and she has always competed with other women, always has done, I guess used to being the pretty girl. Now she stares and stares , and makes me at least, feel awkward, she stares at my hair, face, body, I can see her doing it, her eyes roving over me, and she loudly sighs if someone pays me a compliment. She never ever pays a compliment. To any woman, ever.

as she’s lost some weight and I knew she’d been dieting, so I told her she looked great and you could tell. She was chuffed with the comment, but then just turned away, my husband commented later he’d been watching the interaction and it looked like she just couldn’t bring herself to say anything back and if felt awkward to watch her.

I’ve lost several stone and she’s not once mentioned it. I don’t give a flying monkey as it’s her issues, but a previous poster commented some people have real issues with their own weight and body image, and it means they can’t be happy for others, and I think that’s true.

so I’m not sure what’s worse, paying too little attention or too much.

Titasaducksarse

Yep, I've a 'friend' who I'm increasingly realising is not a friend who has made no comment on my weight loss even though we go walking together, I talk about the gym etc. She knows I'm using mounjaro so I really think it's jealousy. Literally no one commented on my first 2 stone loss but after 3 literally everyone has noticed and given lovely feedback.

If she’d commented she could have gotten a defensive comment back, I don’t think people can win mentioning weight. I told my friend she looked well, she’d lost a bit of weight but apparently not what she wanted and I got a bit of a lecture on weight not being important, how too many people were commenting and they shouldn’t because weight shouldn’t make a difference etc.

Op maybe she didn’t notice because your weight isn’t a thing to her

Everyone on here saying you can “definitely” always tell if someone has lost four stone - that’s just not true.

There are so many variables.

Your usual style of dress, how much you have to lose, where you carry it, where you’ve lost it from, your height etc.

I lost three stone last year and it was barely noticeable to others. I could tell, and I was delighted. But as I have quite a few more stone still to lose, and I’m a tall woman with a sturdy build no one could really see it. Sadly I don’t think a 3-stone weight loss is as noticeable in me as I’d like 😂🤷‍♀️

That may be true for the OP. Without seeing before and after photos there’s no way of knowing.

IMO, a good friend is an honest friend. Whether or not someone can tell, you’ve still lost four stone which is a huge achievement! And you can obviously see the weight loss in yourself which is the main thing.

Don’t ask questions if you might not like the answers. Your friend may have thought it was better to be truthful. I mean, she may have been nasty deliberately but you haven’t said there’s any reason to suspect that? if she’d fibbed and said yes, then what? You might have asked her where she most noticed it from. It’s a whole spiral of lies and just better to say sorry, I haven’t really noticed any weight loss, but you look great.

Your achievements don’t need validation from others. Maybe your friend never paid that much attention to your body shape. Be proud of your four stone weight loss - you’ve done so well.