To think that most women (especially at work) don't want other women to lose weight?

[bumblebee50]

I work in an environment with mostly females. There's always someone on a diet and a couple of them are currently going to slimming clubs. Everyone excitedly asks on a Wednesday how much weight was lost and if someone says I didn't lose anything or lost half a pound the response is always sympathetic. However, I can't help thinking that a lot of women don't want other women to get to their target weight as it makes them feel slightly adequate. Am I completely off the mark?

[Alconleigh]

Have you tried working somewhere with people who are a bit less vacuous? A workplace where the main topic of conversation is weight loss must be soul destroyingly dull. It's better than going down the mines, granted, but Jesus, how do you not scream in frustration?

[AlexaTwoAtT]

I think the OP is actually right. A reluctance to make any positive comments is more than a bit odd. Withholding positive comments when someone has done so well is very mean spirited.

[crunched]

Maybe the OPs colleagues live in my village.
I recently lost 2 stone, I needed too & am still 'well-upholstered'. When I attended an event, no one commented on my weight loss but after an hour or so, 3 females (in their sixties) cornered my DH, and asked in a concerned tone if I was suffering an illness as Crunched "didn't seem her normal, bouncy self".
Friendly interest? I'm sorry to say I think not.

[SpunkyMummy]

I... what? I don't have any experience with this.

[SilentBiscuits]

There's nothing more boring that people rambling on about their weight and their diets at work.

This. Good grief, so glad I've never worked in any of these places!

[RunRabbitRunRabbit]

Like I said above, I have never experienced this at work.

However, I've had the odd behaviour in my private life. One time I put on a lot of weight after an injury stopped me exercising and I started using biscuits and red wine as anti-depressants (ineffective method, I do not recommend it). After a while, I started to lose the weight through good diet and exercising again. My overweight SIL who is always on a diet and always has complex food demands, staged an intervention involving my DB about how thin I was becoming and what a concern it was, especially as I wasn't keen on talking about my diet.

At the time I was still over 11 stone and about a size 14. I am 5 foot 7. I had been losing weight at a rate of about 2 pounds a week. I find diet talk boring. I didn't make complex food demands or even tell anyone other than DH that I was watching what I ate. It was utterly ridiculous. I shut her down pretty damn quickly. That was about 15 years ago.

She still seems to take it as a personal attack that I quietly lost weight until I was a size 10/12, kept it off and feel no need to discuss it with anyone.