Dear Jewish Fairy Godmother:
I appreciate in the big picture of the world (like, Will we all get blown
up today?) my issues with dieting may seem small. But they are
struggles I have lived with for a long time and I am seriously trying to
make my peace with them and with my body. I am aging and
shrinking in height, so the disparity between my vertical and horizontal
is getting worse. I have always been an “apple” which I know is
especially bad for women. Now I am working with a nutritionist and
health coach to finally put this issue to rest. I am doing it the long,
slow way, as in the way everyone told me to do it all the years of yoyo
dieting. How can I convince people to stop throwing in my face all the
failures of my past? Yes I know I have failed, but that doesn’t doom
me to perpetually being fat. I want to get this right and I need
support, not nitpickers and naysayers. Is there something nicer than
“Please shit up!” that you can suggest?
One More Time
Dear One More Time:
Generally I prefer one-on-one communication to group emails, but in
this case I might make an exception, at least for your general social
circle, family, and folks that you think might carp at you just out of
reflexive buttinsky tendencies. What you want to tell them is what you
told me: don’t think of me as a loser, except in the good kind of way.
A draft email might be brief: Dear Ones: You know I’ve struggled with
weight for much of my life. You have witnessed my attempts to lose
weight and keep it off, as well as my failures. I’m asking you to erase
all the old tapes, to mute what you might think of as good advice for
this round of my efforts, and when we meet simply to wish me well
and ask how I’m doing in all aspects of my life. I am much more that
what I weigh, and if I seem thinner or heavier should not be the focus
of how we interact. Thanks for your love and support, and no thanks
to discussing this further.