How you know you're too heavy

Lawrence Toppman

A surefire way to realize you need to drop some pounds: You haven't lost an ounce, but people who see you for the first time in months say, "You look good! Have you taken off weight?"

That means they've perceived you as a fat person -- in fact, one who grows in memory, so to speak, until they remember you as fatter than you actually are. When they see you after a long hiatus, they're surprised to see that the real you looks slimmer than the one they've stored in memory.

I used to hear this all the time when I had done nothing about my weight. The polite answer always was, "Uhhhh...yeah, I've been working on that. Thanks for noticing." Now that I actually HAVE lost weight, I can say so enthusiastically and try to stop short of boring others to insensibility.

The upshot of this is that I never ask now if anyone has lost weight, unless they've obviously shed 50 pounds or more. If I think they have, I ask, "There's something different about you, isn't there?" Much safer.