This week's @bloghomework caught my attention for an interesting reason. A lot of people don't know that I lost a metric fuck-ton of weight between May of 2013 and October of 2014 and have managed to keep it off so far. How much is a fuck-ton? Just shy of 200 pounds. Yeah, you read it right. Here's what I looked like before:
And you can see by my profile pic that I don't look like that anymore. Now, 99.999 percent of the people I know who knew me when I was huge all think that I've really accomplished something and have been nothing but supportive and complimentary. There is, however, a very small contingency that totally resent what I've managed to accomplish and these people are, of course, the haters in question.
So the question is how to deal with them. The answer is simple: don't let them steer you off course, question the validity of your decisions, the extent of your accomplishments, or your right to express yourself in any way, shape, or form, and don't lend any deference to anything else they choose to hate on. The reason they hate is simple: they either envy you or feel like they aren't on your level. They perceive themselves as weak and they perceive you as strong and rather than try to become stronger themselves, they hate. The bottom line there is that it's just plain easier to try to drag someone else down than it is to at least try to pull themselves up.
Whenever someone says anything disparaging about my weight loss, I generally thank them for their opinion and then either change the subject or direct my attention elsewhere to send the clear message that they don't matter and that I am unfazed by their idiocy. If it happens again, I ignore it completely. It's often very passive-aggressive with comments like, "I would personally never do a low-carb diet. I've heard that eating that much protein leads to heart disease." That's what they say. Here's what they mean: "You're thin now and I'm still fat. I hope you fucking die of cancer of the taint." It's best to just leave that shit hanging and ignore it.
Haters want you to respond to them. they want to know that what they're doing is affecting you. Deny them the pleasure and they usually let up on you and either seek out a weaker, more vulnerable target or just stew in their own juice until they get tired enough of feeling like shit that they just drop it and move on. Even if they don't let up on you, just treat them like they're invisible when they start in with their bullshit. Respond to them when they're positive or are engaging you on other levels but don't even grace their hate with an acknowledgement that you care or even notice their words or behavior. They are likely to either cease and desist or distance themselves from you if they are that bound and determined to hurt you and their efforts to do so prove totally unsuccessful.