Comments About Weight Loss: They Saw My Body. They Couldn’t See Me.

What we assume about other people’s bodies—and everything those bodies cannot tell us.

Last week, I told you how I lost sight of myself. But there was another part of that season—the part everyone else could see and almost no one understood.

My body.

There was a time when it became the most talked-about thing about me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the fun, sexy way we all secretly hope for.

It sounded more like this:

“Are you sick?”

“Eat a cheeseburger.”

"You look anorexic. Gross.”

There were whispers that I was on drugs. And one of the most common assumptions was that I had simply taken my weight loss too far—that I had done this to myself and needed to stop.

I laughed at some of the comments.

Others made me cry.

Everyone had a theory.

Almost no one asked a question.

This week, Ariana Grande announced that she will step back from public-facing work after her tour amid relentless scrutiny surrounding her appearance and health.

Our lives are wildly different. I cannot imagine what it feels like to have millions of strangers studying your body, comparing photographs, diagnosing you from a screen, and debating whether you look healthy enough to be seen.

But I do understand what it feels like to stop being treated like a person and become a body for people to discuss.

While I was going through it, I sometimes found myself thinking that criticizing larger bodies had become unacceptable—but criticizing mine for being too thin was still fair game.

It wasn’t my most evolved thought.

It came from hurt.

Because when people decide someone is too thin, they often believe their comments are acceptable—even helpful. They call it concern, as though concern gives them permission to say whatever they want.

But Lizzo could tell a very different version of the same story. She has been scrutinized for being larger and scrutinized again as her body changed.

Apparently, there is no acceptable way for a woman’s body to exist—or change—without becoming public conversation.

Women in larger bodies are judged. Women in smaller bodies are judged. Women who gain weight are analyzed, and women who lose weight are analyzed.

Pregnant bodies. Aging bodies. Athletic bodies. Surgically altered bodies. Naturally changing bodies.

We speak about all of them as though they are public property.

The words may be different, but the message is the same:

Your body does not look the way I think it should.

Looking back, I don’t believe everyone who commented on my weight meant to be cruel. Some people were genuinely worried. Others were curious or simply didn’t know what else to say. But concern and commentary are not the same thing.

“I’m here if you need me” feels very different from “You need to eat.”

“How are you doing?” feels very different from “You look sick.”

One sees a person.

The other sees a body.

Everyone thought they were reading my story. They were really just looking at the cover.

The truth was simple: I wasn’t trying to lose weight.

I had stopped being hungry.

Food became something to cross off a list instead of something to enjoy. At the time, I blamed stress because “stress” was the only explanation I had.

I now understand that my body was responding to a much larger combination of depression, grief, hormones, chronic stress, trauma, and medication.

The larger healing story is one I shared last week. But there was another lesson hidden inside it that I don’t want to overlook:

You can advocate for yourself and still not know the right questions to ask.

I was seeing doctors, asking questions, and searching for answers. What I didn’t know was that one of the medications I was taking wasn’t the right fit for me.

In my body, it amplified things I desperately needed to calm. It contributed to my weight loss, left me emotionally reactive, and made me feel less like myself instead of more.

I understood that medications could affect people differently.

I didn’t understand that the treatment itself might be part of my problem.

I wasn’t asking the wrong questions.

I just didn’t know there were better ones.

That distinction changed everything.

Now, instead of asking only how to make a symptom disappear, I ask:

What might be causing it?

Could one treatment be creating another problem?

How does this connect to everything else happening in my body?

What am I missing?

The best doctors I’ve had didn’t expect me to be passive. They expected me to be a partner.

They bring years of education and experience.

I bring a lifetime of living inside my own body.

Both matter.

Healing, I’ve learned, is usually quieter than the pain that came before it. Sometimes it looks like sleeping through the night, laughing without forcing it, or making plans six months into the future instead of simply trying to survive tomorrow.

And sometimes, it looks like wondering what to cook for dinner.

That might sound insignificant unless you know me. I have always loved to cook.

Actually, that isn’t quite right. I love taking care of people, and cooking has always been one of the ways I say, “I love you.”

For years, I have dreamed about publishing a cookbook filled with the recipes that became part of my life—family recipes, dishes shared by friends, and restaurant meals I spent years trying to recreate at home.

Those recipes became birthdays, celebrations, family dinners, hard seasons, and ordinary Tuesdays.

Somewhere along the way, recipes became memories.

Then, almost without realizing it, I stopped cooking. Not because I forgot how, but because I lost the desire.

For a long time, I thought that part of me was gone.

Now, every once in a while, I catch myself pulling out an old recipe or wondering what sounds good for dinner.

The excitement isn’t back every day.

But it isn’t gone anymore either.

I’m not ready to write that cookbook yet. But for the first time in a very long time…

I believe I will be.

That is what my recovery looks like.

It isn’t a number on the scale.

It is desire returning.

It is joy returning.

It is me returning.

When I look at photographs from that season now, I don’t see a body that was too thin.

I see a woman surviving.

A woman who smiled because she didn’t know what else to do.

A woman carrying more than anyone realized—including herself.

For a long time, I thought my body had turned against me. Now I think it was doing the only thing it knew how to do.

It was asking me to stop.

To pay attention.

To heal.

People saw weight loss.

They couldn’t see grief.

They couldn’t see depression.

They couldn’t see the medication affecting me.

They couldn’t see the years of chronic stress my nervous system had been carrying.

They saw my body.

They couldn’t see me.

Today, when I hear someone comment on another person’s body, I try to remember how little any of us truly knows. A changing body may tell us that something is happening.

It does not tell us what.

And it certainly does not give us permission to write the rest of someone’s story for them.

If you are genuinely concerned, ask how the person is doing.

Listen to the answer.

Offer your presence instead of your opinion.

Because bodies tell us very little.

Stories tell us everything.

With love,

Amanda

I See Your Pretty™