“Anti dieting” comments have hurt me more than “anti fat” comments

I’ve been thinking recently about how my (24F) relationships with other “fat”/plus size women have changed since I’ve started losing weight consistently. I’ve lost close to 50lbs in the last year and a half and I’m about halfway to my fitness and health goals. I started this journey at my highest ever weight of 232lbs at 5’3” and I’m now 186lbs. I have never had a healthy BMI for my entire life and have always held excess weight, even as a kid/teen, so the lifestyle changes I’ve put in place to lose the weight for good were a long time coming, and I feel physically better than ever even though I’ve been eating in a caloric deficit.

Even though I did grow up fat, I recognize now that a lot of the negativity towards my own body came from myself in my head rather than the actual words and actions of others. I can count on one hand the number of times someone actually made a mean comment about my weight growing up. I always FELT like people were probably looking at me and laughing at me, but once I started losing weight it helped me shed the shame and insecurity around being fat because I was finally doing something positive to change it. (Note that I’m not claiming bullying fat kids doesn’t happen—it just didn’t happen to me personally. The world is harsh.)

On the other hand, what does actually negatively affect me is how other plus size people have treated me since losing weight. The amount of times I have been openly told by other bigger women that I will fail my diet and gain more weight than ever so I shouldn’t try at all… it’s really upsetting. It’s a community of people who have convinced themselves that change is so impossible that they aren’t even willing to try, and then when someone starts succeeding using well-documented science and makes well-informed decisions about their own health, they treat you like a traitor and like you’re some kind of mean girl. To have people you considered your friends tell you you’re going to be fat forever and that you have no chance of reaching your goals really hurts.