Should you tell anyone you’re trying to lose weight?

I mostly don’t.

My husband knows. Obviously. My mum knows too because I am incapable of hiding anything from her. She can tell something has changed from the way I answer the phone, even from 10,000 miles away.

Beyond those two, I tend to keep my weight-loss plans firmly inside the bunker.

I don’t want encouragement from the wider public. I don’t want accountability. I don’t want anybody checking in.

Most importantly, I do not want anyone watching.

Because the moment people know you are trying to lose weight, something changes. Your completely ordinary lunch is no longer just lunch. It has somehow become public property.

You take a biscuit.

Eyebrow.

You have seconds.

Eyebrow.

You join everyone for pizza on Friday.

Very significant eyebrow.

They have no idea that perhaps I have deliberately eaten differently all week because I knew Pizza Friday was coming and I wanted two glorious slices without turning the occasion into an ethical crisis.

They just know I said I was on a diet and now I appear to be eating pepperoni.

Case closed.

I do not want every meal turned into a progress report

There are certain questions I would happily go the rest of my life without hearing.

“How’s the diet going?”

“Still on the diet?”

“How much have you lost?”

“How much do you want to lose?”

And the particularly deranged:

“What do you weigh now?”

I don’t even tell my husband what I weigh, and I hide the number on the scale from the shower and the sink in case they somehow catch sight of it.

Why on earth would I tell you, you curious little ferret?

I can’t imagine many other private goals where people would feel this comfortable requesting statistics.

How much money have you saved?

How much is in your pension?

Exactly how much debt do you have left?

Yet mention weight loss and suddenly we are holding a quarterly review.

Even praise can become oddly uncomfortable.

“You’re doing so well!”

Lovely. Thank you.

Now I must apparently continue doing well in front of you indefinitely.

There is also the classic:

“Oh, you don’t need to lose weight.”

I know it is usually meant kindly. But if I very obviously do want to lose weight, and you very obviously know why I might want to lose weight, now we have begun our conversation with a polite little lie.

This does not make me want to entrust you with my innermost hopes.

Then everybody wants to know what you’re doing

This is another reason I keep schtum.

Eventually somebody asks:

“What diet are you following?”

And this is where things can become exhausting.

The honest answer for me may involve eating once a day sometimes, fasting in some form, or simply arranging my food so I can stay in a calorie deficit while still getting what I need.

Some of my meals are bland and extremely functional.

And I am completely fine with that.

They are mine. They do the job.

They exist because I have stood in the kitchen thinking: protein, fibre, nutrients, least possible calorie damage, go.

I do not particularly want to explain this meal to Brenda from Accounts.

Nor do I want to hear why somebody else could never fast because of their blood sugar, their metabolism, their neighbour Sandra or an article they read in 2017.

That may all be completely relevant to them.

It is simply not relevant to what I am quietly doing with my own lunch.

I don’t need everybody to approve of my method.

And, frankly, why should I share all my secrets anyway?

There is something I like about keeping a goal contained

I have always been private about plans.

Projects, work, weight loss. I would much rather disappear behind the curtain, get on with it, and then one day emerge with the finished thing.

I am very partial to a grand reveal.

There is something sacred to me about a new goal before everybody has handled it.

While it is still private, it belongs entirely to me.

Nobody has an opinion yet. Nobody is asking for updates. Nobody has turned it into conversation.

It is concentrated.

Just me and the thing I am trying to do.

The moment I announce it widely, it feels diluted. Other people start putting their grubby fingerprints on it and breathing all over it.

And some goals, especially the ones that matter badly, are nicer before everybody has had a poke.

Of course, there is another reason

Failure.

I have enthusiastically started weight-loss attempts before and then quietly stopped.

The plan loses its shine. Something happens. I drift. I give up.

That is disappointing enough when I am the only witness.

If I have told everybody, I now acquire an entirely unnecessary second problem.

Someone eventually asks:

“So, how’s the diet going?”

And I have to explain that it isn’t.

Perhaps this is cowardly.

Sometimes I keep my goal private because I don’t want anybody watching me fail.

But I think there is something even more uncomfortable underneath that.

I don’t want them seeing how badly I hoped to succeed.

That is the vulnerable bit.

Failure itself is familiar.

Hope is much more embarrassing.

I don’t think secrecy is always the answer

There are people worth telling.

My husband needs to know because we live together. Food, meals, shopping and plans affect both of us. His support can actually make things easier.

Someone else might genuinely benefit from a friend who walks with them, a partner who stops bringing certain foods home, or a person who can listen without appointing themselves Head of the Calorie Compliance Office.

That is useful support.

But I don’t think wanting to lose weight automatically makes the information public property.

You can choose who gets access.

You can tell one person.

You can tell nobody.

You can wait until you feel steadier.

You can keep your strange little high-protein lunch completely to yourself.

For me, privacy removes noise.

I am already running this entire operation myself. There are no vacancies on the management team.