This Mom Got Kicked Out Of A Fitness Group For Losing Too Much Weight, Because That Makes Sense

A lot of us have to deal with changed bodies after having babies, but there’s no one way to deal with it. In many cases, if one’s goal is to lose weight or just get more active, having a support group of like-minded friends can be a great motivator and help lead to quicker and more lasting success. But one woman says she ran into an unexpected problem when she lost too much weight and then the other moms kicked her out of their club and stopped being friends with her.

(Related: The 10 Worst Places To Find Mom Friends)

It sounds ridiculous, but one mother on Reddit said that’s how she lost her friends and hiking buddies. On the TwoXChromosomes subreddit, a post going by Carlinha1289 posted that two years ago she befriended another cool mom at the park and started going along to a fitness group for plus-size and active moms. She described it as a “real life support group where plus size moms got together after having their babies and tried to lose weight/ support each other to lose weight together.” They all became Facebook friends, hung out in real life, and followed each other on FitBit for support. Carlinha1289 said it was very motivating.

It was so motivating, in fact, that it started working really well for her. In about a year, she lost 100 pounds. But then things got weird, and the other moms started making jokes about her having to leave if she lost too much weight, or saying that she didn’t belong there because she wasn’t “really plus-size.” When she asked about it, the other moms said they were just joking, but they sound like the kind of “jokes” that people don’t make if they don’t on some level think they’re true. Then, she says, she started noticing that she wasn’t being invited to group events anymore. Finally it all came to a head when the other mothers told her to stop coming around and that she would have to join a “regular women” fitness group.

“Last Saturday it pretty much broke loose,” she said. “I contacted the group to ask them about an annual hiking event we do with our kids and partners. It’s going on next Saturday and there had been no details about it. So when I asked what was happening, one of the girls replied that they’d rather me no longer to come. That they felt I didn’t really belong to the group anymore and that I can clearly do it on my own. She added that most moms felt that I was demotivating because I lost a lot of weight and was now able to do more things at a faster rate and that they weren’t able to follow. Finally, they said that what sealed the deal was that it was nearly impossible for them to keep up with 20K to 30K steps a day.”

To make matters even worse, she did try to take their advice and tried to join a different mom fitness group, and the “straight size” moms wouldn’t let her in, allegedly because she’s still too big. Those moms reportedly told her that they thought that with her weight and athletic background she wouldn’t be able to keep up with their level of fitness and activity. They advised her to contact a different group, and suggested the one she’d just been kicked out of.

That sucks so much for her. It reminds me of the secret clubs everyone started in fifth grade for no reason that I can remember. I can understand how if a group was started specifically to be a supportive space for plus-size women to work out that it could be difficult if someone stopped fitting the “plus size” criteria. But to kick out a woman one has hung out with once a week for two years seems pretty harsh. I guess maybe they really were just workout acquaintances and not really friends after all, but it sounds like this woman needs to find some friends.

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