hi, dear 146. i wanted to give you a bit of support for your frustrations. i too am "height challenged" (the reason why i have a closet full of platform shoes, but that's another story), and i too have lots of ppl telling me that i look fine, and constantly ask me to justify the reason i'm dieting. my bmi is also in the unhealthy range, and personally, i see the reasons for dieting all over my body, and that's enough for me.

what i've done is to be a tad less than honest and tell them that i have hypoglycemia, and that aside from the lack of sugar, they never see me eat anything unusual. actually, if they never knew i was on atkins, they'd think i was eating quite well - all vegetables and lean protein. the part that sets them all off is when someone introduces a cake//box of donuts//pastries into the office and time after time i refuse it. i think they get the idea that i'm somehow better than they are, that by turning my head at their sweets, i am rejecting their lifestyle (and truth be told, i am...)

this is why the hypoglycemia line works so well... and in all honesty, i know very few people on a lc diet that didn't have a bad reaction to refined carbs, and since all bad reactions are indeed some form of allergy, i really don't even feel i am lying to them. as a matter of fact, the very first person to introduce me to low carbing was a woman who suffered from hypoglycemia, and she recovered remarkably well within the first month.

hope things get easier for you. bottom line is they really have no place in judging your lifestyle, so you have every right to tell them to bugger off.

your friend in height,
melissa