I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to say that I’m now 122.8 pounds down! I finally passed that 120 mark, and I’m just 1.2 pounds above my next goal.

I wasn’t sure what to write, this week, until I entered the search string what question would you ask someone who’s successfully lost weight in Google, and one of the surprising topics that came up was about how to talk to someone you love who needs to lose weight.

Guillermo Rigondeaux is a 122 pound boxer. And I’ve lost him, but I’m a fighter, too.

Oh, what a kick in the gut. Because I’ve been asked this a few times. The people who ask mean well and dearly love the people they’re asking about, and maybe — just maybe — most of us have someone in our lives that we wish would take those steps.

I’ve been asked, told, cajoled, chided, intentionally embarrassed, begged with love, threatened, and offered money to lose weight. I won’t even get into the number of people who have seen me as a target for the not-really-a-diet-drug-but-you’ll-lose-weight supplement of the month club. I’ve been told how to lose weight (by people who have never had my particular weight problem or health issues), I’ve been targeted at restaurants, I’ve been asked if I should really be eating whatever thing I was about to eat.

None of that works.

My advice: be there for your loved one, but realize, first, that change requires the internal commitment to succeed. Without it, anything you do will be taken in the wrong light, no matter how loving and well-intentioned you may be. Telling someone they’re overweight and pointing out the health risks of obesity is not only a rude thing to do — it’s offensive. Pretty much all of us who have ever been overweight know what the risks are. Treat us with respect, and be ready to support, whatever that might mean.

I thought about my own situation; how I’d love to have a time machine, now, and go back to the first day of my now nearly three-year-old diet, and tell me that this time is the right time, and I’m going to make it. But even though I was taking the initial steps, I don’t think I would have believed it. I’ve failed so many times that I didn’t hold out much faith for this effort, either. But here I am, more than halfway to what was then an unachievable goal.

What would it have been like, to be my own cheerleader, when I gave up after losing 140 pounds, ten years ago? Would I have taken strong encouragement and kept fighting, or would I have snapped, lashing out that I’ve done everything humanly possible, and none of it was working? I can be pretty set in my ways, and I don’t know that I would have listened, because I convinced myself that I couldn’t go on like I was. And that was true. I should have changed what I was doing long before I hit a wall. I did last for about a year before starting to gain weight, again.

Or even back when I was a teenager, maybe ten or even twenty pounds overweight, thinking that was the end of the world? Would it have helped to have Bitchy Old Lisa go back and tell my father to shove it when he offered me money to lose weight? Would I have chosen healthier ways to go about it, when I made the decision on my own, a few years later?

For all of the hope I have for finally meeting my goals for better health, I don’t think even I could have convinced myself to change course in the dozens of attempts I made over the years, or times when I really could have changed things for myself.

I had to be ready. I had to find the fight and the gumption to dig in and do this for myself. While I’m finally on this path, the biggest gift anyone can possibly give me is to keep supporting me in my efforts.

My advice? If you love someone, let them find their path, and then you can support them and be there for them.

We have to be our own heroes; no one can do it for us.