Should I be happy?

How do you accept a compliment if you don't know if it was meant to be a compliment?

This issue is something I have been wondering about since yesterday and I still can't figure it out. Maybe it is because I am learning to accept compliments. Maybe it's because I am learning to love myself just the way I am. Maybe it's a combination of both.

It all started last Friday, when I got a lap full of over happy woman trying to hug me despite my best efforts to keep her from choking me. She was going on and on about how I must have lost weight and how good I look and comments similar to it. I was too shocked to get out a coherent reply, and even if I had, I don't think she would have understood me. I just didn't feel like she was complimenting me.

Then yesterday morning, some of my coworkers and I were discussing Boy and how, because he is much taller than I am and has much longer legs than I do, he walks much faster than I do. This has lead to a drastic improvement of my cardio and I no longer get winded to the point of asthma when I am walking with him. One of my coworkers piped up with that it also looked like I have lost some weight, and all I could come up with as a reply was an awkward "I might have. I don't own a scale". Again, I don't know if it was meant as a compliment or just an observation.

I can deal with it if it was just an observation. If that was the case "you have lost weight" would fall into the same category as "you have a shirt on" and there would be no fuss about it.

If it was meant as a compliment, the comment would actually make me a bit angry. Complimenting my weight lost is like telling me that I am reaching a, in the eyes of the beholder, much more desirable state than I was in before. It's like saying "You're actually smart" and thinking I'll be grateful for you noticing.

I know I weigh more than the BMI scale says I should. I have had no less than three doctors being amazed that I, with a BMI over 30, have no physical problems related to weight. I was born with three defects (chronically inflamed windpipes aka asthma, severe migraines, and a serotonin deficiency), but aside from those, I am a poster girl for perfect health.

Me, the Poster Girl. I love that hat.

Even if the last comments about my body were meant as mere observations, I would still like to know how to gracefully respond to compliments I don't feel are compliments. I might end up in a similar, but unrelated situation in the future.