OUTRAGEOUS!!!! Why should Hallie apologize for her success at weight lose???? This situation looked very similar to my family. My mother resented my sister and I when we lost weight and did whatever she could to make us feel as badly as she so that we would stop changing and she could stay in her comfort zone. Hallie's mother did not want her daughter to change and when she did, saw an opportunity to get free clothes and resented her daughter for not giving her free stuff. It's extremely sad that when a person tries to improve in any manner, others feel threatened and feel it's necessary to destroy any improvements made.

The segment started with Hallie's weight problem, and how she lost so much weight.

But that wasn't the end of the story. Along with losing the weight, her life changed. And not all the changes were happy.

What came out wasn't that her family and friends were unhappy with the weight loss. Hallie created *change* in the lives of her family and friends. And they reacted badly.

In addition, Hallie focused her attention an energy on her weight loss and changing life - getting to do things that had been denied her, overcoming the ties to her old life that might cause her to regain weight. Which her friends, and especially her mother, felt (unfairly, I feel) to be criticisms of their own weight issues. Hallie chose a major live change without thinking of how it impacted her friends and family. And she didn't notice that her interactions were becoming painful to others.

Some time ago a letter to Ann Landers got a replay that still makes sense to me. You cannot affect what another person hears - you can only try saying something differently, until they hear what you want them to. If Hallie's friends and family were to have a chance in Hallie's new life, she is the only one that could have done something different.

Saying her friends were not good friends, that her mother was horrible, is like accusing a cat of barking. It just isn't true. And saying so doesn't make it so. Her friends had shared a life limitation with Hallie - in addition to their other qualities, they were mostly overweight, with an unspoken agreement about the limitations and accommodations of being overweight. Would Hallie have continued to enjoy their company? Almost certainly - they represent ties to the best of her past, and they share more qualities than sharing a weight problem.

But Hallie's friends could not have changed what did happen. The change that Hallie undertook, her weight loss, wasn't clear to them, nor to Hallie. It was just a creeping strangeness, and a change in Hallie's interests. The change, as well as the unexpected amount of change, meant that nothing could go on as it had. Since no one took charge of bringing things back together - until Rachel brought in the life coach - then Hallie's world of 'before' fell to pieces, and all she had to go forward was the life she build around her new size. A devastating and lonely abandonment.

Now that Hallie has had to confront the problem that she has to keep her change in mind as she talks to the people that watched her changing, I imagine she can rebuild some of the ties to her family, and likely some of her old friends, too. I hope so.

And I think the point of the segment was to celebrate Hallie's overcoming a weight problem. And also to help identify what many encounter - how life changes have to be managed if we want to maintain healthy relationships.

And maybe not to boast about losing weight or worrying about too much weight loss to fat people. Like criticizing or boasting about a boyfriend to a girl that cannot get a date, or talking child issues with a childless couple, it can be so very easy to hurt those around us without ever intending or noticing the pain we cause.

I agree with most of the people who posted here. Hallie shouldn't have to apologize to anyone for doing what she did. If these people were supposed to be her good friends, they should have been happy for her instead of deserting her. They are probably just jealous, misery loves company. Who needs friends like that? She's better off without them. As far as her mother goes, she should have said something to her if she was feeling insecure and if it were my mother, I would expect her to be thrilled and proud for me. Go Hallie.

Rachel, I was shocked and very dissapointed at how this show was handled. I disagree with the solution totally. It didn't look like it was thought out too carefully before airing.