I think there's making friends; for which some people would not look much past outward appearance so would not become friends in the first place; and there's staying friends with people. I have found for me that my self-esteem has a lot to do with how well I maintain my friendships. When I was young I too was thin but my self esteem was not very good so making friends was difficult. One of my best friends (we're still friends 45 years later) was athletic and I was not but, to be around her I had to jump through some pretty unfriendly hoops! I went to hockey camp with her one summer (I hate running and was "okay" at sports but not enthusiastic :-) and a lot of my interaction with this friend was my access to a car and being able to drive she and her other friends to athletic events in which I was not included? Our personalities and interests, etc. were/are very different so being friends with her is always going to reflect that. Now we live 2000 miles away from each other but get together for school reunions, etc. and the fact of keeping in touch and the longevity of our relationship, our memories, etc. is what makes this particular friendship "work".

With your examples, your being overweight (as am I; I'm at least 100 pounds overweight) is a bit similar to my not being interested in sports when I was younger and my friend being interested? The friend on the phone's interests are different from ours? As your husband (and mine, who is also obese) say, they don't care and so there's no worry there about being friends but how is your self-esteem these days? My daughter-in-law ran in the Marine Corps Marathon 10 or so years ago, before having children but still has a running group, etc. I consider she and I good friends because my self esteem does not feel threatened by her being thin and athletic. That's her "thing" like reading/study/research is my "thing". I feel she accepts me as I accept her, warts and all I think if we worry about being accepted or about accepting others (I'm good friends with my husband's ex-wife) then we need to work on our own self esteem/perspective. I don't care if you eat a dozen cupcakes for breakfast or run 5k races every day before breakfast. If we were friends I'd enjoy talking to you when I had the opportunity and doing whatever we enjoyed doing together when we got together (whatever joint "thing" we had).

If you weighed 130 (half my weight) and asked me how my efforts at weight loss were going, I'd tell you what I was doing in that area or be amused at your nosiness/assumptions/asking, depending on why I thought you were asking. If I trusted you and you were a good friend I'd discuss the subject but if you came out of left field I'd say something like, "And you're asking me this, why???" in an amused/incredulous voice to either let you know you were out of line or to get more details as to your thoughts/feelings and perspective, etc. If you "blundered" on in an "I-care-about-you"/know-more-about-what's-good-for-you-than-you-do voice I'd set you straight with a firm boundary that I do not believe you are better able to evaluate my life than I am and that I am not interested in discussing this subject with you and then I'd change the subject with a general question about you/what you're up to in your life.