Can you visualize what life will be like after you've reached your goal?
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When I reach my goal weight I will have more confidence if/when I am on job interviews.
I will love being able to do my kick-*kitten* two hour yoga routine again.
Complacency could easily become a problem.0 -
Say you get to your goal weight; how will that change your life? What will you look like? How will your self image change? What will it feel like? How will your lifestyle change when you enter maintenance mode? What problems will you encounter? How will people respond? What new opportunities will you have?
I reached my final goal about six months ago (I started at 215 lb. and set a goal of 170; I later revised that to 160, and now 150).
I had to replace my entire wardrobe, except for shoes and socks. I can lie down on the sofa without having to shift my belly around. I'm much faster climbing hills on my bicycle (after all, I lost over two bicycles' worth of weight!). I can run again without my knees complaining. I look thin in the mirror. I'm more comfortable sitting in airplane seats. My neighbors say I look skinny, and a friend told me the other day that I looked gaunt.
I realize that I was often eating out of habit rather than hunger; after two years on a calorie deficit, I'm sometimes surprised at how much I need to eat to maintain my weight. And I'm better at tolerating feeling hungry.
No problems so far, other than a bit of loose skin (far better than being seriously overweight) and the expense of replacing the wardrobe. I don't think I have any new opportunities, other than getting back into running; I did what I wanted when I was at my maximum weight of 225 lb., and I do what I want now. It helps being old enough not to care what other people think, and having been a social misfit for most of my life anyway!0 -
I'll be able to eat more food0
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I reached my goal 2.5 years ago. It feels great. I just celebrated my 60th birthday a few months ago. When I visit my daughters in San Francisco, they no longer have to stand at the tops of the hills and wait for me to huff my way up. Energy is good; mood is good. And I have fabulous clothes.0
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Loose skin
Clothes sizes that I haven't worn in over 10 years
I don't imagine much else will change because I lost weight. Might do more active things like bike riding or get back into archery.0 -
I have never been a normal weight. I've been obese since I was four, so it is very hard to imagine. Positives will be not having to worry about weight limits on things or having to squeeze into places or not being able to do things for being too fat. I imagine it will be nice to go outside and not being called fatso and laughed at. I hope I will have more energy and will find it easier to do things. I look forward to being able to buy clothes in regular shops. Negatives will be lots of loose skin, probably not being happy with my appearance and still feeling insecure. I don't know how people will treat me or how I will cope without my security blanket to hide behind, but it will be interesting to find out.0
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I imagine life will be the same, I'll just be smaller, stronger, and hopefully a bit more self confident. But I will still be me, my life will still be the same, the only thing different than before will be the size clothing I wear and the amount of physical activity I include in my day.
I do hope to be able to do more fitness related things. There is a zombie run/obstacle course thing that I would LOVE to take part in. I hope to have the opportunity to go backpacking or rock climbing. There is a 60 mile 3 day walk that I want to complete. Heck, one day I might even go for a triathalon. Who knows? I just want to be able to go into these challenges confidently, without thinking "there's no freaking way I can do this."0 -
Zombieinkpot wrote: »I have never been a normal weight. I've been obese since I was four, so it is very hard to imagine.
That's sort of my thinking too.
As a baby and small child I was underweight, dangerously underweight is my understanding. But I can't really remember a time I wasn't at least a little overweight in primary school. Then very overweight by the end of highschool and then more and more weight year after year.
Always came last in cross country in primary school by a large margin.
So really I have no idea.
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I found this little exercise interesting (sorry men, it's only for the ladies) ... you guess what you look like, then enter your measurements and it tells you what you really look like. Someone linked to this in the Success forum, and I gave it a go ...
http://www.marisota.co.uk/shop/freeformat/page.action?pageId=7758
When I first did it, I estimated that I looked relatively slender, like I looked 4 years ago. But I wasn't, I was actually heavier than that which was a little startling. I've never visualised myself as overweight.
Fortunately now that I've lost the weight and actually do look like I looked 4 years ago, I'm guessing right.
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Inspired by the feedback I've got from you in my last thread I have another set of questions for you:
Say you get to your goal weight; how will that change your life? What will you look like? How will your self image change? What will it feel like? How will your lifestyle change when you enter maintenance mode? What problems will you encounter? How will people respond? What new opportunities will you have?
I will answer later, first I'm curious about what you have to say!
I did get to and passed my goal weight & maintained for 4 yrs, regained after injuries.
So I just worked out and ate in a way that made sense with an initial goal of 150 (from 178), and that lifestyle took me down to 124, and I just stayed there. I ate tons, worked out tons. Going out to restaurants and bars, stuck to plan and had vodka & sodas for drinks.
Changes: I loved living and moving in my body. I danced as much as possible. I felt free, lithe, mobile, energetic, strong, joyful.
Fashion heaven - everything fit, everything was cheap, and it all looked good. No worries about hiding or being strategic. I wore tight things, short things, shiny or dainty things, whatever I wanted (I love clothes so this was great). I also upped my game as far as hair and grooming etc.
The total effect of all this (including my attitude etc) was everyone being really nice to me in stores - positive responses all around, from loved ones and strangers.
Negative effects: odd responses from some women acquaintances, and uncomfortable-feeling attention from some men. I think I bored people sometimes with my fitness evangelism, until I realized I'd been doing that and stopped.
I've since acquired a ton of injuries. Always working around something, always spinning my wheels, one step forward, two back. Frustrating. I am not sure I'll ever really reach an aesthetic goal in the same way I did before. I would like to be leaner and stronger, we'll see. I can only do the best I can.
My chief goal is working out smart so I can stay somewhat active and functional over the long haul. I hated being housebound when my ankle was out, it was depressing and isolating. My grandmother has rheumatoid arthritis and hasn't been able to walk without a walker for five years - she rarely leaves her apartment - and her immobility's gotten progressively worse. I'm so sad for her, and want to prevent anything like it happening to me.0 -
I have never been a normal weight. Well, <18 months old I think I might have been. lol
I have enough weight to lose that I have no doubt that getting even remotely close to my goal will completely change my life. It would have to. As it is now, I have no social life, unless you count the internet. I have no friends locally. I go out only for therapy, drs appointments and a weekly counseling group. And even then I dread going out.
I have always felt that I was trapped in the wrong body, and that my inside definitely doesn't match my outside. Some of this is from being bullied, but mostly it is because I know that I am not living up to who I know I could be.
I am scared to be seen, I am scared to try to meet people because I feel like everyone hates me.
I feel that when I am at my goal range of 100-120(I'm only 4'11) I will be able to finally live, and maybe even before that. I'm not saying I will live the perfect life, but I feel like with work I will be able to slowly get out there and finally live life. I have no clue how I will look, but I know for sure, I will look 1000% times better than I do now. Heck, looking back at pics from when I was 70 pounds smaller I looked better than I do now. I know that I will have excess skin from carrying around 100's of excess pounds for decades. But the thing I look most forward to is wearing cute clothes that I never got a chance to wear.
I will hopefully be able to walk into a mall and walk the whole thing without having to sit down because my back is killing me. Go into stores and not worry that nothing will fit, and the only issue is can I afford this? I will be able to walk around the mall without feeling like I'm being stared at and laughed at.
I would also love to be able to go to concerts again. I haven't been to one in years because I know between my back pain and anxiety I would just be miserable.
I know that I will still have a lot of issues to sort through. I might even still have body image issues and low self esteem problems. But I have no doubt that losing the weight will improve my quality of life.
Sorry this is so long. But I think about this stuff all the time.
Oh, and being that I am a singer, that has done nothing to further that aspiration since 2006, I really hope to be able to get out there and do more with that. I may never be super famous, but I would love a chance to try to live my dream. And I know I can't do that now, I don't have the look, the energy, the confidence, etc. to actually be able to work on it now. I have pretty much resigned myself to never getting that. But if I can lose this weight, I can do anything! 0 -
I found this little exercise interesting (sorry men, it's only for the ladies) ... you guess what you look like, then enter your measurements and it tells you what you really look like. Someone linked to this in the Success forum, and I gave it a go ...
http://www.marisota.co.uk/shop/freeformat/page.action?pageId=7758
When I first did it, I estimated that I looked relatively slender, like I looked 4 years ago. But I wasn't, I was actually heavier than that which was a little startling. I've never visualised myself as overweight.
Fortunately now that I've lost the weight and actually do look like I looked 4 years ago, I'm guessing right.
Wow that's interesting, I am 20% smaller than I think I look!!!
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Interesting to read about your expectations and experiences; I recognize a lot of what you say.
I promised to answer the questions myself:
Say you get to your goal weight; how will that change your life?
I agree that it won't revolutionize my life, but it will improve many things. I know this because a lot of this has already happened gradually. Confidence will improve a bit. I will be able to move even more easily. I will cycle/run faster. And like many of you I will have to buy new clothes.
What will you look like?
I will look more similar to when I was 18; tight and muscular (even more muscular then back then). My face also will be smaller, as it as already shrunk considerably; I like that change.
How will your self image change? What will it feel like?
Someone mentioned not being aware anymore of how his/her belly looks. I expect that. I think in general it will be good for my self confidence. Of course it my seem a bit vain and my self image shouldn't depend entirely on how I look, and I can say that it doesn't, but I am sure that it will help.
How will your lifestyle change when you enter maintenance mode?
Ok so when I enter maintenance mode I will just continue improving my diet, but then with more of a focus on quality (vitamins/minerals/etc) then on quantity, though I will also continue to pay attention to calories. I will stay aware of my weight by continuing to weigh myself and plot a graph, so that I will be aware if there is an upward trend. In general I like to improve my lifestyle, I find it interesting and I like the challenge, so I guess I'll be fine.
What problems will you encounter?
I don't expect much problems. Ok say may weight does increase by a few kgs (somehow), I would just have to pick myself up again and start losing; since I love exercising and I do that a lot (and I'll only do it more) I expect that such a problem should be solved without much effort. But it is important to stay a bit aware of my weight (or other indicators, like BF%, measurements or just how I look in the mirror) so that I can catch such a problem early on.
How will people respond?
I don't know; people will notice it that I have lost more, they have already noticed what I lost and told me several times. I expect that reaching my target weight will help a bit with the girls (though of course there are other qualities which are much more important, such as confidence, how you treat them, who you are as a person, etc).
What new opportunities will you have?
I expect that if I reach my target weight and I keep exercising that I will greatly improve my abilities at triathlons and I expect to be able to be among the top 10% or even top 5% in competitions. I think being this fit is also useful for everyday life and work, I already reap the benefits of my current fitness level.0 -
Actually a tricky question as gradual changes are slipping in all the time, some I don't realise at the time. I would really need a video of start and finish to show the big contrast.
Little things include being more aware of what I eat. Being able to run round tennis court instead of hardly moving ( really annoys some people if I hit balls they think I can't get) . I'm starting to choose clothes rather than grab first item in my size. My athsma has virtually disappeared. Plus I'm thinking of doing things I automatically put into the I can't do that category. Eg running and also possibly a triathlon .
Even been chatted up a couple of times. I used to be the one that guys only talked too if there was nobody else around.0 -
It's not really about being self-conscious. People stare at me anyway. It's more about "do I really want to make people look at this stuff."kshama2001 wrote: »DeguelloTex wrote: »About the only change will be I'll eat a more reasonable amount. More reasonable than before I started and more reasonable than while I was losing. Well, and some new clothes.
I still won't be able to go shirtless; I have too many scars.
I still won't be able to buy much of my clothes in regular stores; I'm too tall for that.
I still won't be able to fit very well in airplane seats; legroom was always the problem, not width.
People will still stare at me. People will still ask where I played basketball.
I guess I might live longer, but maybe not, and it's not like I'll ever know, anyway. I never defined myself in terms of my weight, or lack thereof, so that won't change. I'll still be me, with the same worries, concerns, bills, family, etc., there will just be less of me and my proportions will be different.
I can understand being self-conscious about this but wanted to note that on another site, I am in a group for asking women questions - whenever men start threads asking how women feel about scars the responses are overwhelmingly positive
Really, though, with a flatter stomach they are much more subdued. Maybe I'll have to rethink that one.
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I wouldn't have been hired at your company due to not being energetic enough. I was hired by people willing to pay a lot of money for results rather than worrying about energy levels. It's a good thing I didn't have to deal with companies like yours.DeguelloTex wrote: »
Good thing I made enough to retire in my 40s working at places more concerned with results, then.DeguelloTex wrote: »
Wow. Usually putting on enough clothes to go out in public and not be arrested and then making it to the interview is plenty energetic for a programmer.Unlike a lot of posters here, I do see how weight loss could change my life in big ways. My weight has always been a major problem that hindered me in all areas of my life. It's just something I could never accept about myself. It always felt like a wrong version of me that I simply refused to show to the world, turning away a lot of great opportunities simply so I didn't have to show myself to people. Failed education, countless work proposals refused, non-existing social and personal life – my weight is why. So yeah, I count on that actually changing once I'm done, as I'm a gifted student, a passionate and knowledgable professional, a faithful friend and a generally decent, confident and even physically attractive person when I'm not busy burring myself under my own fat.
This kind of happened to me. I was rejected at a job interview for "not seeming energetic enough" to be a programmer, by a guy who was very ho-hum himself and overweight.
Not in my company....
Logic fail.
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Ouch. I can see not rewriting stuff that's working fine, but that stuff should already be compiled and an external reference, IMO. There shouldn't be any need to keep compiling it along with new code.
Well, I do have depression, thought then and now it is under treatment. I wasn't terribly enthused about working for a company that seemed like it was circling the drain the way Borders was, particularly when it was 2010 and they were talking about their software still using stuff that takes Visual Studio 6 to compile.DeguelloTex wrote: »
Good thing I made enough to retire in my 40s working at places more concerned with results, then.DeguelloTex wrote: »
Wow. Usually putting on enough clothes to go out in public and not be arrested and then making it to the interview is plenty energetic for a programmer.Unlike a lot of posters here, I do see how weight loss could change my life in big ways. My weight has always been a major problem that hindered me in all areas of my life. It's just something I could never accept about myself. It always felt like a wrong version of me that I simply refused to show to the world, turning away a lot of great opportunities simply so I didn't have to show myself to people. Failed education, countless work proposals refused, non-existing social and personal life – my weight is why. So yeah, I count on that actually changing once I'm done, as I'm a gifted student, a passionate and knowledgable professional, a faithful friend and a generally decent, confident and even physically attractive person when I'm not busy burring myself under my own fat.
This kind of happened to me. I was rejected at a job interview for "not seeming energetic enough" to be a programmer, by a guy who was very ho-hum himself and overweight.
Not in my company....
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I found this little exercise interesting (sorry men, it's only for the ladies) ... you guess what you look like, then enter your measurements and it tells you what you really look like. Someone linked to this in the Success forum, and I gave it a go ...
http://www.marisota.co.uk/shop/freeformat/page.action?pageId=7758
When I first did it, I estimated that I looked relatively slender, like I looked 4 years ago. But I wasn't, I was actually heavier than that which was a little startling. I've never visualised myself as overweight.
Fortunately now that I've lost the weight and actually do look like I looked 4 years ago, I'm guessing right.
I just tried that out and was quite a bit smaller than I thought, but to be fair, one of the measurements didn't go as high as my actual body (I think it was the waist?). I didn't feel like I looked like any of the women there.0 -
I reckon I'll be so thin and gorgeous that I won't have to work. People will just give me money cos I'm so great.0
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One of the people on the team seemed almost happy or proud saying how far back a version of visual studio it used. I wasn't sure if he was making the usual developer sarcasm, or really didn't give a care about that kind of accumulated technical debt. As I see, it should need re-writes regardless because there is no way they could guarantee security on something that relies on so many things that reached EOL status.DeguelloTex wrote: »
Ouch. I can see not rewriting stuff that's working fine, but that stuff should already be compiled and an external reference, IMO. There shouldn't be any need to keep compiling it along with new code.
Well, I do have depression, thought then and now it is under treatment. I wasn't terribly enthused about working for a company that seemed like it was circling the drain the way Borders was, particularly when it was 2010 and they were talking about their software still using stuff that takes Visual Studio 6 to compile.DeguelloTex wrote: »
Good thing I made enough to retire in my 40s working at places more concerned with results, then.DeguelloTex wrote: »
Wow. Usually putting on enough clothes to go out in public and not be arrested and then making it to the interview is plenty energetic for a programmer.Unlike a lot of posters here, I do see how weight loss could change my life in big ways. My weight has always been a major problem that hindered me in all areas of my life. It's just something I could never accept about myself. It always felt like a wrong version of me that I simply refused to show to the world, turning away a lot of great opportunities simply so I didn't have to show myself to people. Failed education, countless work proposals refused, non-existing social and personal life – my weight is why. So yeah, I count on that actually changing once I'm done, as I'm a gifted student, a passionate and knowledgable professional, a faithful friend and a generally decent, confident and even physically attractive person when I'm not busy burring myself under my own fat.
This kind of happened to me. I was rejected at a job interview for "not seeming energetic enough" to be a programmer, by a guy who was very ho-hum himself and overweight.
Not in my company....
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