Will Losing Weight Bring Back My Personality?

elizabethtodd1992

Terytha wrote: »

You might want to consider therapy. Weight gain didn't change your personality, poor self esteem did. And having your self esteem rely on your weight is not good for you. There's no guarantee that weight loss will change much either. Once we find one reason to hate our bodies, we tend to keep finding more.

You're not alone. The larger my physical size became, the smaller I tried to shrink my presence. But that's no way to be. Its exhausting. You are a wonderful person who should feel proud to stand out at any size.

Thank you! My low self-esteem was definitely a contributor to my weight gain, so I doubt I'll be successful at losing the weight unless I take care of myself in that way.

apullum

When I got close to my goal weight, I completely changed my hairstyle and clothing style. I prefer a more androgynous look and I had wanted to present myself like that for a while, but didn’t think I could wear the clothes/hair I wanted when I was fat. All the things that fit me were loose, feminine styles that didn’t reflect how I felt. I got the confidence to express my gender the way I wanted when I felt happier with my body.

elizabethtodd1992

apullum wrote: »

When I got close to my goal weight, I completely changed my hairstyle and clothing style. I prefer a more androgynous look and I had wanted to present myself like that for a while, but didn’t think I could wear the clothes/hair I wanted when I was fat. All the things that fit me were loose, feminine styles that didn’t reflect how I felt. I got the confidence to express my gender the way I wanted when I felt happier with my body.

That’s been a huge motivator for me, being able to express myself more through the clothes I wear. I kind of stopped letting myself buy new clothes when I realized how much weight I’d put on. Maybe not the best thing but now I am REALLY looking forward to my goal weight (but really goal size) shopping spree!

It’s so nice to hear how many other people are feeling the exact same way I am. We’re all in different circumstances but this weight loss process really is a unifying experience. Congrats on your success!

LeannJeffers

I was doing a search today on self-esteem and came across this post. This is exactly how I'm feeling! I lost 50 pounds 8 years ago and kept it off for the longest time. Then I quit smoking and even though I didn't increase my eating habits the combo of getting older and my metabolism slowing down was enough for me to gain almost all the weight back. I'm so frustrated with myself. I don't want anyone to see me in a bathing suit because I hate the way I look! I look back at my "skinny" days and I can't understand why I can't lose the weight. I workout 4 days a week and I track everything. Sometimes I wonder if I'm stuck because my mind won't let me lose the weight. I know that sounds silly...

88olds

@LeannJeffers If you aren’t losing, its because you aren’t in a calorie deficit. There’s no other reason. There are a couple of approaches to this. Are you using a food scale? If you aren’t, get one and use it. Are there a lot of calorie counting gray areas in your logging? There will almost certainly to be some. Look at those. Do you eat back exercise calories? You can cut back some of those. Or just try an experiment, pick a number and cut some calories.

But don’t do this- don’t get out of whack because the calculators haven’t given you a number that works for you. People go to pieces over the calculators. But the calculators are only based on statistics and averages. And no one is exactly average. There’s no way to know exactly how many calories we are using unless we are hooked up in a lab. So between the inexact nature of the calculators and the some gray areas in counting, sometimes the number we are given doesn’t quite work. Adjust it and keep going. Calorie counting doesn’t have to be perfect to work.

middlehaitch

@LeannJeffers as well as the good advice @88olds gave, metabolism decline as we age is only about 50-100 cals per decade. Not a large enough drop to make a big difference on its own.

Check that you have your most recent stats entered in MFP as it does adjust the cals according to age.

The most common way weight creeps up as we age I’d that we get more efficient in our daily movements, so move less.

(Think of when laundry used to be up and down stairs a few times collecting items when you were younger and not quite as well organized vs a few years of doing the same chore and having streamlined it so you have everything gathered and just go up and down once. Less energy expended)

With the lower daily movement also comes muscle loss, this speeds up a little if you are over 40, so keep using those muscles either through intentional exercise, or daily activity.
Muscle burns are not large, but losing a few cals through muscle loss, then the few you lose through age, it can start to add up.

It is great that you are working out, but make sure your exercise isn’t negatively affecting your daily activity and lowering your NEAT.

(ie: you get back from the gym and collapse on the couch for the rest of the evening because you don’t have the energy to do your normal activities)

Here is a good thread to help increase your daily activity, if you think it has dropped, I know mine had between the ages of 30-50.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

Cheers, h.

geraldaltman

I can't speak on weight loss and how it affects personality except to suggest losing as a positive reflecting the same in that. I can speak that losing for me has had a positive affect on my disposition but not nearly as much as having hip replacements, getting thru rehab and PT successfully and beginning (again) moving and living freer. The change in my disposition has been dramatic and startling! And I am really enjoying it.