Who are we losing weight for... Really?

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  • enlighted09
    enlighted09 Posts: 22 Member
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    I started out wanting to lose to feel sexy, but now it's changed. I will say for health and family. I want to be able to go outside and play with my grand kids. I want to be able to walk without pain, one leg is weak from two back surgeries. At 380 lbs., I was dying. I want to live. I don't care who thinks I sexy as long as I'm healthy and live a long life.

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  • passionforprims
    passionforprims Posts: 3
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    I am a happy married woman and don't take me wrong but I do have to tell you..."If that is your true body in that picture..Man you are ripped!!!!!!!!" What a great accomplishment and hard work and dedication!!!!
    (This was meant for another person that had commented..Dunno what happened)
  • nataliesweet19
    nataliesweet19 Posts: 114
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    Do you want honesty? I wanted to lose weight to feel more confident in my body, but it was actually my mother´s comment that was the wake up call. 2 years ago, I read an email from my mom to my psychologist (looong story) where she said that I was slightly overweight but she never said anything to me, fearing she would upset me (my mom is a doctor) . I felt terrible about myself. I always knew that I was chubby, but this made me feel like the most ugliest creature on earth (I know, totally overreacting).
    So then I started my weight loss journey (before joining MFP) ,lost about 30 lbs and here I am.
  • littleburgy
    littleburgy Posts: 570 Member
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  • edwardkim85
    edwardkim85 Posts: 438 Member
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    If you're fat:

    - You get hit by a bicycle... everybody worries about the skinny person on the bicycle... you're just standing there unharmed....

    If you're not fat:

    - You get hit by a bicycle ... everybody runs over to you to check if you're ok first ...
  • ItsCasey
    ItsCasey Posts: 4,022 Member
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    I lost weight to improve my quality of life. I was tired of feeling like crap all the time, tired of dodging cameras at social events (and tired of dodging social events), tired of wanting to be invisible, tired of doing all my clothes shopping online because I couldn't bear to try things on a fitting room, tired of allowing myself to be controlled by food, and yes, tired of intentionally staying out of the dating pool to avoid being rejected.

    But losing weight changed me in ways I couldn't have fathomed back then. I am a better person now, not because I'm thinner but because demanding more FROM myself and FOR myself is now an ingrained habit. Sure, I am physically more attractive, and that most definitely has its upside. But I hope the man who is ultimately the beneficiary of that, whomever and wherever he is, will consider himself at a greater advantage because of the work ethic and problem solving skills and capacity for commitment that I have acquired through losing this much weight.
  • kaylagaston13
    kaylagaston13 Posts: 14
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    I'd say sure I'm doing it to look good for other people, but that in itself is for me. I'm the one who feels good from compliments. But I am actually mostly losing weight for better health so the older I get, the better quality of life I'll have. Not that I want to live forever, but I wouldn't mind it being fulfilling and easier.
  • Mother_Superior
    Mother_Superior Posts: 1,624 Member
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    I'm doing what I do because I stepped on the scale one day, saw the number 408 and instantly knew what it was to truly loathe myself.

    Yeah, as the fat comes off and the muscle gets more visible, I get more attention, both from my wife and others too. It's nice, but it's not why I'm doing it.

    I'm doing this for me, because it's the one thing I can do for myself that no one else can take away from me...because I'll never again let myself get to that point of being out of control in the only two areas I really do control...my mind, and my body.
  • wpanderson
    wpanderson Posts: 194
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    I'm losing weight because I finally realized that I want it have a family some day and not being healthy will never be good for a pregnancy or a mom! I know that losing 100 lbs will be a slow process but I'm dedicated to my goal!
  • abatonfan
    abatonfan Posts: 1,123 Member
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    I have a few people/things:

    I am doing this for the glucose monitor that always laugh when I go into hyperglycemia even when bolusing correct. I have noticed that, even if I am a T1, the ten pounds I have lost ontop of the weight lost from my diabetes has lowered my need for bolus insulin by almost 30%. Though, my meter laughs now when I am constantly going into hypoglycemia, but oh well, it's more sugar for me. :drinker:

    I am also doing this for myself. I have been significantly overweight since I was 12, and with my diagnosis, I know that obesity can make glucose control more difficult and could then cause life-threatening complications to arise. I do not want to be somebody who loses her foot by the age of 30 because of poor glucose control. For years, I thought my weight was alright, but I had that horrible "what did I turn myself into" moment as I stepped onto the scale and saw that I was considered obese.

    In a way, I also am doing this for the people who believed I deserved no respect because of my weight. Throughout middle school and high school, as my peers went out on dates and gawked about their boyfriends, guys would ask me out as a joke. It does hurt being eighteen and have never been on a date or been kissed. Tough these people are now out of my life, I wish to go back to that point eventually and prove to them that I still deserve to be respected, whether I am 120 or 220 pounds.

    I also want to do this for my future children and grandchildren. I lost my grandfather, a beautiful soul who valued life, at a very young age because of heart issues. I do not want my weight to cause me to die early. I want to live a long life and, on the day I die, look back and say that I lived a beautiful life. I do not want to look back on being out of breath for walking up two stories of stairs at my old high school, or the worries of being able to sit in a desk or on a rollercoaster ride, or even the embarrassment of having to shop where my mother shops at.
  • xxsarahjwxx
    xxsarahjwxx Posts: 29
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    My trigger reason was work. I travel a lot for work and could only just do the seatbelt up on the planes. And I couldn't find anything to fit me in terms of office clothing.
    However there were so many things that all just built up at about the same time:

    1) Money - I couldn't afford more fat clothes, or all the binges that I was paying for.
    2) Health - my dad recently had a stroke despite being really fit and healthy and that made me think that I'm reducing my chances of a long life even more by being obese. I was also always tired and unhappy and it made life so much harder to deal with.
    3) Clothes - i had nothing left that fitted me and about 10 wardrobes worth of clothes in every size below mine.
    4) Ambition - I want to move up quickly at work and in the man's world that I work in, being obese is going to distract people from all the things that I'm good at. Plus I want to wear awesome power suits to work.
    5) Wedding - A couple of months after I started losing weight, I got engaged so now I want to make sure I don't look at my wedding photos with disgust because i want to remember it as the happiest day of my life.
    6) Control - when my eating is out of control, my whole life goes out of control.
    7) Boredom - I don't have any kind of social life at the moment and so I wanted to join a gym in order to meet people.
    8) Breaking the pattern - I made a graph of my weight over the last 8 years and realised that I have been yo-yoing with an upward trend and I decided that enough is enough. I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing this.

    Then, it was just like the stars aligned and everything fell into place and now I have no doubt that I will reach my goal size because I have so many good reasons to. I have never felt this strong and capable.
  • debbiejane75smith
    debbiejane75smith Posts: 1
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    It's totally for me. I knew what is was like to be fit and at a weight I liked - I starting running long distance running 10 years ago, lost 42 lbs and kept it off for years. In November 2012, I tore the meniscus in my left knee, while I was training for my first full marathon. Being a woman of a certain age, it took forever to convince a doctor that it was not just arthritis in my knee but a PROBLEM, so time dragged on and on and on.

    I sunk into a quasi depression, I guess from the loss of the endorphin rush that dedicated long distance running gives you. I began to slip back into all my negative eating habits in a spirit of self-pity - "If I can't run, I may as well eat". Well, 15 months later I have finally reconciled myself to never being able to run again, so that cycle of self-pity is finished. Now I look at myself in the mirror and go OMG who is that person. Now I labor up flights of stairs in the metro that I used to run up. I'm fed up - I want the old, healthy and happy Debbie back. This is for me. PS have 30 lbs to loose.
  • moya_rargh
    moya_rargh Posts: 1,473 Member
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    Ok, ok - yes, there IS a degree of seeking female approval in there!
  • 00NL
    00NL Posts: 171 Member
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    So that people can accept me :sick:

    All of them :frown:
  • amastre
    amastre Posts: 176 Member
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    I think I can truly say that I am losing weight for myself. Most people say that I don't need to lose, as I already look like I am 20 lbs lighter than what the scales say (Thanks barbell training), but with my goals as a powerlifter, I need to drop a weight class or so in order to be more competitive, as most of the women in my current weight class are MUCH stronger than I am, since they are also much leaner.
  • Warchortle
    Warchortle Posts: 2,197 Member
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    I'm doing for my wardrobe... winter bulking made all my summer clothes tight/unwearable.
  • DancingJester
    DancingJester Posts: 76 Member
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    Everyone loses weight for different reasons. Some for health, some to make them look sexy, some for confidence. Even if society is making us think that skinny is pretty, and that may be wrong, but it does give people more confidence. At first I wanted to lose weight for my health/I wanted to look better. I went from 172 to 148 and was pretty happy with how I looked. However I need to get down to 126lb. this isn’t exactly for me its for my work, but its what I want to do and dieting is a small sacrifice. I do agree with you to some extent I thing if a 140lb woman wants to lose weight so people like her more its wrong, but if you are 18 stone, and that is mostly vfat then you really should do it for your health.
  • oceangirl37
    oceangirl37 Posts: 37 Member
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    I first started losing weight for my family. There is a history of diabetes in my family and I couldn't stand my parents constant worrying that it would be passed on to me. Once I started losing weight, I kept at it for me as I discovered I liked being athletic and running and lifting and hiking. I'm planning on running my first race this summer and I know I wouldn't be able to do that if I were still at the same weight as when I started. My boyfriend liked me when I was fat and he likes me now, so it wasn't for him. And it's not for the media and all the pressure they place on women to look a certain way. I don't want my body to look that thin. So, I started for other people (my parents) but kept at it for me. I'm wondering who you're doing it for OP as you sound very angry and not like you want to do this at all.
  • Wiseandcurious
    Wiseandcurious Posts: 730 Member
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    So many interesting replies here... but, OP, let me ask you a question. Are you perhaps getting slightly demotivated? You are after the first "honeymoon" phase of losing when the pounds shed so fast and we're full of enthusiasm... Is it an endorphin drop?

    Don't get me wrong, you have asked a very legitimate question. I am just asking because for me, when I was just too tired or frustrated to try, the whole "people should accept me as I am, it's my brains and heart that matter" thing was my best excuse for sabotaging my efforts.

    All I am saying is, if that should be the case - hang on in there! There is nothing wrong with being valued for your heart, brains *and* looks, and whatever/whoever your motivator is, it all boils down to - do you *want* to stay as you were? If not, then whatever your motivation, you are still on the right track yo what ultimately *you* want.
  • michelleacohen
    michelleacohen Posts: 2 Member
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    I have a strong tendency for type 2 diabetes in my family. I lost the weight not only to look and feel better, but really because I did not want that disease to strike me too, Constantly monitoring my blood sugar, injecting myself, UGH! I know it is under my control to prevent this, so I took control. Lost 12 pounds so far and I'm at a healthy weight now.

    Being fat is more than not "socially acceptable," it's very unhealthy (but you knew that). Stay positive!
    Michelle

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