What concerns you more - the numbers on the scales, the imag

JAG1224

i have to admit the numbers on the scale get to me but overall i really just want to feel good and sexy in clothes again.

calliope_music

for me it's how my clothes fit and what i look like in the mirror!

perrytyra

RIght now, since I have about 40 or 50 pounds to lose, it is all three equally. I am sure once I start losing, it will be how I look in the mirror.

I hate saying I way about 190 pounds. I hate how I look in the mirror. And I hate the way my clothes fit. won't wear jeans that are too tight. I need to be comfortable. But when I wear jeans that fit, they eventually seem to stretch out and fall down. My husband says I need a belt. The belts that come with my jeans don't fit! They are always too small.

appleofmyeye

For me, it's about what I see in the mirror and how my clothes fit, because the number on the scale only says so much. I am about 5'1-2" tall with a tiny frame, and my adult weight has ranged from as low as ~105lbs to almost 135lbs. When I am at my fittest and healthiest, I wear a size 0-2, and even at my low weight, I have never looked skinny--I am barely an A-cup up top, but I have a curvy butt and thighs that keep me looking womanly. :happy:

My fitness, weight, and lifestyle story:

- 1995-1999: In high school, I probably worked out around 20-25 hours per week because I was involved in so many extracurricular activities--I marched with a trumpet in band, taught kids' karate classes, and trained constantly for karate belt tests and national martial arts competitions. I walked around at around 122lbs, most of which was muscle--I was a size 0-2, and when I'd tell people how much I weighed, they never believed I could be more than, as they said, "a hundred pounds soaking wet."

- 1999-2003: I was much less active in college, didn't drink as much alcohol as your average college kid, but did eat lots of ramen noodles and fast food. I still weighed about 120-125lbs, but couldn't fit into most of my high school clothes anymore--I was about a size 4-6, and I looked...well...squishy.

- 2003-2005: I began training for my black belt, which involved 10-15 hours of high-intensity workouts each week and a very strict diet (no booze, no high-fat foods, very little sugar, and lots of veggies and lean protein). I was back into my old clothes, but this time I weighed about 115lbs--almost 10lbs less than I had in high school. In the mirror, I mostly happy with my appearance, but I was afraid I looked almost too muscular for my frame.

- 2005-2007: The stresses of a bad break-up, grad school, and a full-time teaching job brought my weight up to 133lbs, and I was wearing a size 8. My waist-to-hip ratio was about 85% and my BMI teetered into the overweight range at about 25. I had a round belly, wider bottom, thicker arms, and a bit of a double chin. My boobs got bigger, but that was the only upside to the situation. I didn't like what I saw in the mirror at all, and I especially didn't like that of all my clothes, I only owned two pairs of size 6-8 pants that I could (just barely) squeeze into. My husband-to-be, whom I met during this time, thought I was beautiful no matter what....but I was still unhappy with how I looked and felt.

- 2007-2009: I began trying to lose weight, because I was not healthy or content with my size and shape. My goal was to fit into my old clothes again, but because I was not as muscular anymore, that goal landed me at a range of 105-110lbs. I felt healthy and happy, and in the mirror I looked mostly like I had at my black belt fittest--still lean and well-defined, but without that too-muscly look that I'd had before. When Micah and I got married in 2009, I felt beautiful!

- 2009-2010: After we got married, my husband and I started buying most of our food from a local farmer's market, and we shifted from mostly packaged, processed, or restaurant-prepared foods to cooking almost everything from scratch. Many of the things we cooked were not healthy at all! Micah became obsessed with delicacies like pork belly, hog jowl bacon, roasted bone marrow, liver mousse, etc. We cooked a lot of veggies, but used way too much lard and duck fat, and a love affair with a local dairy convinced me that it was a great idea to put their 40% milkfat heavy whipping cream in my coffee every day. We also drank lots of wine and ate lots of cheese. Oops. Needless to say, within a year of our marriage, my weight crept up about 10lbs, I started looking a tad squishy again, and some of my smaller clothes stopped fitting.

- 2010-present: Last year, my husband and I bought a house in a wonderful, walkable neighborhood, with lots of sidewalks, close proximity to our downtown area, and several stores and healthy restaurants in a 1.5-mile range. We have become much more active than we were before, which is great! We have spent the last month on MFP, mostly so that we are held more accountable for what--and how--we cook. Now that we're more aware of just how badly we were eating before, we still enjoy some of the sinful dishes that we discovered during our budding foodie phase, but our diet is much more balanced, with more whole grains, beans, fresh fruits, and veggies--and less fat and booze!

Now, when I look in the mirror, I am very happy with how I look--fit and lean, but still curvy in all the right places. Almost all of my favorite clothes fit again, and I know that when I reach my goal in a few weeks, all of them will. I will be happy to lose those last 3.2lbs on my ticker, but I am much less concerned with that than I am with being healthy, eating plenty of fresh fruits and veggies, living an active lifestyle, and, of course, fitting into my favorite jeans.

kelsully

I go frst by how my clothes ft, then the scale. I don't trust my perception of the image in the mirror. There have been times at 30 lbs heavier that I convinced mayself "I carry it well There have also been time at this weight that all I see are the imperfections and hate the image...but even when I think my belly is odd and I start wondering what I should do to "fix" it I am reminded that my little pants fit perfectly...so maybe my abs are ok.

Elzecat

I have that same pair of jeans sitting in the back of the closet (1 size too small). I bought them for $5 at a thrift shop as incentive to lose weight.

sawras

I would say both because the scale doesn't tell you how much fat or muscle you have, it's hard to tell if you have fat loss or muscle gain...fat weighs less than muscles! Clothes can shrink and stretch!