Were you EVER that thin?

Everyone gets skinny eventually. If you were locked up and denied food, you'd get down under 100, easy.

It seems like the doubts that you have for yourself are really sabotaging your success!
I weighed 283 the day that I had my daughter 3 months ago and now I weigh 241 pounds. I am trying to get down to 144 pounds and sometimes I truly do think that it will be impossible just because, I have been over 200 pounds for as long as I can remember. I fear the unknown and I have no idea how I will look when I get down to that size or how I will feel at a healthy weight.
You can do this. Don't let anything get to you.

I've never experienced this.

But there was a lady who posted yesterday, and I've seen her posts before. She was 217 on Easter 2 years ago and 117 yesterday.
I think the thread's name was "2 Easters 100 pounds apart" or something like that, search for it.
She's had 6 boys and looks amazing.


The only reason you wouldn't be able to do it is yourself. If you kept yourself from succeeding. It is possible. You'll just need determination, willpower, and work to get there.

Hello! I started at 229 and I had been overweight or obese (mostly obese) for about 10 years before I started my weight loss 2 years ago. When I started out, I didn't honestly believe that I could get down as low as I am now. I wanted to get into the "healthy" range, under 145, but I felt that if I got to the 170s I would be soooo happy and that was honestly what I expected. I didn't think it would be possible to get down to the 140s.

Here I am in the low 130s, planning to lose a bit more fat then try to gain a bit more muscle. I will probably end up right here in the 130s, or possibly 120s or 140s.

Good luck!

ETA I have 2 kids, 5 years old and 2.5 years old

You definitely can do it, if you want to. Whether or not you SHOULD is another question. For instance, I could get down to 130lbs, but I'd look like a skeleton. I know because I did it once- and it wasn't healthy for me. I don't know what your ideal weight is and I'm not convinced that you do either, since you seem to think you looked just fine at 150, but are still pining for 125 for some reason. There is more to life than the number on the scale- set yourself reasonable goals, and then when you reach them, decide if you really want to set another one. Do it because it makes you feel good and makes you healthy, not because it's a magic number.

It's possible if you make it possible. My highest was 165 at 5'3" and thought 125 was a great goal weight. I'm at 125 now and I still have a lot of pudge on my body and I definitely know I can get to 115 if I work at it. I'm trying very hard right now to get there (by lifting weights and clean eating) because I want to and I know I will get there. If you have doubt in your mind, you most likely won't get to where you want to be.

I was always a normal weight growing up and didn't have a weight problem until after I had my son in 2002 (not only did I NOT lose the baby weight but I managed to add to it!). I'm 5'3" and tipped the scale at 214.5 lbs. at my heaviest less than two years ago. Now I'm 121 lbs. , a size 2 and back to my high school weight. I didn't do it through surgery, pills, fad diets, starving myself, etc. - I did it through regular exercise and changing my eating habits and it sure as heck didn't come off over night (it was slow and steady). My original goal was 139 lbs. as I just wanted to be back into a normal BMI range and thought I'd be lucky just to get down to that. However, as you can see, I've gone on to lose another 18 lbs. beyond that and I'm definitely not skin and bones. My advice is to work hard, set healthy goals (not ones that are impossible to achieve, but don't settle for just 'good enough') and don't expect overnight miracles. You'll do great!

Do not say unrealistic, it is.
1 pound a week for 2 years. Right?
But saying 50 pounds in 3 months... maybe unrealistic.
You can do it, you just have to focus.

I have a history of being unrealistic about my weight. I'm 5'9." When I was in high school, I was in the 130's. I remember vividly the day I got my driver's permit. We had to list our weight, and I was the heaviest girl in my circle of friends. They were 5'4" and 115. Or 5'6" and 128. 5'2" and 120." As a silly 15 year old, the only thing that registered was that I was 132 pound, the heaviest in the group. In retrospect, I realy that 5'2" and 120 is actually "fatter" than 5'9" and 132.

But it didn't help that my mom had me dieting when I was 7. I was never fat, looking at pictures of myself when I was a little girl, I SEE that. But I didn't at 7. I was always tall and always solid.

I am large framed. My wrists are about 7.5." Even at 132 bracelets and boots have been a issue. I couldn't wear the cute little bracelets, and there's no fat on my wrists, even now. I could buy wide calf boots now, and feet are shrinkling but my calves not so much. Um. Maybe because I'm also athletic. I could walk 5 miles in just under an hour, and if I hadn't blown out my knee, I still could. I can bike 13 miles in 55 minutes today. (And mostly like will.)

On the flip side, as I gained weight in my thirties and again in my late forties and early fifties, I told myself I was large framed and carry weight well, which is largely the truth. But nobody carries 250 pounds, at least if you're not at least 6 inches taller than I am and/or an NFL linebacker.

I cross the line from looking a little overweight to looking downright chunky at about 225.

Do I think I can get back to my high school 132? Yes. Do I want to? Maybe. Yeah. A part of me does. Should I? I don't know. I'm shooting for 188, another 18 pounds. Then I'm going to go from my 1600 calories a day to 1800 and spend the summer being more active and work my way down to 168 by my birthday in September. After that, we'll see.

I would very much like to be under 150, just to see what that's like. At 165, people start telling me I look too thin, and I agree that my face starts looking haggard.

I think a lot of it is just our perception, of what we think is normal. I am almost 50, and when I was a teen back in the 70s, the general consensus of what was a normal healthy weight was quite lower than it is now. At 5'6", at 125 I felt fat by comparison to the other friends and girls around me that were built differently. My best friend at the time was 5'8" and barely 98 pounds. She ate like a pig. She was just built differently than I was, and had a different metabolism. If a girl my age weighed 150 or more, she was definitely considered 'fat'. Now, it is not uncommon to see 14-15 year olds well over 200 pounds.

My weight went up and down a bit after HS, but at 25, after having my first child, I lost down to 136 and felt healthy. I was not skinny by any means, but I wasn't overweight either. Over the next 20 yrs my weight creeped up to my highest of 237. 100 pounds over my lowest weight. My outside definitely didn't match my inside. Mentally I was never an obese woman. In my brain, I just needed to lose a few pounds. One thing that helped keep me in this denial, was that those around me were this weight as well. Society had relaxed its standard of 'normal' weight so much.
When I was growing up, women who weighted 250 pounds were an anomaly. There were very few of them around, and you didn't see them very much out in public. They stayed inside and ordered clothes from the mail order catalog, or sewed them themselves, because you couldn't walk into the nearest Walmart and buy a size 20 pair of pants.
I don't condone 'fat shaming' in any way, but I do think that we have become TOO accepting and enabling of morbid obesity, and it is killing our population.
It has been almost 25 yrs since I have been under 140. And I had just about given up hope of ever being at a healthy weight again. But I have lost almost 50 pounds, and with every pound I lose, I see that healthy, lean person inside me emerge more and more. Fortunately I never lost the vision of what she looked like at a healthy weight, and that gives me motivation to be healthy again.

I often wonder tho, for those who have always been severely overweight, how do they envision themselves at a healthy weight, if they have never seen it. How difficult is it to accomplish a goal that you have never seen? I would guess that you would just have to mentally create that person in your mind, and strive to make it a reality.

I think it depends. You don't say how tall that woman was, and we don't know what her shape or body composition was like. If you have a large amount of lean mass then 115 lbs may be too light for your body. It might be just right for hers.

However, a lot of this is about your mindset. I think you aiming for 150 lbs - well it's fine. It would be slightly overweight, but again, that depends a bit on your body composition. I think that by saying that anything less than that is unrealistic for you, is a little unrealistic. I don't think it matters in the long run, because you can aim for 150, and re-evaluate when you get there. I hear a lot of women saying things like that - "oh I could never be below x lbs, and I would look sick/anorexic if I was". I think a lot of them are wrong, and just don't believe in their ability to lose that much.

As for me, I am 5'3" and I was 214 lbs. I have always been overweight - most of my adult life I have been obese. When I was 18 I was probably more than 180 lbs, so I have never had a particular "I looked good at this weight" goal to aim for. I set 129 lbs as my goal, based on BMI, my estimated body fat percentage, and what I estimated my dress size would be at that weight (for which I was spot on.) I got there, and have been maintaining for a few months. I could lose some more, and I probably will do once I've got my head around the whole maintainence thing. I could never imagine being this thin (and I'm by no means "skinny") but now I'm here, I know that I am able to lose more if I put my mind to it.

Set your goal wherever you feel comfortable, but don't put unnecessary limitations on yourself. Part of this is about losing that "I'm the fat one, I'll never be that "skinny" girl". That may take some time. You may be happy & healthy at 150lbs. You may get there and decide that you want to - and can - lose more. Believe in yourself. :flowerforyou:

This is a fantastic post. Congrats on your success, and showing that it certainly can be done. It IS so much of a mind game. You really have to get your head straight to get your body in line.

So many great stories and responses! They are wonderful to hear and have given me a great boost of confidence. Thanks so much!!

Like others have said, 115# might not be realistic.
But definitely start with your pre-preggo weight and then go from there.
So like 185 > 170 > 160, etc.

I weighed 128# in high school and I'm sure it didn't look so good on me at 5'7" due to the way I'm built.
In my profile pic, I'm about 143#.
130# was my goal when I started but I don't think it's realistic anymore - 140# is though lol.

I'm glad we all helped =]

In 2001 i had lost quite a bit of weight through diet and excessive exercise....my lowest was 165 and was a size 12 and i looked like i was very sick....my mother had seen a photo of me as she lived quite far away and she said i looked too skinny....i am a 16-18, and i would be thrilled to get to 190 or so. I have an 8" diameter wrist, not fat on there....i am "large framed"...

i think we all have a number in our heads of where we "think" we would like to be, but we need to be realistic. The one thing that sticks with me is that when i was 40lbs less...i was not hapier than i am now...the ony perk was that i had a newer smaller wardrobe, but still very low self esteem. I need to learn to love myself.....i was always very heavy as a kid....started getting smaller in junior high school......

I am 5'4". I see these stories of people my size weighing 117 or whatever and it will never be me. I would be unhealthy at that weight. I weighed about 215 at the end of my last pregnancy. I weigh about 140 right now. I wear a size 4/6. My goal weight is 135. I am not sure how realistic that is. I am not really liking how boney my hands and feet are getting and how much my hip bones are sticking out. I plan on continuing with strengthening and toning and seeing what happens. When I went to the doctor recently and stepped on the scale, the nurse set the scale to 100 to weigh me (obviously thinking I was somewhere less than 120), I laughed and said she needed to take it up a couple notches. She looked at me oddly and shook her head when she did get my weight right.

All of that to say this, focus on getting healthy. Fat loss is a part of that. Muscle strengthening is a part of that. Endurance and energy are parts of that. The scale and comparing yourself to others shouldn't be your top goals. The can be bench marks, but use them carefully. My profile pic is from yesterday. I have 7 children and weigh less than what I did in 9th grade. Hard work can make a lot happen, but set reasonable goals.