Dealing with weight gain?

My advice is to stop with the navel gazing and use your energy for something useful, not staring at yourself in the mirror and imagining that everyone else is as fascinated by you as you are.. I remember what's it's like to be a teenage girl and to think that everyone notices and judges every little thing about you, but believe me it's incredibly liberating once you realize that no one is dwelling on your real or imagined flaws except you. Believe it or not, people are thinking about themselves and their own problems 99% of the time. So if you want to lose 8 lbs then take steps to make it happen, but don't work yourself up into a dramatic faint thinking that anyone else has even noticed it. They haven't.

My advice is to stop with the navel gazing and use your energy for something useful, not staring at yourself in the mirror and imagining that everyone else is as fascinated by you as you are.. I remember what's it's like to be a teenage girl and to think that everyone notices and judges every little thing about you, but believe me it's incredibly liberating once you realize that no one is dwelling on your real or imagined flaws except you. Believe it or not, people are thinking about themselves and their own problems 99% of the time. So if you want to lose 8 lbs then take steps to make it happen, but don't work yourself up into a dramatic faint thinking that anyone else has even noticed it. They haven't.

Couldn't put it any better! :drinker:

My advice is to stop with the navel gazing and use your energy for something useful, not staring at yourself in the mirror and imagining that everyone else is as fascinated by you as you are.. I remember what's it's like to be a teenage girl and to think that everyone notices and judges every little thing about you, but believe me it's incredibly liberating once you realize that no one is dwelling on your real or imagined flaws except you. Believe it or not, people are thinking about themselves and their own problems 99% of the time. So if you want to lose 8 lbs then take steps to make it happen, but don't work yourself up into a dramatic faint thinking that anyone else has even noticed it. They haven't.

Very well said. OP, what height are you? I'm 5ft 2 and I'd be over the moon with 125lbs, also at 18 your body is still developing and if your weight and/or body fat% is too low it will mess this up which could have an impact on your health for the rest of your life. Learn to love yourself and your body and how to look after it properly.

You sound like I felt a while back and to be honest you have to find a way to relax around food. I went to a counsellor for 3 or 4 months once a week to combat my binge eating and help me to realise that I am more than my physical appearance. I lost over 6 stone (over 80lbs) through a slimming club but it was too much and became far too difficult to maintain, especially as I felt under pressure to reach the target they had set for me (and was even told to give up weight training at one point!!!). Once I made the decision to cut my ties with the club I could relax more, enjoy my weight training, running etc and relax around "bad foods" more. Yes I put on more weight during this process and a lot of my clothes are tighter than I would like but I needed to go through this to realise that a couple of nutritionally imbalanced meals are not going to send me out of all control. I didn't put on that weight overnight, I didn't lose it over night and it won't go back on over night! It's not easy and I struggled a lot with allowing myself to eat foods that were previously "forbidden".

It is difficult when surrounded by magazines, tv, fitspiration etc to think anything other than physical appearance of one kind or another is what matters most. You can be whatever you want to be but I would urge you to maybe not pay so much attention to the scales. 8lbs is not a lot and sometimes when you get to a point that's close to the magic number in your head, it may be better to think about how good you feel and look in your clothes than what the scales says. Once you feel good about that you need to learn to love your body regardless of, and even because of, its so-called bad points. I'm still struggling a little with that last part myself but over time and by talking nicely about yourself and to yourself (sounds crazy but it works!) we will get there. I've also found that since I've made a conscious effort to not judge other women on their appearances I am much happier. Apparently what we think about/comments we make about others is a reflection of things we don't like about ourselves.

I hope you can find a way to be happy... x