Anybody else losing fat...TO LOOK GOOD?

BE ADVISED **Something that not many people who need to lose more than 50lbs (not sure if you do but this IS important) are made aware of is that skin integrity becomes an issue. You reach your goal weight and are like "Well, this is wonderful when I'm *clothed*..." That is why toning is so important, even when you are still larger.

Thank you for this. I just had an argument with a friend yesterday about this. She said it's pointless for me to work out if I'm just going to eat back my exercise calories--that I may as well not work out at all. I'm trying to lose 43 lbs (23 left to go) and she's trying to lose about 200 (I believe 140 left to go). She never works out because it's "pointless" when she can create a calorie deficit without it. She loses like 5 lbs a week and I lose 1.5-2.

I've been working on the 'diet' for two years with toning, and I couldn't be happier. There's a huge difference in how the body works and the strength involved, and what it looks like compared to losing 38 pounds without toning to losing 38 just by calorie deficit. I would rather the inches go down than the scale, but of course the scale will go down. It's about balance. I've always been relatively healthy when overweight regardless and active. there were a few times I wasn't as active as I wanted to be which resulted in weight gain of fat, not muscle, but now it's about looking good. Just like healthy fats and unhealthy fats, there's the same for obesity. So, if it takes me five years to get exactly how I want to my goal, so be it. I want to do it right, and look smokin' hot, although confidence obese has never been an issue, or attracting the opposite sex.

Personal motivation is personal.

I already look good. Fitter me is differently good, but what really motivates me is functionality (not test results, functionality)

Right now, I can't do the scrunched-up crouch on a surfboard that's a preliminary step to standing up. That bugs me - and since I can't make my arms longer, I'm gonna have to get my middle smaller.

Focus on you. Be positive.

Personal motivation is PERSONAL.

That is part of the reason. Also, I have an overeating problem and MFP helps me keep that under control. Also, diabetes runs in the family, and I want to be able to put my shoes on without feeling like I'm all scrunched up and stuff, and get up from the couch without looking like I'm trying to grab onto something invisible that will help me up or go, "ugh."

I've been flirted with before and things like that, so I know I am attractive enough... but I just don't feel like it. I mean, occasionally I like how my butt and hips look but that's about it. And I like my hair. But my face has this double chin... and there's other things that bug me about my body.

That is part of the reason. Also, I have an overeating problem and MFP helps me keep that under control. Also, diabetes runs in the family, and I want to be able to put my shoes on without feeling like I'm all scrunched up and stuff, and get up from the couch without looking like I'm trying to grab onto something invisible that will help me up or go, "ugh."

I've been flirted with before and things like that, so I know I am attractive enough... but I just don't feel like it. I mean, occasionally I like how my butt and hips look but that's about it. And I like my hair. But my face has this double chin... and there's other things that bug me about my body.

And my feet hurt a lot if I've been on them for long enough. I think like an hour does it and the pain gets really bad.

Yes obesity and fatness can be heath deterints.

Me personally, I watched family members die slow, sad deaths due to it's ravages. So fighting it in my own life is imperative from a health standard.

But come on, an enormous piece of the puzzle for me is to look good. I grew up as a fat boy and that image absolutely destroyed my self esteem. And it wasn't the potential health risks, it was the fat body. The fact that I didn't feel comfortable in my own skin.

Having been overweight and normal weight, I feel better, and LOOK far, far better with weight off. And I think losing weight to give yourself a body that looks the way you feel authentically, that reflects the best of you, is life changing. You can not underestimate the power of living in a body that is visually pleasing to your OWN eyes.

And yet I see this notion constantly villainized. Why am I seeing more and more often this idea that you should NOT lose weight for looks, only for health? And what's worse is that I think this is clearly a lie. Would most of us really be busting our buts to widdle down our frames if our new bodies didn't visually change?

What's with this sham that losing weight to look better, which consequently might help you feel better about self, is somehow bad?

This is so very true!
A little of two years ago I was diagnosed with Heart Disease... you would think that, that alone would make me want to lose the weight. Nope... two years later I am 40 pounds more. Finally I am back to creating a better me... why? Because it sucks carrying all this extra weight and I hate the way I look and feel. I hate having a hard time putting my shoes on.

In this for both health and looks. I already got my blood pressure down, now I'm going for the rest of the pie. I want to look good and make my husband proud. After all, I was a size 10 when he married me.

I have about 20 more pounds to lose, Its the last of my pregnancy fat, yes i say fat because the first 4 weeks after giving birth i lost all the pregnancy weight (All 15 pounds of it lmao) and still had another 70 pounds to go lol.

Excellent conversation starter!

I was fat my entire life, even as an infant. My doctor told my mother I was too fat at six months old. She was told to put me on a diet, which she did. It didn't work. I grew up the fat kid who was made fun of because, back in the 60's and 70's, obese kids were the minority. The kids at school gave me a hard time, and my dad was even worse. My mother tried to steer me in the right direction of "good" food while my skinny family ate all the "bad" food because they were thin.

The more people bugged me about my weight, the worse I felt about myself, as if there were something wrong with me. As a kid, and even partially through adulthood, I allowed myself to have really low self esteem due to my weight.

About 12 or 13 years ago, after trying fad diets and allowing myself to have yo-yo weight, I said enough. I didn't want to be overweight any more, and I certainly did not want to feel badly about myself either. I signed up with a trainer at the gym, who worked with me on weight lifting but not diet. I went through a couple of trainers because they moved on from the gym, but then I found one who taught me how to do full body workouts and how to log food calories. He told me this new "plan" was a lifestyle change and not a diet. He told me if I wanted to keep the weight off I would have to learn how to log my food and exercise, though at that time I was not logging calories burned.

I listened and lost about 50 pounds, which was a total of 70 from my highest weight when I was in my twenties. My weight fluctuated by about ten pounds over the next four or five years, then more slowly crept back on over the following five year period. Last year I made myself step on the scale and found I'd gained back about 30 pounds! I was unhappy with the way I looked, and I also was concerned about how aching my body was during the cold winters, and I just didn't feel good. After blood tests, the doctor could not find anything wrong with me.

Last April, I decided it was time to get back to the basics again of logging food and exercise, but I dreaded writing it out by hand again. That was when I found My Fitness Pal. What a great tool for logging food and exercise. I bought a food scale and a heart rate monitor to ensure accuracy. I made a plan to weight lift (mostly free weights) and run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and do other exercise on Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday and/or Sunday.

In other words, I made the decision to eat less and move more.

Today, almost one year later, I am at my lowest weight I have ever been as an adult, and I am within the healthy range for my body frame (large) and my height. I feel fantastic, but I also look fit and healthy. I love how I look, and the fact that my old size sixes are comfortably loose on me. Yep, that was my plan, to get back to my old weight and to get back into my clothes, but the fact is that I like having my clothes a bit roomy so losing that extra six or seven pounds from my weight ten/eleven years ago is just fine with me.

There is nothing wrong with losing weight because you want to look good. When you've grown up the fat kid and you conquer losing weight and maintaining for any period of time, it's a big boost to self-esteem.

Actually, it is the ONLY reason why I'm trying to lose weight. In the words of Kevin Spacey, "I wanna look good naked."

Wouldn't it be disappointing if one did not look better after losing so much weight? I'm a little afraid of that.