Accepting yourself as fat and losing weight?

If you are truly happy with your body as it is then you won't lose weight.

I find that sometimes I become accepting of my size and shape when I start getting fed up of hard work exercise and constantly counting calories. In reality I know that I am not really happy with my body, just fed up of the work needed to get where I want to be. But I am not healthy and happy at this size.

If you feel healthy and happy then maybe just work on maintaining where you are and seeing how you feel in 6 month? :flowerforyou:

True you have to want it. Motivation is always the key. You say you don't mind being fat but that is usually what someone tells themselves when they are tired of dieting. I had almost resolved myself that I was done dieting. I have lost a lot of weight over the past 35 years but I slowly and sometimes not so slowly put it back on plus a few pounds extras.

What dieting doesn't teach you is how to keep the weight off. After loosing weight I always went back to my old eating habits. This time I am not on any fad diet. I am going old school, basic counting calories, and doing most of the cooking for myself. Not just eating pre-made diet meals. I am hoping that after a year of doing my own cooking and loosing the weight, I will continue to cook healthy for myself and maintain my weight.

And I am having to do it with no exercise. Strictly dieting. I am not able to work out. Doctors orders (health problems)

It is great that you seem in a good mind set, accepting yourself and having a self confidence are a great foundation - you need to be your own best friend this is the person (who you are now) that is going to take actions to grow into the person you aspire to become. I did notice you said ..."I enjoy food though not always how it makes me feel.".... You will lose weight and choose foods that support your current values in life. The clearer you can understand what your true values are and what lifestyle habits you are following the more success you will have.

Once you understand what motivates you then you will make choices that move you towards your goals and support your goals and values in life.

MFP is good for retrospective reflection on what you have chosen to eat on a given day. Where you find foods that make you feel unwell you can see these and it helps motivate you away from those in the future.

You know you can lose the weight - how bad do you want to prove this (demonstrate) this to yourself?

I have just looked at your profile......you have ready made reasons there to try to get to a healthy BMI and you are young!
I think the comments above mine, have given some great advice...focusing on the smaller picture, thinking about the future! You already have great self confidence and acceptance . I'm sure you'll work this out. You have lost before and that then can be hard to refocus on re losing weight... Good luck!

Honestly, I only just started actually wanting to lose my weight after joining up here. Initially I just wanted to keep accountable for my exercise since I had some fitness goals, went ahead and started logging my meals to help control the binging, and next thing I knew I suddenly cared about losing. Obviously that's not how it works for everyone, but I'm still pretty happy I learned to be accepting of myself before starting this journey since it helps me appreciate all the little victories more, plus I love my body enough now to actually want to take care of it. And yeah, I feel like for me at least, it makes it easier to stick through the weeks where the scale didn't go anywhere since I know I have goals that go well beyond mere weight loss.

For now, you're probably best off setting up some non-weight-related fitness goals for yourself. Strive to run a 25k, become stronger at yoga, lift heavier weights, or whatever goals might interest you right now, and focus on those for now.

If you really want to desire to lose weight though, perhaps write up a list of how it might benefit you, since becoming aware of all the side benefits of weighing less has been another thing that really helped me and might help you a bit, too. Things like less "chub rub," help with seemingly chronic knee pain, less bodyweight to carry around (seriously, when rehabilitating my knee from injury a couple years back, I was painfully aware that it wasn't helping that it was having to learn to hold a good 100 pounds or so more than if I was where I'm supposed to be), being able to actually wear all those cute outfits you can only get in the straight sizes, not have to worry about possibly needing a second seat on the plane... eventually it all just added up enough that I suddenly felt motivated to lose the weight already.

So yep, keep being happy with where you are now as well as all the stops along the way, but also try to find goals you do care about to help you on your way.

There is nothing wrong with deciding that you enjoy food more than thinness.If you would enjoy a better quality of life by being able to eat what you want and stay at your current weight, than to look in the mirror and see a thin person but feel hungry and deprived every day, you are making the correct decision not to diet. I think you have a great attitude about it! It seems like you know yourself well and that you have considered your options, and that you acknowledge to yourself that you CHOSE this option-- not by default nor by any lack of self-control. Many people who choose to remain overweight don't even realize that it was of their own choosing. and consequently feel like failures, unhappy with their weight-- without realizing they would be even more miserable if they had to starve every day to stay slender! You appear to be a very well-adjusted, insightful person who would succeed whichever path you chose.

@ Aedreana Exactly!

I've always believed that people persist at only the kind of exercises they enjoy, and I believe you have to want to lose weight to actually lose it. So how does one want to? One way is to know the consequences of being overweight your whole life--all of which I now know and wish I'd known sooner. Things to consider if you wait till later in life to lose:

Skin loses its elasticity, so if you lose later in life your skin does not snap back--it just lays there, even on your face, which is rather unattractive.

Carrying extra weight for an extended time puts pressure on your internal organs which harms your health and shortens your life.

Being overweight will eventually ruin your knees, and you may need surgery. Your anatomical structure can only carry so much weight for only so long. The same is true for your back--you are setting yourself up for chronic back pain and a slumped over posture in an attempt to alleviate your pain when standing up straight.

When you have pain in old age, you can't exercise, or at least suffer when you try, so you tend not to.

These are my thoughts for you, but then I'm just an old person, so you may not want to take any notice, which is by the way something else you'll have to deal with.

Best of luck to you. Make better decisions than I did.

I've always believed that people persist at only the kind of exercises they enjoy, and I believe you have to want to lose weight to actually lose it. So how does one want to? One way is to know the consequences of being overweight your whole life--all of which I now know and wish I'd known sooner. Things to consider if you wait till later in life to lose:

Skin loses its elasticity, so if you lose later in life your skin does not snap back--it just lays there, even on your face, which is rather unattractive.

Carrying extra weight for an extended time puts pressure on your internal organs which harms your health and shortens your life.

Being overweight will eventually ruin your knees, and you may need surgery. Your anatomical structure can only carry so much weight for only so long. The same is true for your back--you are setting yourself up for chronic back pain and a slumped over posture in an attempt to alleviate your pain when standing up straight.

When you have pain in old age, you can't exercise, or at least suffer when you try, so you tend not to.

These are my thoughts for you, but then I'm just an old person, so you may not want to take any notice, which is by the way something else you'll have to deal with.

Best of luck to you. Make better decisions than I did.

Well I can't speak for the knees and back and all being only 33 but lady for 66 years old your face hardly looks like a train wreck to me. Also I'm not sure that joint problems are always directly linked to being overweight. I know a couple of people myself one with chronic back pain and one with pelvic issues the one with back pain is about average and the one with pelvic issues is skinny!

Well tbh I am not an advocate of simply letting oneself go. But a reasonable amount of extra fat isn't going to do much I think. Except perhaps slightly aggravate things that where already going to happen.

(snip)
In regards to this comment ..

"Well sometimes its not about you. Do you care about making your loved ones worried?"

I think my health my weight my body and my food choices is absolutely about me actually yeah. I might be overweight but as you can see I've made this thread to try get some advice, not to be criticized on how my family may view me. If anyone in my family was worried they only have to speak to me. I'm approachable and my weight has never been an issue that people can't comment on it. So thanks for that.

I'm sorry but I have to agree with the poster who said that. It's not criticism, it's tough love. And it's not about your appearance or what people think of how you look OP, it's about your health. As someone else pointed out, one only has to read your profile to see why you want to get healthy. You only make a slight mention of appearance (old clothes) and the rest of it is about being around for your child and your signifigant other and being able to do things with them. This is a very good thing!

Look, I get where you're coming from. Hell, I'm not in any hurry to get to goal partly because I'm pretty ok with where I'm at and my husband would care if I was still 50 pounds heavier. But it's not just about how I look. I have a family history of heart disease and now that I'm ligher and more fit, I know it's much easier for me to get around and do things at this weight.

You're young so it doesn't seem like being heavy is affecting your health, but trust me, in 10 years, it will start to catch up to you and you will start feeling the difference. That's what it took for me - getting to my highest weight of 260 pounds at age 35 and feeling like utter crap most of the time.

Keep reading what you wrote on your profile page. You can do this!!

I never minded about being fat either. Honestly, it didn't bother me. I was able to do what I wanted to do physically because I was very active, I've never been into my appearance in a big way and I felt OK, plus DH really has always loved me whatever I looked like (and vice versa). The only thing that annoyed me was my family nagging me that I was going to die, which was not only irritating, but also incorrect and affected my relationship with them.

I'm losing weight ONLY for my health, both longer term (the studies are not favorable for obese people and high quality of life) and short term (I have an injured knee that would just benefit from carrying less weight, and it might help my back, although that remains to be seen), and because it's such a non-emotional motivator, it's actually been much easier than I expected. I set my weight loss milestone based on health studies, set my macros based on studies for successful weight loss (while retaining muscle mass) and just executed. I've also tracked not only weight, but also measurements and how long I exercise every day. It's all data, not emotion.

I also love food in a huge way. I love buying, cooking and eating food, but I've found it unexpectedly quite an exciting period of learning to still prepare wonderful food, but make it healthier. It's like adding an extra challenge to meals to make it healthy as well as appetizing with the texture, flavor and color variations I normally aim for.

I never really accepted myself as any specific size. When I was fat, I was still me, and now I've lost weight, I'm still the same person. It's other people that seem to be struggling a bit since I look different.