Angry and ashamed at your fat/pre-weight loss self?

I am not angry because I had to find ways to deal and comfort myself rather than eat. Now I can help others which is very fulfilling. I am proud of myself for getting my weight down. I have had to learn to set boundaries with myself and tell myself No. I have had to learn I can get thru tough stuff without all that food and find out who I really am. I have learned I can make changes and get my self respect back. Some people turn to drugs or alcohol, I turned to food. I think we cope with stress anyway we can until we find better ways, problem solving, exercise.

This.

I am not angry because I had to find ways to deal and comfort myself rather than eat. Now I can help others which is very fulfilling. I am proud of myself for getting my weight down. I have had to learn to set boundaries with myself and tell myself No. I have had to learn I can get thru tough stuff without all that food and find out who I really am. I have learned I can make changes and get my self respect back. Some people turn to drugs or alcohol, I turned to food. I think we cope with stress anyway we can until we find better ways, problem solving, exercise.

This.

+2

I don't think I am angry or ashamed. I look back and wish I would have gotten motivated to lose the weight sooner. Mainly because I do more active things now that I missed. I still look at the old pictures for motivations...sometimes when I am down on myself, they remind me of how far I have come and how hard I worked to get her. I also look at them to remind myself I don't want to go back there. I will still show people a before and after picture when a subject of weight loss comes up.

Guilt and shame are very different. I am guilty of all of the self sabotaging things I've done to contribute to being unhealthy. - which INCLUDES shaming myself into making a change. Am I ashamed now? No. Shame means there is something fundamentally wrong with ME, shame says "who cares, you're going to fail anyway, just eat that junk." Shame says "you're worthless, you're a mistake." Guilt says "well you made unhealthy choices, what will you do about it?"

Love yourself at all stages, otherwise you may decide you don't care again and go back to being unhealthy.

Angry, check
Ashamed, check
Sad, check
Embarassed, check

I used to be 100lbs heavier than my ticker says. Actually more than that. I look at the few old pix of me and feel so many emotions.
I will not ever go back there.

Well, my situation is a bit different than most of the people here. I was super skinny then got fat. So my skinny self haunts me! :frown:

P.s. Congrats on the weight loss!! You look great.

I'm trying not to concentrate on how I look. I'm trying to concentrate on the emotional stuff instead.

I'm asking myself questions such as:

What was emotionally going on that made me stop caring for myself?
Why did I think that I was less important?
What do I need to change to change this thinking?
What is my payoff for allowing myself to be overweight/out of shape?

I'm trying to concentrate on the WHY, so that I don't end up going back to where I was, as opposed to, " I look like absolute **** in my photos."

Angry or ashamed, no. Sad that I wasted YEARS not doing things because of my weight, yes.

I feel much the same way, but definitely have some anger about the wasted years on top of the sadness. I am working on letting go of that because while I'm not sure it's holding me back anymore, I know it's not helping.

I have struggled for decades with my weight, so to Numinousnymph, I'd say do whatever you can to forgive yourself. If that means writing "I forgive my past overweight self" 100 times per day, so be it. If that means therapy, great. If that means reading a book on shame, wonderful. If that means prayer, go for it. Whatever is going to work for you. Just work to let it go so it doesn't drag behind you as you move forward.

PS - Not sure how long it's been since you reached your current (and/or goal weight), but if it's a recent change, give your body a little time to adjust before surgery. You might be surprised at how much your skin will change -- it is still pretty darn elastic at 23. And if you have any plans to try to add muscle to your frame (and I'm not saying you need to or should, just IF), that will also affect your skin.

Parroting what other people have already said, but regretting something or wishing you could change the past does nothing but waste even more of your precious time!

Love yourself for the progress you've made and the progress you'll continue to make. Be proud of yourself. Losing weight/getting fit involves an amount of self-discipline that some people will never have. The focus and discipline you gain from this process will carry on to other areas of your life, be it your career, your relationships, or any other personal endeavors.

Don't feel ashamed, use what you've learned to focus on bettering yourself. Our time on this earth is limited; focus on making the most out of the years you have left :flowerforyou:

Mostly angry at myself because I was too weak to make a change (although to be fair for a long time I was convinced that my metabolism really sucked thanks to a dietitian I saw when I was 19 who totally discouraged me), and now I'll have the scars forever, literally (well, in the form of loose skin and stretch marks). But there's a lot of things I've done in the past that I would change if I could, and it's a bit pointless to live in the past... best we can do is try to do better now.