Fat Shaming Yourself
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I find that I get a lot of personal satisfaction from working out pretty much every day. It's difficult for me to be too negative about my looks when I know how much I am capable of doing with it.0
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I know I would never be as hard on anyone else than I am on myself. I do have pics of myself while participating in a mud run and those are on my fridge to remind myself how I never want to look again. I do celebrate little victories, unfortunately, I tend to see them as a reason to treat myself and not by getting new clothes, if ya know what I mean. I am getting better at this, and I know it will be a long time before I see myself as beautiful. I am working at making this investment in myself and finding new ways to see me.0
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I'm horrible to myself, always have been. I say things to myself I wouldn't say to my worst enemy.
I might be thin one day, but I'll never be pretty... it's just not going to happen.0 -
I had ot of self hatred because of my weight several years ago. I started to want to harm myself. I started changing my thoughts by writing a list of 10 things I liked about myself. I noticed thatI would also view others negatively because of my hang up about myself so worked on finding their good qualities too.
I am overweight. To be healthier and do the things I want to do life, I am losing weight and exercising. My value as a person is not how much I weigh or what size my jeans are. I am not disgusting or a bad person. No need to be dramatic about it.
Exactly! Well said.0 -
katherine_startrek_fan wrote: »I find that I get a lot of personal satisfaction from working out pretty much every day. It's difficult for me to be too negative about my looks when I know how much I am capable of doing with it.
This has been true for me too. Always when I get more active my focus changes from looks alone to performance and doing the best I can and improving, and I tend to feel a ton better about myself physically (not unrealistically but not bizarre "I'm disgusting" kind of thoughts) even before I am anywhere near where I'd like to be physically. I think that change of focus is really healthy (and ultimately less self-centered than obsessing about physical imperfections).0 -
I know I would never be as hard on anyone else than I am on myself. I do have pics of myself while participating in a mud run and those are on my fridge to remind myself how I never want to look again. I do celebrate little victories, unfortunately, I tend to see them as a reason to treat myself and not by getting new clothes, if ya know what I mean. I am getting better at this, and I know it will be a long time before I see myself as beautiful. I am working at making this investment in myself and finding new ways to see me.
^^ The bolded parts^^^
Those are the types of things you need to repeat to yourself, regularly. Every time you catch yourself beating yourself up, turn it around and tell yourself that you CAN do this.
If you repeat the negative thoughts to yourself enough times, you believe them. But the opposite is also true - if you repeat the positive thoughts to yourself, you will eventually start to believe those instead.0 -
Celebrate the victories! You may not be where you want to be right now, but you're on the path and 10 steps ahead of where you used to be. When you lose a pound, don't see the body you "shame" in the mirror. See the accomplishment of your hard work for the week/month. And don't just focus on the scale. Focus on the non-scale victories. When you can run further, bike faster, lifting more, etc. that's your body achieving success. You can't shame that successful body!
And don't compare yourself to others. It's easy to shame yourself when you're comparing to those around you. I have getting in the squat rack and squatting 50 pounds less than the girl before me, but I snap myself back into reality that I am working hard and that's all that matters. As long as I improve, nothing else should affect me.0 -
What's done is done. I can't go back in time and change that. I can only work on myself one day at a time. It's been a long road to self-acceptance, but I've finally realized that my weight loss journey isn't about punishing myself for how much weight I put on. I'm going to have good days and bad days, but I no longer punish myself for the bad days. I accept that they happened and I move forward (and the bad days are occurring less and less because now I have the right mindset to learn from them.) I move forward one day at a time towards my goal. Accepting myself doesn't mean I'm giving up. Just the opposite actually. It means I finally see just what I've done to get here, and I realize that punishing myself isn't the way to get fit.0
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The last time I tried losing weight, it was during a somewhat terrible time in my life when I wasn't happy with where I was and the weight felt like just an extension of that.
I had this weight counselor that I should probably try to contact now that I think about it. She probably felt like she was talking to a brick wall because of how negative and defeated I was. She doesn't know that after our sessions were over, I actually took what she said to heart and started making some major changes. Got rid of all the commitments and people that were running me into the ground.
I lost no weight during those sessions, but now that I'm happy and I like myself and I'm trying to find ways to be kind to myself every day, the weight is coming off. Your mindset is as much a part of this as the counting.
Feel free to borrow my year's mantra: "Be kind to yourself"0 -
crazykatlady_ wrote: »What's done is done. I can't go back in time and change that. I can only work on myself one day at a time. It's been a long road to self-acceptance, but I've finally realized that my weight loss journey isn't about punishing myself for how much weight I put on. I'm going to have good days and bad days, but I no longer punish myself for the bad days. I accept that they happened and I move forward (and the bad days are occurring less and less because now I have the right mindset to learn from them.) I move forward one day at a time towards my goal. Accepting myself doesn't mean I'm giving up. Just the opposite actually. It means I finally see just what I've done to get here, and I realize that punishing myself isn't the way to get fit.
I like 'what's done is done', why in all these years have I never thought to say that to myself? Going to start now!0 -
I used to be, until my therapist recommended this: I'm not allowed to speak to myself in a way I wouldn't speak to my kids/mom/sister/husband/etc. It's really helped me realize how terribly I was treating myself.0
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Every day that I have to wear clothes I yell at myself lol so uh yeah... daily.0
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I think it really depends on the way you look at it. Many years ago when I was in my mid-20s I let me weight get out of control and put on around 3 dress sizes. I was at the point where I just kept buying bigger clothes and was hardly ever in a situation where I needed to strip off or show much flesh in public so I pretended it was ok and kind of ignored it. At the time I was with a partner who liked me the way I was, and lived with flatmates who were similar to me and all ate and drank very unhealthily so we all thought we were normal. Nobody ever told me I was fat or overweight so I didn't really think about it too much.
It wasn't until I was at my biggest (178lbs at 5 foot 4) and I started to feel physically uncomfortable and self-conscious and looked back at photos from what was supposed to be the 'holiday of a lifetime' that I realised it was out of control and I started to hate my size and the way I looked. Then a few months later I was dumped by my boyfriend of 9 years for a slim fit girl and I felt fatter and uglier than ever.
Since then I have been a lot more conscious of trying to get thinner and stay there, because I never want to feel that bad again. Luckily, at the time I met my current boyfriend and he helped me lose a substancial amount of weight (I got down to 121 lbs) and I instantly felt better about myself.
In a way it was the best possible thing to happen to me at the time, because he was into fitness in a big way and ate very healthily so it really helped me to get closer to where I wanted to be without it feeling like a chore, because it became part of my way of life. He was very encouraging and great motivation for me to lose weight and exercise.
Over the years due to age and also the fact that I have found it hard to stick to exercising consistently 5 or more days a week, plus times when I let my diet slip, my weight has fluctuated up and down by about 20 pounds. Having said that, the heaviest I've been in recent years was probably 149 lbs, and I started again on MFP this time round at 147lbs.
I am still not happy looking at photos of myself now (at 147lbs or now as I am at 141) but it motivates me to lose the weight even more. Mostly because I know how much better I felt when I was much smaller, but also because I know that I am also doing something which is going to be better for my health in the long-run.
I also know how great I felt when I got a lot of complements from others at a lower weight which really is a feeling you can't beat. Another incentive for me is that my friends now and my family are all smaller than me and at the moment I don't feel like their equal. They are never rude about my weight and tell me I'm fine as I am, but I know that I should not be carrying around this much fat so it's really not good for me.0 -
SergeantSausage wrote: »
Do you think you look good in this picture?-1 -
I think it really depends on the way you look at it. Many years ago when I was in my mid-20s I let me weight get out of control and put on around 3 dress sizes. I was at the point where I just kept buying bigger clothes and was hardly ever in a situation where I needed to strip off or show much flesh in public so I pretended it was ok and kind of ignored it. At the time I was with a partner who liked me the way I was, and lived with flatmates who were similar to me and all ate and drank very unhealthily so we all thought we were normal. Nobody ever told me I was fat or overweight so I didn't really think about it too much.
It wasn't until I was at my biggest (178lbs at 5 foot 4) and I started to feel physically uncomfortable and self-conscious and looked back at photos from what was supposed to be the 'holiday of a lifetime' that I realised it was out of control and I started to hate my size and the way I looked. Then a few months later I was dumped by my boyfriend of 9 years for a slim fit girl and I felt fatter and uglier than ever.
Since then I have been a lot more conscious of trying to get thinner and stay there, because I never want to feel that bad again. Luckily, at the time I met my current boyfriend and he helped me lose a substancial amount of weight (I got down to 121 lbs) and I instantly felt better about myself.
In a way it was the best possible thing to happen to me at the time, because he was into fitness in a big way and ate very healthily so it really helped me to get closer to where I wanted to be without it feeling like a chore, because it became part of my way of life. He was very encouraging and great motivation for me to lose weight and exercise.
Over the years due to age and also the fact that I have found it hard to stick to exercising consistently 5 or more days a week, plus times when I let my diet slip, my weight has fluctuated up and down by about 20 pounds. Having said that, the heaviest I've been in recent years was probably 149 lbs, and I started again on MFP this time round at 147lbs.
I am still not happy looking at photos of myself now (at 147lbs or now as I am at 141) but it motivates me to lose the weight even more. Mostly because I know how much better I felt when I was much smaller, but also because I know that I am also doing something which is going to be better for my health in the long-run.
I also know how great I felt when I got a lot of complements from others at a lower weight which really is a feeling you can't beat. Another incentive for me is that my friends now and my family are all smaller than me and at the moment I don't feel like their equal. They are never rude about my weight and tell me I'm fine as I am, but I know that I should not be carrying around this much fat so it's really not good for me.
I can completely understand where you have been and where you are. My thing for now is I am at the biggest size and weight I have been in my life and feeling like I have a lack of support from my family. Not because they are not supportive, but I feel like that puts a burden on them to change something about themselves to suit me.0 -
TheVirgoddess wrote: »I used to be, until my therapist recommended this: I'm not allowed to speak to myself in a way I wouldn't speak to my kids/mom/sister/husband/etc. It's really helped me realize how terribly I was treating myself.
I 100% agree. I have to have a word with myself sometimes to this effect when I'm running over and over how I 'messed up' in my mind. I work at a college and we do a lot of work to try and build self esteem in our vulnerable students; this is a saying some of them chose to have up on the wall because it meant a lot to them.0 -
SergeantSausage wrote: »
With all due respect, you're not talking about the same thing the OP is talking about.0 -
Personally I believe that building self-esteem and trying to feel better about yourself when you are obese is more damaging because you ignore the problem, like I did for a long time.
People around you should be more honest with you and if you feel slightly bad about yourself it really does motivate you to change, at least I find it does. It might take a while to get there but eventually you will.
When I put on weight and get to a level I feel is unacceptable I start to get that horrible feeling about where I look in the mirror and hate what I see. While it's not nice, it really is when I need to do something about it.
As I have been smaller before I have a wardrobe full of clothes which are too small for me to fit into but I refuse to throw them out.
It's really hard when you can't see the end result in the future, but once you start to lose weight you will start to feel great about the changes in your body and it will motivate you to keep going.
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crosbylee, for as difficult as this is to deal with (and believe me, I have been there, done that!) it is so wonderful that you're becoming more self-aware and looking for answers and healing! That alone is such a testament to what a strong person you are and are becoming even more. I am not perfect by any means, but I wanted to give you a little hope that many of us on here used to struggle with these very things and have learned to turn that shame around. Be encouraged! If we can do it...so can you!
If you are anything like me, the shaming thing wasn't isolated to my weight and looks... I would beat and berate myself for all manner of things: being late to church, spending too much money, saying the wrong thing on a first date, messing up a minor thing at work... I was so cruel to myself that sometimes I would actually cry. I was like a child trapped inside a locked house with an abusive mother, and I didn't know how to get out. I was *both* the abused AND the abuser - and it pulled me in opposite directions, like a tightrope, with a horrible tension that never subsided.
The only time I felt any release was during those few moments I binged on my favorite foods. Of course, once the last bite of red velvet cupcake passed my lips, the acidic self-condemnation began anew. So it made sense that I was on a mission to connect as many binge moments together as I could...it helped me maintain some semblance of peace in my life. Of course, constant bingeing can only lead to tremendous weight gain, and I managed to pack 70+ lbs onto my 5' 4" frame over the course of 10 years.
I personally did not escape from that prison until I started doing some serious self-exploration and study on how to heal from it. My quest led me to counseling, Overeaters Anonymous, and a couple of good books, the most influential being one called "Food Triggers" by Rhona Epstein. Through the reading, thinking, praying, journaling, and written exercises I did, I slowly but surely began to see the light. I highly recommend pursuing one or all of these avenues... or something else you might discover on your own... just make it something that leads you into 1.) self-evaluation and 2.) learning who you *really* are, as a valuable woman who has a purpose in this life and deserves to be loved.
I can happily tell you that I have been binge-free, shame-free, and have had true peace and self-love in my life for three solid years now. I am a completely different person, and the love and care I now have for myself protects me from further bingeing and misery.
It's going to be alright...seek, knock, ask...and you shall receive.
Feel free to PM and/or friend me if you have any questions.0
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