What are we so afraid of? Psychological aspects of losing weight.

I have lost 97lbs, and I know for me I struggled at times with identity and the changes I was going through over the last 3 years. At times, I felt the need to detach from "my old self" to accept who I am now.

I noticed this would often pop up when I would sabotage my efforts/often fall off the wagon for no reason in particular. I would write a letter to my old self to essentially say good bye, I no longer identify with that person OR mentality.

Find what works for you!

When I was around size 16 U.S. (And still obese) I had a coworker tell me to stop losing weight because she feared I was going to stop looking "Large and in charge". I'm in a leadership role at work and she thought the smaller version of me would have a less intimidating presence. "You can lose more weight....but I don't want to see you get all WISPY and in charge! When I think of you I don't think wispy and wimpy!" I assured her that I was putting in enough hours in the weight room to leave me lean not in an emaciated way but in a strong and fit way. Mess with Doc Banana and she will do an overhead press with you as she throws you from her office, that kind of thing. She seemed satisfied with that ha ha.

Maybe a mental reframe of this would help those who have fears? For example, BIG can come from your personality and not just your size...in the way you confidently walk into that circle that you want to part. Maybe that confident (not cocky) presence is something that you can develop as you get smaller? Perhaps feeling great about how you look can help that aspect of your personality come out? Sometimes I had the habit of shrinking myself in order to appear less fat, rarely sitting with an open posture but with arms and legs crossed so as to not take over the seat next to me. As I lost, I began to unshrink myself, to take up the space with my posture.

Or maybe it might also help to reframe this as I did...you are not getting little and wispy and insubstantial, taking up less space in the world...but shedding the dead weight of fat so you can be faster, more agile, more muscular, more strong, more fit. A more impressive presence.

For the record, I haven't seen anyone take me less seriously as I've shrunk from size 22W to size 8. No one stopped paying attention as I walked up or started pushing me around like I'm wispy. If anything, people are more respectful and more warm to me. I'm a college professor and my teaching evaluations have gone up this year without anything else changing substantially except the weight loss. I can feel a different and more positive reaction from my class. These are freshmen/sophomores who didn't know me looking the other way so this isn't a "yay, you lost weight" or "I like you because you shared your weight struggle" thing. Thinner me is just normal me to them and I haven't talked about my weight loss with them. I've wondered if my personality and confidence changed....or if I'm just seeing how my personality is received without being filtered through the lens of lots of bad "fat person" stereotypes and prejudices? Students no longer walk in, look at me, and put an overlay of stupid, undisciplined, lazy, gluttonous, slow, etc. on top of what I show them.

I am 5'7" and tend to be athletic and muscular. 17 years ago, I weighed 250lbs. Since then, I've gone as low as 140 and as high as 195 (pregnancy). Mostly I've maintained at about 160lbs. The thing that has always stopped me from reaching and maintaining my goal of 135lbs has been internal dissatisfaction combined with the negative comments of people in my life.

The thing about being overweight is it is an excuse for why I feel empty, unaccomplished, not worthy, etc. Every self-loathing thought has a "bad guy" to aim it at. All my problems are because I'm fat. Guess what?! When I've been lean, I'm still unhappy! I'm still a single mom, caring for my physically disable mother, working full time, always putting everything out there for others with no one to back me up. I inevitably want to get back to that comfortable place of eating a little too much and having an excuse for why I'm unhappy carrying my burdens. It's a complete psychological entanglement.

Aside from all the internal stuff, I am also very vulnerable to external validation or invalidation as the case may be. Whenever I get lean (close to 140 lbs) I start to get some comments about being "too skinny" and that I need to "eat a hamburger". This doesn't come from everyone, just a few people, but it always comes at the most difficult time. The closer you get to goal weight, the fewer calories you can eat AND your metabolism as slowed to a creep from prolonged famine. It is like a full time job to keep my hands out of the proverbial cookie jar and my workouts are daily and intense. I'm already grappling with my psychological demons and then I get external support to go ahead and give up. The reaction of a few people is like the straw that broke the camel's back.

I've been in counseling and have been studying yoga and Buddhism for the last two years. I hope that I'm finally ready to allow my true self to come out.I intellectually now realize that overweight or lean, my burdens are the same. I hope that accepting my self and my burdens will help me to reach my goal weight without collapsing under all the pressure I feel.

Thank you for sharing your stories and letting me share a bit of mine

Suddenly I'm starting to look a more 'normal' size, just very overweight rather than super obese, and to be honest it's scaring me - I've been so used to being the butt of jokes over the last thirty years or so that it's hard to get into my head that I don't stick out in a crowd as much now. My head is a mess, I keep asking my husband for comparisons when I see a person in the street and my perception of my body is way out, in my mind I'm still gigantic - and I know my head will be the hardest battle to fight.