Do you ever have this fear?

We all have made mistakes from the past that we regret, but living in the past is never healthy and impedes true progress. Hopefully when you reach your goal weight you'll look in the mirror and just love yourself and progress forward, no looking back. Staying stuck in the past doesnt allow you to focus on your future.

jezahb wrote: »

Let me be clear that this fear isn't something that would ever stop me from continuing my weight loss journey, but is something that is on my mind. For those of you that have a significant amount to lose (this isn't for the "vanity weight" people, we are talking 50, 100 lb overweight) and that have been heavy for most of their lives, do you ever fear being angry at your past self once you lose weight?

I have about 90 lbs still left to lose (60 lbs down from my heaviest 6 years ago) but have made a pretty good chunk in my appearance already. The issue is, I have never been thin as an adult, or even "average". I am 5'2 and was a skinny, tall child who hit puberty and stopped growing in height but made up for it in girth. I was more or less "average" or even thin until age 13 when I skyrocketed from 105 to 175, and continued to gain throughout my teen/young adult years (severe depression and anti-depressants are to thank for that). So I have no idea what it is like to be treated normally, to not constantly have the knowledge and discomfort in my own skin that comes with being a "fat girl". I get told consistently that I have a very pretty face and being a natural blonde with blue eyes I definitely have heard so many times in my life "you would be drop dead gorgeous if you were skinny". Now that I am losing weight and feel like I have gotten into my "groove" and know enough/have enough will power to eat better the weight is coming off regularly and I am pretty sure I will end up at least "average" or at worst a little curvy but certainly not fat within the next year or two. I am 28, and my fear is that I will be so incredibly angry and have so much regret once I see what I have been missing all this time. My pretty, skinny friends all married amazing guys way out of my league in their early 20's and are so happy...and I really fear once I see what it is like to not be a fat girl and how amazing it is to be treated like a "normal" girl that I will be heartbroken to know what I have been missing.

TL;DR I am afraid I will be heartbroken and full of regret once I know what it is like to live as a "normal" not fat adult woman.

Maybe. Probably, for a bit. There definitely is a difference in how people of different sizes are treated, and that's a shock to experience first-hand. Hopefully, you'll stay too busy to dwell on it too much.

Dear Jeza,

I understand part of your frustration and identify myself with you in some aspects of your post. It seems like the weight is not the issue here but rather the trigger of your self concept. We are not defined by the numbers on the scale, but by the way we view ourselves. The key of any salesman is not behind the product but in believing in what they are selling. There's a person out there for that will like every size that our body could go through. It's a matter of if you like who's starring back at you in the mirror.
Now if you are attracted to guys who are fit and muscular, those guys might want someone with similar qualities but not necessarily. I've seen all kinds of mismatch couples walking hand in hand on the streets. The key is behind loving yourself no matter your weight. Now that I'm 56 pounds lighter I have the same issues that I had before. I'm just datting hotter man but my dating patterns and my insecurities are still there.
Your friends might be happy or they might appear happy. Just think that it was just their time, yours is coming too. Right now you have the luxury of being by yourself and working on the most important person on this earth, which is you. The rest will fall into place eventually.
Forgive yourself for not starting this journey sooner. But you can't punish yourself forever or think that you ruined your chances of a happy ending just because of your appearance. Live in the present and learn from the past. You never want to go back to being the person that you were and now you have the strength to move forward.
The reality of life is hard to understand. I certainly have frustrations of my own. But I know that happiness is not attached to a person. It comes from within, and it is self generated. Keep up the good work and don't be so hard on yourself. The negative thoughts will drag you down and will not let you move forward.
Why suffer when you can smile? You have been reborn!!!! Don't compare yourself with others because their book has their story and you have yours, and you get to pick your happy ending.

Some of my client's have found this helpful https://static1.squarespace.com/static/518a85e9e4b04323d507813b/t/5492ed7ee4b087ef8e051d78/1418915198400/moving-forward.pdf

I've just turned 41. Except for bouts of eating disorders that put me into the overweight category, I've always been obese. Since I was, oh, 8 or 9, I think.

Right now I'm about 5 pounds away from having a healthy BMI. Very soon I will not be obese, not even overweight, but, as you say, normal. Men look at me, hold doors open and such. People seem to be nicer to me. (Is that real, or am I imagining it?).

My body bears the scars of all those years of not looking after myself. I have saggy skin in places where I hadn't even thought you could get saggy skin. Too much to snap back.

I could get angry at myself for all the food I ate, the exercise didn't do.

But I don't.

Because round about the time I started to get fat, my world fell apart, and I got broken. Food was the only thing I had to make me feel better. More bad things happened as I got older, and I still didn't have better ways to cope than eating. Therapy and bloody minded determination made sure I learned them eventually, and I've almost got the knack of not eating my feelings away now.

When I look at the saggy, wrinkly, shrivelled up state of my tummy, I don't feel angry at myself for scarring my body like that. I feel sad for the little girl who went to the biscuit tin for solace and the woman who didn't know where else to look when life kicked her in the pants.

Instead of being angry, I'm proud of the saggy bits. Those are physical proof of the huge amount of time and effort I've put in to shift the fat that used to fill them, the lessons learned, the progress made, the self-development and improvement.

Is thin privilege a thing? Maybe. But I think that not having that privilege meant that I had to work harder at being likeable, to not take anyone or anything for granted. So I can't be mad at myself for that either. Being fat helped to make me kind, patient, forgiving, grateful.

Depression is a major roadblock, and you did amazingly well to get through it. We are always doing the best we can with the tools we have available. If you did not have the tools available to stay at a healthy weight, don't be mad at yourself. You did the best you could. If you could have done better, you would have done. And anyway, who says your pretty, skinny friends are still going to be happy with their amazing partners in a couple of years? Who says they are better off? You've fought battles that they've never had to fight, and it's probably made you a stronger better person. You will have developed in ways that they haven't, precisely because of your size, that might just set you up for a happier more stable life.

You're still young. I don't think I really grew up until I was at least thirty, and at 40, at more than 220 pounds, I felt felt grounded and self-assured in ways that I hadn't done before. Now at 41 and 174 pounds and shrinking, I don't feel any different, actually. Because the major changes have been mental rather than physical.

What I'm trying to say in a very roundabout way is that you have very many years ahead of you to enjoy being a normal size. The years in the past, where you were overweight, have helped to form who you are now. They will have helped you develop strengths that will take you forward and truly appreciate life at a healthy size in a way that your thin friends can't. So don't look back and regret the road you took. Marvel at how far you've come.

Oh yeah - anyone who didn't treat you as normal when you were overweight? Screw them. They don't matter a bit.

My past self has overcome so much in order to become the present me that I could never be angry with her. In fact I am really very proud of her for never giving up, even in her darkest times. Sure, I do wish sometimes that I had made different choices. But you can't change what has already happened so what's the point in getting angry or upset about it? Plus who knows whether those choices would have led to better or worse outcomes? Mistakes are how we learn. The important thing is to learn from them and try to make better decisions in the future.

The only one holding you back from feeling "normal" is yourself.

As for feeling angry at your past self, what's the use of that? Dwelling on something serves absolutely zero purpose. You can choose (yes, it is your choice) to sit there, and sulk about the could haves, or would haves, or you can choose (again, it is your choice) to look to make your future twice as awesome as you could have imagined in order to make up for any perceived previous shortcomings.

After being everywhere from skinny to technically obese, the one thing I regret most is when I put in the hard work to lose ~60 lbs and gained it back afterward. I felt that I was "finally" getting positive attention when I got skinny, which I had always dreamed of because I was always a "bigger" girl. Gaining it back was humiliating and aggravating.

So now that I am in my second attempt to lose the weight back (I'm down 35 lbs so far!), I am taking a different approach. Looking back on the whole situation... the reality was that I was internalizing a lot of emotions about "needing" to be skinny and "always" being a fat girl. I was the one creating the pressure that I felt on myself. This time around I am doing this for the right reasons. Yes, I want to lose the vanity pounds, but even more than that I want to learn how to have a balanced lifestyle. That means exercising, portion control, indulgences in moderation.

To be honest, in order to get where you are going, you need to let go of any self-imposed pressure. The reality is that "normal" weight adults are also dealing with various struggles even if they are of a normal weight. You really can't compare yourself to anyone else and you need to allow yourself to heal and move forward. You've got so much youth yet to enjoy, don't waste time wishing things were different.

So much hard-won wisdom in this thread. Love it. :-)

Yes, I have that fear and was just talking about today with my trainer. With his help and with a lot of hard work my body looks so much better than it did 65lbs ago, but it will never look like a 20 year old athlete. I've been fat (with a few moments of not quite so fat) since I was 14. At 45, my skin just isn't going to snap back. The extra skin can only be fixed surgically and I'm still having a conversation with myself about whether or not that's a direction I want to go.

I *am* angry that I wasted so much time not being healthy. I *am* angry that I didn't do this 20 years ago. But that anger can't stop me from moving forward. It just can't.

Pootler74 wrote: »

So much hard-won wisdom in this thread. Love it. :-)

Your post was amazing! Thank you for sharing. I'm really impressed by all the responses to this topic. Lots of great advice and interesting viewpoints.

OP, the thing to remember also is, just because you body size changes doesn't mean you inner self and your life changes. You can do both of those things regardless of what size you are.

Being thin does NOT = happiness. You're looking at it with "rose colored glasses". So what if your friends were smaller than you and are married? Doesn't mean they are happy. No sense regretting the past. Learn from it and let it go.

I've lost 65lb and I think I've regretted not doing it sooner (I'm 40ish) for maybe 10 minutes in total, but then I don't generally regret past choices so it would be out of character for me.

Regrets just seem a complete waste of energy IMO and without past experiences and "poor" choices, we wouldn't be able to empathize or be remotely compassionate to those around us.

jezahb wrote: »

I really do worry I will be sad knowing what I have been missing. You can't get time back. I can no longer be a young mom like I wanted, I most likely won't have kids close enough in age to my sisters for them to be friends, I will be lucky if I find a great man before I turn 30 and while that may seem young...everyday I wasted being fat and more or less unattractive to the male gender as a whole was a day taken away from a life with that man. I wish thin privilege wasn't an issue, and we loved people for their hearts and souls not their bodies...but that isn't the world we live in and that is tough.

It can be frustrating to think about time lost, absolutely. But spending more time angry or worrying about it is just losing more time. We all have what's given to us, not a lot of choice in our beginnings. So don't compare yourself to others. Just make the absolute most you can of the time you have left. You've still got oodles to go.

So what if your kids are younger than your friends' kids? You'll meet other moms, your kids' friends' moms.

Also, being a single woman in your thirties can be pretty great.