Body image issues

I hear you loud and clear on this. When I look in the mirror the ONLY things I can see are my stomach and the blemishes on my skin, it's like no other part of me exists... Has only got worse as I've got older!

I imagine most of us on this site have body image issues. When I was a teenager I always thought I needed to lose 5-10 pounds. I didn't, and looking back at photos I looked great and I wish I had appreciated that. Then after I got married and had a couple of kids my weight started creeping up. After my kids were grown I started walking my son's dog and came on mfp and started counting calories. That led to my weight loss and eventually I started doing yoga and running. I am now pretty fit. Even though I feel like I shouldn't say that or people will look at me and think "she's not as fit as she thinks she is". It's like I go through both extremes of feeling like I look good and noticing all of the problem areas I still have. On the one hand I think my arms look great. They used to look like giant sausages and now I can see some real muscle definition. The problem is in certain positions I can see loose skin too and that makes me feel bad. My stomach is another problem area. I know that I have loose skin there, but honestly it is not all loose skin. There is still a lot of fat there. But my upper ribs are starting to show and I can look in the mirror and think I look fat and scrawny at the same time. I hope that my loose skin will improve with time. And I hope that I will just become more accepting of myself, flaws and all. I think that it is sad that someone like @nowine4me is embarrassed of the way she looks. You look fantastic. But I understand. I do think that for the most part I look pretty good in clothes, but when I look closely I do still see the flaws more than the improvements. It doesn't help that people think they have the right to comment about your weight loss in ways that are not helpful. I've been told I was obsessive and that I shouldn't lose any more weight because I looked better heavy. That doesn't do much for your body image.

I can definitely relate. I have had weight issues since I was a preteen. I had four children in the span of 7 years. All babies were considerable size (smallest being 8 pounds, 6 ounces; largest 10 pounds, 7 ounces). I gained a lot of weight with each and bounced back and forth. I have a lot of excess skin, especially in the torso and even my hips/thighs have some. No matter what, all I see is the jiggle. Sure, some fat is holding on...that's all I seem to focus on. I just wonder if I'll ever get to a place when my self-talk isn't "I'm so fat. I need to do better. I'm not pretty enough." It's tiring and frustrating.

I feel like I'm too skinny. My arms and legs are like sticks and I have no butt. I've always been this way and I've always been self conscious about it. Especially in high school when random people who I didn't even know would come up to me and grab my wrists and say there so small! And I kind of feel like I'm not allowed to have body issues because I'm not fat.

Yes! I still hurt from feeling that I lost out on life by being a bit overweight for 15 years. In reality I've been fit for nearly 10 years now! But a tough postpartum period set my self esteem way back. I didn't have my decent shape to draw self esteem from anymore.

So I am trying to figure out how to have the body, but like my self no matter what.

There are some useful thoughts in this thread. Is anyone using any specific tools to help themselves along? Please don't say therapy, haha. I like self-help.

I definitely can! I grew up doing ballet and did it to quite a high level. Even when I was little (9 or 10) I noticed what other people looked like, I saw how the tiny girls got so much attention and their lines always looked so good. Of course it's ridiculous because at that age we were growing at different rates, I developed faster than those girls and had always done a lot of sport, particularly swimming, which gave me stronger but larger thighs and shoulders so I always felt huge- not like a dainty ballerina.

Nowadays I don't dance but that kind of dainty ideal stuck with me. I try not to compare as much anymore, it's hard not to notice though, because it's pointless and a lot of the time bone structure has more to do with it than actual weight. No amount of weight loss will give me tiny hips or long legs. I'd love to say I don't envy girls with long slim legs but I do! I'm also concious of how big my thighs are and the fact I can seemingly NEVER flatten that muffin top.

I try to focus on the bits of my body I like and try find a positive spin on the bits I feel less positive about.

I do, I really don't feel like I am "thin", but in retrospect, I never felt like I was "overweight" either. I struggle to see any changes good or bad. I always feel the same. So I was shocked when I stepped on the scale this past new years and saw what I weighed (nearly 155lbs @ 5'3" wearing a size 10/12). Fastforward 7 months. I am now at my goal weight of 125lbs and just purchased size 4 pants. I should feel "thin" but I don't. I know I look thinner, because people have commented on my weight loss, but I just don't see the drastic difference.

Sometimes I'm like, "holy bananas, I hate my body" but then I'm like, "life is an illusion. i am a speck of cosmic dust floating on a rock trapped in an orbit around a ball of flame in a vast and largely unknown universe that is unfathomably older than humans so why am I worried about this?!"

For real though - some days are hard, some days are easy. Some days I think, hot damn, I'm smokin' whereas I could look the exact same on another day and want to crawl back in bed because nothing looks or feels good.

Also, as weird as this sounds, I enjoyed reading this thread. When MFP interviewed me a few months ago and wrote this blog post, I felt real alone on the subject 'cause it's the part of weight loss people rarely talk about.