I posted In the forums, but I wanted to post here because I have some stuff to vent and this seems like a good place to do it. My big goal is healthy BMI which is 164... when I get close, I’ll reevaluate and adjust my goal. To be honest, I’ve never been a healthy weight (unless you count toddlerhood). This whole past year has been a time of really examining beliefs I’ve always held about myself and letting go of some of the self-sabotaging thoughts that kept me stuck for so long.

Other than weight loss, my goal is to figure out how to love myself where I am, while also striving to be better. If any of you were overweight children, you know that that experience can do a lot to your self-esteem. I was told too often that I was too fat to do a lot of things and when I got old enough to know better, I couldn’t let go of those voices. By the time I got to be a teenager I was so ashamed of my weight that I pretended like it wasn’t a problem. I got really good at disappearing, too. If I hid, no one would mention my weight.

What I’ve realized in the past year is that I cannot blame myself for becoming overweight. My parents should have intervened when I was a child and taught my sister and I how to be healthy (and not the crash diets I was subjected to too many times to count). It is my fault, however, if I choose to remain the same. I do know better now, and I can succeed because of that fact.

Sorry for the long post... it helps to get some of that out to people who may understand.

Mellykay88 wrote: »

Other than weight loss, my goal is to figure out how to love myself where I am, while also striving to be better. If any of you were overweight children, you know that that experience can do a lot to your self-esteem. I was told too often that I was too fat to do a lot of things and when I got old enough to know better, I couldn’t let go of those voices. By the time I got to be a teenager I was so ashamed of my weight that I pretended like it wasn’t a problem. I got really good at disappearing, too. If I hid, no one would mention my weight.

What I’ve realized in the past year is that I cannot blame myself for becoming overweight. My parents should have intervened when I was a child and taught my sister and I how to be healthy (and not the crash diets I was subjected to too many times to count). It is my fault, however, if I choose to remain the same. I do know better now, and I can succeed because of that fact.

Yup, I know about the self esteem issues! If I'd ever go, a psychologist would have a field day with me.......

I've been heavy since at least 10 years of age - right around puberty my weight really began ballooning. I was wearing 26W by high school. I lost a little weight, got back into a 24W in college, and then after graduation, my weight just skyrocketed. By 2012, I was at my all time highest weight of 382 lbs. And I had tried a variety of things off and on other time. I dread seeing my doctors. I can remember my pediatrician showing me the child growth/weight chart and showing me where my graph was compared to others and how that made me feel, and I'd get the standard "eat healthy and exercise"

I grew up in a small, rural town, and went to a small church school, so was really the ONLY fat girl in my class or the classes surrounding me; I stood out like a sore thumb in pictures. I didn't participate in sports, didn't have any close friends, and kept to myself. My parents and my siblings were also larger, but my dad's side of the family were all huge health nuts, and it didn't matter that I was a straight A student or that I had learned to play the piano, or won a drawing competition - it didn't matter what I accomplished, my grandmother would focus on the fact that I was fat and my failure to lose weight overshadowed everything.

It doesn't help that I'm a rules follower and am the sort of personality that craves approval, so my grandparents' attitude was really devastating. I'm introverted and was painfully shy back then, and the self-image I developed I know is not a healthy one. Like you, I might "know" the critical voices in my head are wrong, but emotion doesn't rely on logic at all, and I struggle with accepting myself for who I am to this day, and struggle with the idea that someone else could like me. I still don't have a lot of friends, and I'm 37 years old and have never at any point in my life been asked on a date, let alone been on one. When I was a teenager I was the butt of all the high school boys' jokes; in college, I was invisible except for when they needed homework help. As an adult, well, if you don't drink, I'm not sure where you go to meet eligible single guys. Shoot, I've only ever been flirted with once, and that was by a guy wanting to make some sales at Arbys!

When I hear all the fat jokes and harsh comments made about "fatties" in social media and on Youtube, it just makes me wither and want to pull in on myself; it definitely doesn't encourage me to reach out.

The sad part is that medically, there are reasons for why I gained weight: PCOS and under active thyroid, thyroid goiters, and thyroid cancer (the cancer is why I gained back the 90 lbs I lost in 2012). I've had some doctors give me the same judgemental look and the "eat less and exercise" mantra. I had an endocrinologist tell me I'd never lose the weight because of PCOS. On the one hand, I know that these are reasons for why its harder, not why its impossible, but on the other hand, I sure wish folks online would have some sympathy for those of us who have those issues, because yeah, I shouldn't use them as an excuse to continue in my horrible life patterns, but they do make things all the more harder to change!

And I wish I had support from my family, instead of condemnation from extended family and misunderstanding from my immediate family. I can see where the PCOS and thyroid issues coupled with lifestyles that I was raised in led to my weight gain. My parents were raised on farms and my mother cooks like a farmer's wife. But I don't live on a farm, and I don't have the active lifestyle to burn those extra calories off. But my mother disproves of the changes I'd made in my eating styles, and I think that's because she takes it as a personal affront to her style of eating. Yet she and dad and my sister desperately for the sake of their own health (they are all obese and diabetic) need to make the same changes. I'm slowly bringing mom around, a little at a time, but i really do get tired of the "Bridget's being a know-it-all again" vibe I get from my family....



So yeah, one of my long term goals is a NSV: I really need to find a better relationship with myself. I want to feel attractive as I've never, in my entire life, felt so. I don't want to be vain; I just want to not feel that I'm a pig in a dress and utterly revolting to the people around me! I'd like to be in a size 18W. I can't remember when I last wore an 18W - had to have been junior high. I want to avoid diabetes and heart disease; I want to be able to shop in the ladies department and wear pretty clothes instead of bedspreads and ugly hotel curtains. I want to take horseback riding lessons and go on hikes and fly in planes without the belt extender or having to buy an extra seat!

My ultimate weight goal is to get down to whatever I can. Pipe dream would be 160; 180 would be a dream. I know that it gets harder the more you lose and the closer you are to ideal weight. Anything under 200 would be fantastic.

right now, I take it in small increments. When I started a year ago, I was 375 lbs. My minor goals were 350, 325, 300, and then 275 lbs, and I managed to squeak in the 100 lbs loss right at the year end cut off after logging for 365 days. My next goal is 260 lbs as that's where I will drop below 40 BMI. After than, I'll shoot for 250, then 225.

I went from a size 30W to a solid 24W and in most 22W's. The last time I squeezed into a 24 was when I lost weight on 2012; the last time I could get into a 22W I can't even remember - had to have been 10th grade.

Thankfully, I have friends here on MFP who have been fantastic support, and I have a doctor who is absolutely wonderful. She never criticized my weight before, so I did feel comfortable around her from the start, but she's been one of my biggest cheerleaders as I've been losing weight; the one and only time in my life that I've looked forward to seeing my doctor!

It's a long road with lots of bumps along the way, but I keep plodding along and hopefully, I'll look up one day and realized I've reach a better place!

Thanks to you all! It really is so very nice to find others who understand and sympathize! You are so right - its hard to relate to the other groups where folks are simply trying to get to a certain BF% or lose 50 lbs or such. Its not that they are unkind; its just that we are in completely and totally different worlds!


@rabidhamster87

rabidhamster87 wrote: »

It seems like so many people preach about how "fat acceptance" is unhealthy, but I've never EVER felt like people thought my fatness was acceptable. The only thing I've encountered is fat hate! Which just leads to self-loathing and definitely doesn't make me feel like I deserve any better or motivate me to try to be better...

Oh definitely yes to this! I see it here on MFP all the time! And on Youtube and any article dealing with obesity.......The one thing that I really hate is the folks who argue that "its an unhealthy lifestyle and should not be encouraged" as their excuse to essentially tell me that I cannot be affirmed as a person or accepted as a person because I'm "obese". Whether or not they realize it, that's what I hear coming from them and it absolutely makes me feel like I don't have value, I don't have a right to be accepted, that I should be guilty, etc.

They act like its perfectly okay and socially acceptable to tell me that I"m obese and therefore can't possibly be healthy. Yet they fail to realize no one takes well to having their flaws thrown up to them and criticizing and hammering one's flaws rarely helps that person actually desire to change or in their efforts to change. constantly harping on someone to quit drinking or quit smoking, that they are killing themselves, rarely ever encourages these folks to quit; usually it just pushes the behavior into hiding. Or causes the individual to pull into themselves, especially if its something they are struggling to defeat or have been struggling with for years. OR, as in my sister's case, it just cases them to "bull up" and get angry and become even more resistant to change as a form of rebellion or "you can't tell me what to do!"

This is probably why I refuse to get too involved in social media (drives my SIL crazy that I don't have a facebook account). People use the anonymity to be so vicious, saying things that they'd never say to someone's face and making snap judgments based on stereotypes. We'll all different and have a myriad of reasons for why we are the way we are and we shouldn't be judging folks without understanding where they are coming from!

Though I do say this with an ironic smile on my face, since I am perfectly aware that being judgmental seems to be part of the human condition, and I'm guilty of it myself

I do a lot of things by myself, but its always there in the back of my mind whenever I"m out in public, whether its eating at a restaurant or buying clothes or even going to the movies. I'm always feeling like I'm a spectacle and being judged. That's my feelings, of course, and feelings often run counter to reality and I realize that most of the general public don't even pay attention that I"m there, let alone take time to judge me because of my size, but I have a hard time with not projecting my own insecurities and negative self perception on others. But then to read article comments that others make about "fatties" and the "unhealthiness" just affirms those projected feelings!

rabidhamster87 wrote: »

But as far as dates go, you should try online dating! I had to kiss a few frogs before I met my prince, but eventually I did. My fiance and I met on OkCupid and we've been together for over 3 years now. It's worth a shot, right??

I'm so happy that it worked out so well for you! That's wonderful and best wishes to you both!

I'm afraid I can't even find the pond with the tadpoles, let alone the frogs to even start sorting through. I think I'm sitting beside a dried up mud-puddle lol

I did try online dating once, after being pestered by my SIL for a time. I put up a profile, trying to be honest, got a few responses, but kept getting asked for a picture. Well, as soon as I finally put a picture up, all contacts dried up.

Just as well, I suppose. There really isn't someone out there for anyone, despite the old adage, and being single isn't the worst thing that could be - I have plenty of examples of the downside of relationships in my own family. I do believe that true love exists and that marriage can work and be beautiful. It's rare, but I do know of couples who still love and respect each other, even after 40 and 50 years of marriage. Of course, I know of several more who are either divorced, live in constant arguments and resentment, or are just non-communicative with each other.

Besides, as much as I hate, to, I have to admit my SIL is right - my family IS socially awkward lol I know that my likes and dislikes and interests are definitely not in step with anyone else I know personally and does come across as strange, odd, and just down-right weird, especially for a 38 year old......(we're going to totally ignore my huge LOTR memorabilia collection.......)