What have been some of the positive or negative from hitting your goal weight?

Fitnessmom82 wrote: »

Everything has been great except for the odd rude comment sometimes. They don't usually bother me, but sometimes they get under my skin. Most recently someone said "wow. You've lost a ton of weight recently" I told her it's been over the course of 9 months and thank you. She replied "well most of it must have been recent because now you're super tiny ". I just said thanks again and told her it's probably more noticeable because I now wear clothing that fits, instead of hiding under baggy sweatshirts and jeans that are too big. She says "well you can't hide your face. You're too skinny, you look sick now." For the record, not too skinny. I'm right in the middle of a healthy BMI. I was kind of dumbfounded at her response. I would never, ever say something like that about anyone's appearance. Not my place to comment!
So I guess the fact that people feel they have free reign to comment on my looks now is a negative aspect.

I agree, that can be such a negative experience.

I have also had people speak badly to me of others who are very overweight or obese...like I'm in some kind of club of average sized people? B **** no! I refuse to participate in that. It makes me disappointed in that person for saying tasteless, rude things...and sometimes angry. I've noticed it seems to be an even mix of people who didn't know me before weight loss, and people who remember perfectly well that I was obese for most of my teens & adulthood. Either way, no.

When I reached my original goal, I made a new lower one. I just reached that one, too, and set a new goal again but this one is more about gaining muscle. It's been great, other than needing new clothes that don't fall off. No one has said anything negative. My mom said I looked amazing and was I sure I wasnt too skinny but qualified it by saying maybe it was just because her brain wasnt used to ever seeing me this way. Which makes sense because I weigh now what I did in 7th grade-- and that was 25 years ago. (I was overweight at this weight at that age).
So all in all, it's pretty great!

djeffreys10 wrote: »

Honestly, the negative is that body dysmorphia is a *kitten*. Spend so many years improving your physique, and it gets so that all you see is what you need to improve. Never big enough, I can always be bigger. Never lean enough, there is always more fat that I can lose. No matter how good my body gets, it's never good enough.

Totally, completely, 100% agree. I still see a fat girl staring back at me when I look in the mirror.

TL;DR from my meandering tale of weight loss:
PROS
- I'm happier looking in the mirror now than in any point before in my life
- More self-confident
- WAY stronger since I started lifting weights regularly in 2015
- better overall relationship with food, eat healthier
- feel like I'm knowledgeable/well-equipped to stay in control of my weight long-term
- clothes fit better
- The Mrs. can't help but stare sometimes

CONS
- I've always been pretty vain, even as a paunchy kid, but now, even though I'm more confident, I'm also really self-critical and dissatisfied with how I look. I just want to keep losing fat, gaining muscle, getting existentially "better looking".
- I'm near-obsessive about weighing my food and logging. I genuinely dislike eating at a restaurant or someone else's house as I feel like I surrender control over my calories and macros.
- I also spend a ton of time reading about, planning, thinking about my workouts, eating plan, etc.
- Sometimes I find myself being very judgmental and critical of others who are overweight. It's always internal, but some things I don't like thinking about others.
- Like others have said, everyone has an opinion. My mom and others family members comment that I'm too thin, others tell me not to get "too bulky".


Now, for the aforementioned meandering tale:
I came upon MFP in 2012 with the singular goal; losing the ~25lbs I gained rather rapidly after I got my first job out of college. The job involved a lot of travel with a coworker with whom I'd become very good friends. He wasn't very discerning about what he ate and I often found myself following suit; we'd always go out for lunch somewhere quick & easy and dinners usually consisted of a burger and a beer at any decently reviewed local restaurant. That took it's toll pretty quickly and after a few months and visible weight gain, I decided to make some changes. Starting to use MFP and logging calories really opened my eyes to what and how much I was eating which really changed my perception about food for the better. After losing the weight I had gained I found myself wanting to improve my physique even more. I was slightly overweight through most of my adolescence, and though I thinned out through high school, I've never been particularly high in self-confidence and even being at this lower, healthy weight (6'1" 160-165 lbs ~16% body fat from ages 23-25) didn't help much; I found myself being even more concerned about my appearance than ever. This hasn't subsided in the years since, if anything it and my body dysmorphia has worsened.

The social dialogue about body image is overwhelmingly geared towards girls, but I guarantee comics, movies and action figures can wreak havoc on boys' self-image too. I've always been a huge nerd and love superheroes, Subsequently, it bothers me that that's not what I see when I look in the mirror. Growing up, my anxiety was soothed with sentiments about some people "just not being built like that" and assumed it was out of my hands to a large degree. I played sports growing up but never with access to a weight room so it wasn't ever something I pursued with any sincerity save a trimester of gym class we used weights a few days per week without any real plan or direction. About the time I started using MFP I tried P90X to "get ripped in 90 days" or whatever their tagline was. Saw some results but didn't follow the plan to the letter which hindered progress. However, it did serve as a decent jumping-off point; I really felt capable of inciting change in my musculature for the first time and to do the program I purchased a great set of Bowflex dumbbells, something I still use daily to this day. After screwing around with some of P90X I then tried P90X3 per the recommendation of the same coworker I had started traveling with in the first place. He'd also lost about 30lbs at this point but from 260 down to 230lbs (and still refuses to eat most vegetables, but that's a topic for a different thread). I thought the workouts largely sacrificed effectiveness for efficiency, never really saw any sort of improvement, and felt most workouts were too silly. Searching for something new, I came across Marc Perry's BuiltLean program/website. Marc's story resonated with me and I started that exercise program, which incorporates more traditional resistance training than the P90X series. The more I got into lifting the more I got hooked on it. My strength started to increase and so did my muscle size. After a time I abandoned BuiltLean and dove headlong into the archives at bodybuilding.com trying to find the best mode of lifting for what I wanted to achieve; basically, to look like Chris Evans in Captain America as this was right around the time Age of Ultron was released and my wife and I really started getting into the MCU. As my strength improved I bought a better weight bench, and an Olympic barbell/weight set and thus began my infatuation with barbell weight training. That was August of 2015, I weighed 168 lbs 17.625% body fat on 8/3/15. 4/7 was the last time I did a body fat scan, 13.8% at 173lbs per my skuplt scanner. By those numbers, I've gained 10.736 lbs of lean mass and lose 5.736 lbs of fat.

djeffreys10 wrote: »

SisterSueGetsFit wrote: »

djeffreys10 wrote: »

Honestly, the negative is that body dysmorphia is a *kitten*. Spend so many years improving your physique, and it gets so that all you see is what you need to improve. Never big enough, I can always be bigger. Never lean enough, there is always more fat that I can lose. No matter how good my body gets, it's never good enough.

Totally, completely, 100% agree. I still see a fat girl staring back at me when I look in the mirror.

I don't even have that problem. I walk by a mirror and yeah, I think I look damn good. However, that's always followed by "but I would look better if..."

I agree. I sooooo feel this. I have to physically *LOOK* in a mirror or take a picture of myself for me to really *see* myself. Like, my mind is still catching up to the fact that I’ve lost 140 lbs and that I’m not morbidly obese anymore, but rather, quite small. And sometimes I think, “Maybe I should lose 5 more lbs...”. But anorexia isn’t healthy or attractive just as being obese isn’t healthy or attractive. I try to maintain that “balance”, but hot damn, it’s hard sometimes.