Hi all.

Well, where should I start. I'm 6 pounds above my goal weight. I can't believe it really. For me hitting my goal won't be like "oh yea!, now I can fit into that pair of jeans I outgrew last year". For me hitting my goal is like "who is this person"? It's like a whole new body, a whole new life. The key word is different - not actually better (though it is better) but mostly it feels different. Let me elaborate on why this distinction is crucial.

Once I reach 135, I will have lost 145 pounds. To say it is still kind of amazing to me. I wish I could say that I feel great, or "comfortable" or "back home" or "where I am supposed to be", truth is I feel very confused and lost. Being really fat was an alien experience; I was mired in a depressive haze so deep that I completely neglected myself. I don't even remember what I looked like fat, as I neglected my appearance so much. For this reason, I have very little personal attachment to the feeling of fatness (well, other than a pervasive feeling of rejection from everyone around me, of course). Mainly, I just knew I was bigger, and I knew others thought poorly of me for that. I have maybe 1 or 2 photos at 250 pounds, and I have a few pairs of pants and shirts, but there is no tangible memory of that life. I never stayed at a stable weight, I went from chubby to obese to morbidly obese. I have very little consistent emotional memory of being large, except that it was not accepted by others.

However, I also have no recollection of being thin as my entire life I had that "fat feeling" of being an outsider, so just like being fat being a thinner weight is an equally alien experience; if not more so because it is newer. I am in a smaller body and smaller clothes, but I have no memories, nothing grounding me to this form either. There is a on difference from my experiences obese, there is the social acceptance factor - I do feel I am more accepted and no longer looked at as freakish or different. Furthermore, the attention I now receive from other humans is overwhelming at times and can feel a bit claustrophobic; people look at me and talk to me. I believe I have undiagnosed social anxiety disorder, so the attention I now get is discomforting. It's ironic to think that I lost weight because I was afraid of others cruel stares and whispers, but now that I'm thinner and they approach me, I find this equally unwelcome.

This small difference in the way people treat me is the only real non-health related change I have observed. This is significant for me, because I fell into the typical obese person's mentality that all their problems would magically evaporate "if only they weren't fat". Now that I am nearing in on my goal weight and I see my life still is the same as it was, this is extremely discomforting.

I guess what I am rambling on about is that I am afraid I will never find an "acceptable" body shape or weight. I am currently a size 10 (depending on maker really; in gap clothes which are notoriously oversized i am a 6, but then again trendy teenager clothes I'm more like a 12). I think I look larger than that though. I am fully aware I am still large, larger than most women I see, but I wonder if the way I feel about my appearance is remotely congruent with the way it actually looks? I still feel extremely fat, but logically I can't be that fat If I wear a size 10. Just a year ago a size 10 looked thin to me. I can't believe I am only 141 pounds and still feel this fat - unworthy of love, attention, and incapable of dependability or competency.

I think "feeling fat" is in reality feeling out of control, feeling bad about yourself, and projecting all that onto your weight. Our society makes women feel they are what they look like, and so it is easy to come to the false notion that you are what you look like. You don't feel like you have low self esteem, you feel fat. This is a big problem for me, and this is the catalyst that sparks eating disorders.

I know I said I was afraid I will never deem my body acceptable, but what really scares me is that I might never be satisfied with myself. I logically know I will never find the panacea for my low self esteem by losing yet more weight, which is why I have not lowered my goal weight despite a pervasive desire to do. It's so stereotypical it's actually kind of humorous. I think changing bodies will change who I am. Every form I take on is yet another alien shape... another disguise. It's almost as if I am trying to escape my non-weight related emotional problems by projecting them on to weight. It works for awhile, until you settle in at that weight and you are stuck with you again. Then you have to shed your skin and the cycle begins again.

At first the story was "if ONLY I could weight 150 pounds, I would have so much more confidence and I would be able to get up every day and smile at the world and have the drive to do something!" Then I got to 150 pounds and that didn't happen.
Then it was, "if ONLY I could fit into a size 10, I would feel thin and worthy and I wouldn't be depressed and have low self esteem anymore!". Now I fit into a 10 and am closing in on an 8. I still feel just as ugly and unworthy as I did at 150.
My next goal is 135. It is close, and unsurprisingly all those hopes haven't happened. Therefore, I don't feel like I am "finished" losing weight. My life isn't fixed and my emotional problems are still there. Even though consciously I told myself I would still be the same person only thinner, subconsciously I think I really expected these emotional problems to go away.

I know this is the danger point where one must be careful of developing eating disorders and other such problems. My question is, what do I do about this? I know this question might be inappropriate for a diet support forum, but you've all been of such an invaluable resource to me this past year that you might have the answer. Does anyone know where I can read about this phenomena, who I can turn to for help? What book do I buy, what website do I visit, where can I learn about this and how to deal with it?

Thanks...
(I apologize for making this post sound so down and bleek... I hope I didn't bum anyone out. I am kind of in a dark space right now.)

I don't have any helpful words or advice, I'm also interested in hearing what people have to say on this subject...I know that my mood varies greatly from day to day...some days I'm feeling great and proud of the weight I've lost, and others it feels like I haven't lost hardly anything, and I'm afraid I'll never stop feeling fat. One book I can recommend that has helped me with this is Geneen Roth's "Feeding the Hungry Heart". Actually any of her books are good, I've read 3 or 4 of them. The stories really hit home for me.

What a well-written and thought-provoking post, ItsThe Woo.

This line resonated with me:


And this:



I was in the same situation a few years ago. But I didn't sort it out and gained more than half the weight back. I remember the intense feeling of just not knowing who I was anymore. Everybody seemed to be treating me differently. It was all about the weight loss. I got tired, even angry sometimes about people constantly commenting about it. But I always hid my feelings away, smiled, said thank-you, blah, blah, blah. Which only helped add to my internal confusion.

This time around I am working on this while I am still in the weight loss process. I recently finished a book called When the Body Says No by Gabor Mate. While not specifically about weigh loss, this book does address the issue of the mind/body/emotional connection and how repressed emotions contribute to disease. I am not scientifically inclined but I found the information about new discoveries in the field of psychoneuroimmunology fascinating. As I read the book, I couldn't help but wonder how weight issues fit into the physiological picture.

I know I live too much in my head. Getting a better sense of myself physically through exercise is something I've begun to devote more time to. And just paying attention to my body's signals. Noticing when the "fight or flight" response has kicked in.

I don't know if this has been any help at all to you. But you are not alone in this problem you have communicated so very articulately.
One thing I can recommend is subscribing to the Skinny Daily Post if you don't already. Juju is a woman who has lost over 100 lbs and decided to write about the experience of keeping it off. I can't begin to tell you how many times this woman has articulated my frustrations with this whole weight loss journey thing.

I hope you don't mind, I'll post a few of my favorites below.

A Simple Thank You Will Do

"What an accomplishment." I hear that from a lot of folks. "That's really quite an accomplishment." They're talking about my weight loss. I don't mean to be ungracious, but I want to deflect that notion for some reason. I don't think of this as accomplishment. I think of it as a necessary project that I've completed. Like finally cleaning out the basement after letting it go for years. A necessary evil.

I made weight loss a primary focus in my life for about a year. I've elevated weight and health maintenance among my priorities since then. Lots of aspects of my life have taken a dip so that I could do this. I changed jobs, my house isn't as clean, my husband is neglected in so many ways, I don't see as much of family or friends. But I have a much healthier body. It doesn't feel like an accomplishment, it feels like a trade-off.

I traded one kind of living for another. But I am not a more accomplished person for living differently. I'm simply healthier than I was before.

I can point to actual accomplishments in my life. Things I've done or fought for, for which I truly am proud. Most of the time when I was caught up in doing these things, I wasn't taking very good care of my body. When I accomplished things, my body kind of dwindled through malnutrition and lack of exercise. Because I never developed any habits for maintaining my body, accomplishment went hand-in-hand with wasting health.

That's why the popular tendency to view overweight people as lazy has always baffled me. When I see an overweight person, I see a workaholic. I see somebody so absorbed with what they do that they never get out of their chair, too driven to do more than dive for the nearest vending machine or fast food drive-in for sustenance.

My prejudice works both ways. When I see extraordinarily fit people, I think, "Haven't you anything better to do?" I forget that it's possible to think and plan while on a treadmill (you can even take notes, draw models, sketch plans) or an exercise bike. It never before occurred to me that long runs are a great time to solve problems big and small, sort out the day's plans, catch up on the news, strategize the next meeting. Skinny people always looked pretty and empty-headed. And I really need to work on that prejudice, still. It's not fair.

The sad fact is, the personal is political. Bodies make all sorts of impressions. We have an innate tendency to size one another up, draw immediate conclusions. We are visual beings, and with every glance we make our sense of things on a subliminal level. We assign character and value to every sort of choice a person makes in their presentation from shoe leather to hairpins. And then we're so surprised to learn when Mr. Pretty Bleached Blonde has a brain, Mr. Tassle Loafers has a heart, and Ms. Grunge has a trust fund. We may try to overcome these conclusions with reason, but the impression comes first.

We hate that. When we're heavy we hate watching those conclusions happen, knowing we will have to find a way over the top of them. We'll have to work to make a different impression.

People will compliment you for losing weight. And when that happens, you may flinch. Try to remember that people don't know what to say. We all know the personal is political, and that has stopped us from saying anything when clearly, not noticing is not the right thing to do, either. So when people know that you've lost a lot of weight, it may feel they're congratulating you for joining a different team, one you have no intention of playing for.

But stop and think: they know, probably, that you had to make trade-offs. They know, probably, that it was important to you to lose weight, for whatever reasons. It may not be that they like you better small than large, but that they recognize you had to work hard to accomplish a goal you set for yourself. It's not fair to assume that they see fitness as something special, unless they're your doctor. Your doctor does want you fit. No doubt about that. Take a breath, and take the compliment. As hard as that might be for you.

Body Mind

Quite a few years ago, during the dawning boom of the Internet, a group of boys from my town started a website that gathered information and commentary on the open-source software movement. The site became one of the hottest Internet properties and the boys grew up minding this beast, now one of the most watched and admired news sites on the Net. They had a bull by the horns, and it required constant, focused attention. During the early days of their work, I enjoyed a few evenings, losing to them in Trivial Pursuit. We talked about their experiences of constant site-sitting, thinking in code, living with computers so intensely, building a community of peers entirely through the interface they'd created. What the Internet might bring to the world.

They had much to say on these subjects and many others. But right now, I am remembering one of them, the most intense one, the skinny, undernourished, over-caffeinated one, complaining what a nuisance, what a weak shell, the human body is. He found the limitations of his body, its requirements for food and sleep, to be annoying distractions at best, and a barrier to his progress at worst. The perfect state for him was a brain-in-a-jar existence. A being that is all thought and creation with very low maintenance.

Now this young man and I had very, very little in common. But we had our love of pizza and coffee. And we had this desire to be separated from our bodies.

We had different reasons. My body had become a nuisance of poor performance. It couldn't climb to the top of the stairs easily. Its legs were too big to shave before the hot water gave out. Its chafing thighs wore out pants too quickly. It gave people the wrong impression of me. It didn't match my personality at all. One of the best things about the Internet to me is that people pay more attention to ideas and less to physical form. Well, in many cases, anyway. On the Internet, I could be myself.

By the time I shared pizza with these guys, I had pretty much stopped looking in the mirror. Just enough to get my makeup on straight early in the morning, but I really never looked again the rest of the day. I didn't pause in front of full-length mirrors to check my look. I just didn't look. People would have to tell me if my mascara had run or there was spinach in my teeth.

I showered with my eyes closed. My skin was scaly and dry because body lotion took too long. The faster I was in my clothes and out the door the better. And of course, I didn't spend hours soaking in a tub because I didn't fit comfortably in the tub. I cut my own hair to avoid the salon experience.

That is, for years, I never got a good look at my self. It was no longer important. The idea of concerning myself with beauty was just so much silliness. The domain of young girls. Not my job. My body was a vehicle that carried my brain and heart and senses from place to place. I tried to make sure it didn't smell, was covered in fabrics that blended with my environment, but that's about all the effort I put in. I might not have ever paid attention to it again if the mechanics hadn't told me that it was breaking down and needed work.

And I likely wouldn't have learned to lose weight and get fit again if I hadn't found a way to reconnect with it. Get to know it again. Develop mindfulness about my body and its experiences. Learn to listen to its innate wisdom about what it needs and doesn't need.

I am picking up body mindfulness slowly, with help and hints from many corners. I recommend that if you've lost track of your body, or learned to ignore it, or worse, learned to hate it, that you spend some time with your journal discovering just why. What's the history of these feelings? And what might you do to make friends with your body again, be good to it, listen to it, learn from it? Here are some ideas and tricks I've picked up along the way that might help jump-start your body mind:

* Keep lotion beside your bed, and apply it slowly and with attentive care before you go to sleep. Head to toe. Then lie down and let your mind wander, again from head to toe, acknowledging how your body feels, and helping it relax. Breathe slowly. If you have trouble sleeping, this will help a lot. J&J has a new baby lotion scented with lavender. Lavender helps many people sleep peacefully.

* Get massages now and then. And relax and be quiet during the massage. Let therapists do their work while you attend to every part that's being worked on, just acknowledging how it feels, and relaxing each part in progression. You should never feel you're too big for a massage. A good massage therapist will have seen every possible body type and will not judge yours.

* Try a beginning yoga class. Or a yoga tape. If the postures are too challenging, just focus on the breathing work and using the time to feel your breath bringing you the oxygen your body needs.

* When you breathe deeply, exercise, drink water, eat your food, make love, note how your body responds. Try to take an interest in how you feel and why.

* Write down your experiences. If something hurts, investigate the hurt. When you're successful with exercise and weight loss, celebrate it. Note how you feel.

* Speaking of breathing. I do highly recommend spending time doing just that. A bit of breathing meditation on your body and its good health. I highly recommend Dr. Andrew Weil's audio program. But there are a lot of good ones out there. Learning to breathe is a great stress manager. Managing stress is extremely important in managing your weight and your health.

* Do look at your body in the mirror, make friends, give it a break. It has carried you through every life experience you've had so far and deserves thanks for that. It may not be perfect, but its imperfections will not be fixed through neglect. Give your body a pat on its back and offer to take care of it.

Get connected, friends.


JuJu

Fear of Fat

Every time I say this, I make somebody mad, somebody who has yet to lose weight, who's struggling hard to lose weight, is despairing of losing weight. I understand that this message isn't jolly, isn?t positive. But I'll gently remind my dear readers that this column is about my experience of finally losing a bunch of weight and working hard to keep it off. I need to tell the truth of this experience, or what's the point? It's not all jolly, folks. It's not always easy.

So I'll say it again: Losing weight is easy, keeping it off is hard.

After two years at my goal weight, I put on a few pounds this winter, and it's playing with my head. My clothes are snug. I'm counting calories and working out lots again, but the scale isn't moving. At all. I've managed to stop gaining weight, but I'm not losing it. And I'm frustrated.

The research bears it out, regained weight is harder to lose again. It's sticky stuff. It wants to stay put. It refuses to budge. I cannot drop my calories any lower without hurting myself or risking malnourishment. I exercise 6 days a week, and at a pretty good intensity, with lots of variety. The numbers are all what they should be for weight loss, but I'm not losing weight.

I know enough to know that any number of things could be going on here. I might be experiencing water retention at the moment. I am at the wicked early stages of menopause. I have put on lots of muscle.

And while I try to soothe myself with all of these logical explanations, and though I know that as long as the numbers are right, I'll see some movement at some point, this extra weight is breaking my heart, distracting me, making me miserable.

I'm not overweight, but I'm scared. Scared, a little freaked out, a bit overwhelmed by how easily I can gain weight these days and how hard it is to move it. Everyone warned me. And I listened, but the truth of it is more frightening than I expected. Remember the wormholes in the movie, Dune? I feel sucked toward the wormhole of my obesity.

And of course, writing to you as often as I do, while this is going on? Makes me feel a bit of a fraud, frankly. Who am I to talk about healthy living, weight loss, exercise, if I present a pudgy middle to the world? Look how people have exhumed poor Dr. Atkins to poke over his corpse. What am I setting myself up for? How can I write this column without striated deltoids? I know. I need to give readers more credit, but we're not talking to my reasoning head. We're talking to my panicking heart.

I may need to adjust my expectations. It could be that I lost too much weight, too low a weight for my body to maintain. And if that's the case, alright, but where will it stop? Where is my "set point," if there really is such a thing?

So here is the cautionary tale, friends. This is what comes of focusing a bit too closely on a number. I'm at my healthiest state in years, but I'm miserable because of a number on the scale, a pair of jeans. The lump in my throat that won't clear away is being driven by my stats, while I'm able to run miles, lift more weight, do more pushups, than ever in my history.

Three years ago getting out of bed, pushing up from my chair, meant facing pain with courage. Today nothing hurts except my pride.

As a wise reader said to me recently, "It's not about the bikini." She meant, it is about health. It's about achieving the best health we can hope for, given all other variables.

It's not about the bikini. It's not about the bikini. It's not about the bikini.

I'm going to put my scales away for a month and ride this one out while I train for a local 5K run in May. I'm going to try to take it easy. I'm going back to my breathing exercises. I'm going to enjoy my healthy body today.

Does gaining a few throw you completely out of your saddle? That's not a good thing, poopsie. That's disordered thinking, right there. We do gain and lose weight naturally, as a reaction to seasons of greater and lesser mobility, hormonal shifts, and most especially, as a response to stress. Heaping more stress onto weight gain by freaking out about it works entirely against us.

Journal assignment for the next time weight gain or the interruption of weight loss has you freaked out: What is it about your weight that scares you? Spend some time thinking about what you've been going through lately. Has it been a rough time? Have you been afraid, anxious for any reason? Overworked? Sad? Angry? Are you actually overeating or under exercising? These last two are the easiest things to fix. The stressors may be temporary, but if they're not, consider getting some counsel from a friend or professional to help ease them. Consider, too, whether your relationship with your scale could use a cooling off period.

No One Will Love You

There is some tiny part of me that admires spam authors. They used to be unimaginative hacks with four selling verbs under their belts. They had no idea how to lure someone at all, whether they peddled mortgages or biophysical miracles, websites or drugs. But lately, just lately, a new breed of spam peddler has surfaced who can write truly compelling headlines. Real grabbers. I got one today. The headline read:

No one will love you if you are fat.

And I thought, Oh, really?

I mean, yes, there will be people around who mock, think less of, avoid, ignore, feel sorry for people who are fat. Sure. That happens. But being without love because we are fat? No. No, see, that's not the way it works, ever. I mean, there are plenty of reasons a person can be unlovable, but fat isn't one of them.

Still, many of us are raised to believe it, and so with extra fat on our bodies, we feel unlovable. And feeling unlovable has a way of fulfilling itself. We react in two main directions. One way to go is by overcompensating, overreaching, over-nurturing, overdoing for others, over-performing at work. Or we react by shutting down, shutting out the world, other people, relationships, opportunities. Or maybe we do both. A very few of us manage to maintain a strong self image without swallowing this line of horse poo-poo.

What could possibly be unlovable about fat? It's energy. That's all it is. It's potential energy. Storage. Walk-in closets, full of energy. Bins and boxes and barrels full of that which makes us go. It's warmth, it's heat. Sure, too much of it hurts us. No doubt about it. But that's another issue for another day.

Stop and count up the big people in your life who you love. Would you say you would love them more if they were thinner?

Silly question, right. Absolutely.

Do you think you'd love yourself more if you were thinner?

Is that question not so silly?

Fat can be a problem in a lot of ways, but making you unlovable to other people? No. Actually it can't do that. Some people may not find fat sexy. That's okay. Many others do. Fat is mainly a problem when it makes you unlovable to yourself. And that's what this wily spam writer knows. The spam headline wakes and shakes that little driveling fool that lives in all of us, big or small, that fears going through life without love. Silly old fool.

So, got a little extra hanging around? Hating yourself for it? Maybe spend a little time soon writing in your journal or body log to consider what fat does to your ability to care about and for yourself. Write out some memories of how you've felt about your extra weight. Where did those feelings come from, do you think? Read them over.

When you've really had a chance to analyze them, decide to change your mind about what you think about your own fat. We can do that, you know. We don't have to live with every little feeling that shows up. We can reprogram our thinking. Spend a little time actively apologizing to yourself for giving yourself too hard a time about your weight. Apologize for beating yourself up. Apologize for punishing yourself excessively. Apologize for making yourself a doormat or shutting yourself off from the world. For being angry or defensive or bitter about it. Consider all the people you love who carry extra weight, and decide to put yourself in the same boat with them. All of you go on a nice cruise somewhere.

Then promise yourself you're going to see your fat and anybody else's for what it is, plain old stored energy, and nothing more. There is no magical person-shifting aspect to stored fat. You will not change for better or for worse by having it or not having it. And so, there's no more poor you. No more poor unlovable you. Just you with energy to burn.


» by juju on February 2, 2004

I didn't mean to hijack your thread with all these Skinny Dailies but I thought you might find a few things to help you in these articles.

You also might find helpful a section called Psychological Limitations in Chapter 3 of The Secret to Low Carb Success by Laura Richard. It's short and more geared towards breaking stalls but she does recommend a couple of exercises to help sort out the emotional impact the weight loss is having on you.

HTH

What a thoughtful message, ItsTheWooo. It had a great effect on me. The biggest challenge for any of us is the development of our own selves.

From what you posted here, your previous self had the same problems your self does now, you simply blamed it on the weight? One thing that did for you was insulate more than your body. It insulated your entire self from actually interacting with others, and carving out your own space, of whatever size.

My reaction to your points is not to assume you have Social Anxiety Disorder. You simply don't have any social skills! Without the usual routes to developing them through school and work, they are simply laying dormant.

What the next step will be depends on your particular style. Do you like to sit and think, self contemplate (which can be scary but very exhilarating, like a thrill ride.) Are you comfortable going over thoughts in your own head? And if not, why not? After all, you are the person who knows you best. Old ways of thinking will not work now, so you simply need to come up with new and better ones.

This feeling of being lost and unanchored will gradually go away as the real you emerges. In a way, you are like a kid again. You are creating a new person, without the armor that kept the world off in the distance. Start exploring it, and look on the tremendous strides you have made to self-realization; not only in your body, but in your mind.

We are all, always, on a voyage of self-discovery. Enjoy!

I appreciate your honest post Its the Wooo. We all feel down sometimes and it is important to remember that weight loss isn't the magical solution to all problems and depression. But it is certainly an important step if for no other reason than to remove that idea. Ok, now I am a normal weight--what could be the other sources of my anxiety? I think that is the question you are asking.

You are young. You have probably considered talking to a therapist and I think that would be a good idea, though scary at first. I'm going to make an off the wall suggestion and recommend a book called Emergence by Temple Grandin. She is a scientist who was labeled as autistic when she was a child; she is a brilliant analytical woman who has never felt very comfortable around other people. I found this book years ago when I was doing research to help my son, who was having social interaction problems. Since then Grandin has been written about by Oliver Sacks and become a minor celebrity. But reading about her experience in her own words was very moving, and also heartening, because she has been able to live by her own values and be successful.

I am also an admirer of Temple Grandin, and it's funny: she has some serious problems with social interaction with humans, but good empathy for animals...

The juxtaposition between the two, however, is interesting, because I knew a woman who put her 8 year old son on a low carb diet for his autism, which improved to the point that he became a normal child. She always knew that when his autistic symptoms came back it was because he had sneaked candy or cake. Once he made the connection between what he ate & how he felt, he was much more compliant.

This is well documented as a "leaky gut" syndrome. But I just wonder...it may have something to do with other shyness syndromes? Some of us had trouble with weight & social interactions, because the eating pattern was causing both problems?

After all, there are plenty of assertive, strong minded, very social people who are also overweight. The social stigma is very strong for all.

Wooo,

I am sorry you are going though this. Obviously you are very smart and you are also self-aware. In my opinion, those two things mean that you have the capacity to work through these issues. On the other hand, as you write, it is one thing to intellectually say that you realize losing weight will not solve all the problems in your life. It is another thing to emotionally realize this.

I agree with Diane (Quest) that you may want to seek out professional help. The issues you are grappling with are probably beyond what anyone in cyberspace can help you solve. In my opinion, though, you probably do need to come to grips with them both for your own emotional well-being and because if you don't you risk gaining back all the weight you lost.

I would not assume on the basis of self-diagnosis that you have social anxiety disorder. There are lots of other plausible explanations (and psychological diagnoses) to explain the issues you are dealing with.

I wonder if some of what you are dealing with is the fact that for the past year your life has focused on losing weight and now that you are almost at goal you need a new focus. You're probably right that if you continue to focus on eating and your appearance with the same intensity that you have for the past year, you risk developing an eating disorder. I honestly think that if you get some guidance (and I don't think this forum is the place to get it) and focus on developing your social skills the same way that you focused on losing weight, you will make real progress. One place to look for help may be finding a therapist who deals with adolescents and young adults with ADD and Aspberger's Syndrome. I don't think you have these conditions, but I know that people with these conditions deal with some of the same social issues you are discussing and there are therapists who are very skilled with helping them work through them.

I wish you the best of luck in working through this.

You know I totally understand. I have lost 50lbs, and the affect it has taken on me is similar. I still see me as Big. As my weight goes down, I hope that that mind set changes. I realize our bodies have a delyaed reaction time, I mean we didn't get this way over night, and when we were bigger we didn't see a true picture of ourselves then.
I wish you all the luck in the world. Finding someone to talk to about this will help you in more ways then one. Hang in ther

You have already received a lot of good advice, I only have one other idea--take or have someone take a photo-or more than one-of you right now, dreseed in a nice outfit, put together. Then have lots of copies printed. Distribute them through your life--wherever you'll see them often--above your TV or next to your computer at home, on or near or in your desk at work. Then LOOK at them often as you try to adjust to the new you.

It isn't easy getting used to a new image, but I think you're on the right track. You might also consider some counseling. If your insurance has mental health benefits, go that route. You can get a referral to someone from a friend. Or you can go the pastoral route, especially nice if you're a believer. You might need a real objective point of view to help you along for a little while.

Bes of luck--you'll be in my thoughts and prayers-

Hi Woo! I've always enjoyed your postings. I'm still pretty hefty but I remember once before in my life I went from fat to thin and I had some interesting experiences.

I really did have a lot more confidence in myself when I lost the weight, unlike a lot of people who don't really feel different, I did. I enjoyed it. Felt kind of powerful. Kind of sexy. My body wasn't perfect and I now realize that body perfection isn't for people who don't have lots of time and money to spend on personal trainers and surgery.

But I was also intimidated by how much more people talked to me, men flirted with me and so on. Made me realize, much to my regret, how much we base on the exterior of people and how little on what people are truely like.

I remember seeing myself in the store windows, my reflection. I was expecting to see a creature much bulkier. Sometimes I didn't even recognize myself. I would have to stop and think... wait, that slender creature is me? Oh yeah! I lost 69 pounds!

I know how you feel about not remembering being fat. I look at pictures of myself, when I was fatter than I am now, and thinking... I don't look that fat in the mirror, why do I look so horrible in the camera?

I've come to realize that my brain, bless you brain, edits the picture I see of myself in a mirror. I'm much thinner, much younger and much cuter thanks to my brain's clever editing. As I get older, I realize just how merciful this is. I see a face that looks a bit like Faye Dunnaway's, not what it looks like in pictures or when I catch an unprepared glimpse of myself from a distance.

Anyway, one of the best parts of getting old is that you really do start to accept yourself in a way you never did when you were younger. I like that.

BTW: I know the sure cure for low self esteem. Its doing things you are proud of. Like losing weight. Like learning a new skill. Like volunteering for things. If you're shy, its learning how to speak in front of audiences. Anything really that you can say, "wow, I did that?" But doing one thing once isn't enough, its got to be something you always do. Each time you climb the mountain you're reinforcing your good feelings about yourself. If you stop climbing, then you stop the reinforcement. You can chant affirmations all day long and they won't do it, but you can simply live a life you can be proud of and that will handle the insecurity nicely.