I've been wandering around this great site for over a year, getting help and wonderful advice when I need it. Well, low and behold, I find this great line.

Why is it when I have any kind of significant weight loss I find myself feeling like I have a "buffer zone", allowing myself to stray. Or when I'm not losing, I find myself getting angry and muttering things like "I'll show you, I'll really gain some weight". First of all, I think it's pretty dangerous I talk to myself so much .

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'll ask the voices in my head to keep it quiet.

Hello fellow Washingtonian. I'm from the other side of the mountains, north of Seattle. Anyway when I read your post the word that comes to my mind is safety. I mean in a comfort kind of way. I know people will accept me at a certain point. I know I won't get hurt or I won't feel disappointed too much or put too much pressure to be thinner, ect. I feel safe from the world and all its pressures on image. Maybe I just feel unnoticed to a point. When I start going down people notice. I get attention, ect. When I gain to much I put pressure on myself I get depressed, I am very self conscious, ect. So those are just a few of my thoughts hope it helps and good luck to you. One thing I am learning is and I think it's what you are talking about, is that zone can be broken and it is very freeing. Once you step beyond it there is a much better environment and mentally those voices are crying from the other side. take care.

I agree with deb. When I get down to a certain weight, approx 170lbs, I find my looks DRASTICALLY improve. People start treating me better and I feel loved, accepted, wanted, etc. When I get to that weight, I become relieved to see that people are treating me better and I feel its ok to start pigging out again. Hence, my rapid weight gain; hence, continual yo-yo dieting.

So, whenever I start to lose weight, my main motivation is getting approval from people. There is a genuine lack of self love, on my part. When my weight doesn't go down for a day or two, I become furious with myself as though a part of me is deliberately refusing to lose weight. I become afraid that no one could love me like this and I get desperate. Sometimes so desperate that I binge (which I know is counter-productive, but I never claimed to be logical).

I think we all have inner voices that talk to us and affect how we feel about ourselves. Usually our inner voices criticize us in ways we would never dream of doing to another person. It's horrible. The trick is, I believe, to train your inner voice to only say nice things about you and if it can't do that then it should just shut up altogether.

I am very guilty of feeling the buffer zone also. In the past 2 months, I have gained and lost the same 9 pounds 3 times. That is so sad because I could be 27 pounds smaller than I am now if I had just lost weight, instead of losing the same weight over and over. I have found though, that every pound I lose, I lose more than once. Its like my body fights to get back what I have lost, and I have to be steadfast in my determination to win against my body. Wish I could give you some suggestions but I am suffering from the same problem.

I've had these issues too, for a couple of reasons.

1. Resentment. We all want to be more accepted, and to us, that often means being thinner (that's the way we see it; it may or may not be true). But as we get closer to our goal weight, and we do start seeing (or at least we believe we start seeing--I'll explain below) more positive reactions from people, something inside us rebels. We remember all that it took to get here--the struggle and sacrifice, the years of crying, having to "explain" our "diet" over & over again & in many cases, defend it; after ALL that, well then, we're "acceptable" to others? THEY tell us when WE'RE ALLOWED to receive smiles or affection or the time of day? That's when you say, "To h*ll with you all. I think I'll go back to being fat...at least then I didn't have your phoniness to contend with."

2. The other is this huge sense of responsibility. When you're really overweight and your goal is miles away, you think that "some day" you will have this GREAT life b/c you'll be thinner. Everybody will love you...prejudices about your size will disappear...job opportunities will open up for you...health problems will disappear...it will all be golden. But...then when it's almost "there"...you start realizing that these wishes, are actually responsibilities. B/c once you're thin, if you DON'T get a boyfriend or if you DON'T get that new job or if your health DOESN'T drastically improve, then what do you have to blame it on?


FTR, I think a lot of how we *perceive* others are responding to us, is based on how we feel inside. We all know of people (maybe even ourselves) who lost 5 lbs. and suddenly were asked out 3 times or whatever. Trust me when I tell you that NOBODY knew you had lost just 5 measley pounds. Nobody but you. It wasn't how people saw you...it was how you saw yourself.