[Kat117]

I have lost 68 pounds and have another 92 to go. I find that mentally and emotionally I am having a hard time adjusting. I know we all go through so many phases of our journeys and right now I am struggling to not feel anger with myself for having gotten so fat.

Before the decade from **** ( my past 10 years) I had lost 70 pounds and kept it off for 5 years. Well, now when I hit that 70 pound loss - I will still have another 90 to go!

How to I come to a place where I can forgive myself for getting so fat and move past it?

[linJber]

I'm not sure how each person does it, but it helps me to think of it as if I were in the 3rd person, so to speak. As if I'm thinking about someone else - someone I love very much, - but not me. I'd have no trouble accepting the same situation in my child, brother, mom, friend, etc. Find a way to cut yourself the same slack (emotionally) that you do for others.

You mentioned your age in a different post. I think we all have to come to terms with the fact that we've made poor choices in some instances. Maybe it's money, friendship, or food. Or any number of other things. But you can't let that hinder you from moving forward. In our 20s and 30s that might be harder. But as we age, we should also mature (that's questionable many times in my case!) and I think that's part of it. Realizing that whatever mistakes we made in the past are IN THE PAST is the first step.

You've made wonderful progress. In 2 pounds you won't even be able to say that you aren't where you would have been if you hadn't gained the 70 pounds back. That just made me remember how I managed to stay on plan most days when I was losing. It might work here, too.

When I thought about how long it would take to lose the weight I wanted to lose I'd get anxious. I'd think of how long I'd been trying (and succeeding, I might add) and how long I still had to go. It seemed like going without candy, for example, for a long time would be impossible. I decided one day to just "forget" all the days that were past. They were done - good or bad - and they no longer counted. In fact, I tried to pretend that they didn't exist. That way, I only had the present and the future to think about. That way I couldn't say, "It's been 29 days since you had a candy bar. Surely you deserve on today." If it was past and I had survived it, it no longer had bearing on today. Or tomorrow. Maybe you can try a bit of that to leave the past in the past. You must LOVE the way you feel today - so let that be the feeling that carries you. The past no longer has any bearing on what you are or what you can be.

Good luck to you. I know you can do this.

Lin

[wanderer]

You are not the only one with those feelings. I had actually just been talking to my husband about the same things. I told him that I was so angry that I had ever let myself get to be as big as I was. I have lost over 50 pounds, and still have 50 to go. I hope that you can accept the fact that you have made a great progress, and that you could have given up, but that you didn't, and that takes a strong person to do!

[Beverlyjoy]

Gosh... I bet almost everyone here has had similar feelings at one point or another. I think that we gain weight because there's a reason that's keeping it too hard to stay with it. It takes alot of effort to not eat. Sometimes we deal with it better than others.

But, I do know that this self anger doesn't and won't change anything. It's almost a wasted emotion. That's what I had to tell myself a while back. I've had a post similar to this nine months ago. Folks here were so helpful.

I don't think we can look at the big picture of how much weight we need to loose. Take it in five pound increments.

It's important to treat yourself as well as you would treat a close friend in this situation. You would be kind and understanding and supportive. Be that to yourself.

If there's something that you've learned along the way - use it. Plan plan and plan some more. Take it one day at a time.

So glad you posted.

[Garnet2727]

I too have a hard time forgiving myself. I'm 49 years old and I've been overweight or obese my entire life. Being fat has caused damage to my knees, ankles and feet, some of which is irreparable. In addition because I was so fat for so long, my skin as I lose weight is just a mess. Not to mention all the junk that has accumulated up in my attic due to the way I've been treated by others because of my weight, and to be frank, the way I've treated myself as if I had no value.

I'm still working on this forgiveness thing. But what is helping me is to try to treat myself as I treat others. If a friend of mine fell, I wouldn't scream at her, I'd help her up. If she was having a bad day, I wouldn't tell she was worthless and deserved it, I'd hug her. If she was crying, I wouldn't shout at her to stop it, I'd wipe her tears, let her cry and then listen if she needed to talk.

The trick is to treat ourselves gently.

But after a lifetime of self abuse, it's hard.

[Steph7409]

A big word to what everyone else has said.

linJber, I wish I could adopt your thought process and let go of the past. I'm trying, and it's such a struggle.

But after a lifetime of self abuse, it's hard.

Indeed. I've gotten so accustomed to doing things that make me hate myself that it's hard to stop it. It's like the comfort of familiarity somehow outweighs the downside.

Still, we've all shown we are capable of change. Yay, us!

[Kaitie9399]

In the immortal words of Pumba from the Lion King--put your behind in the past....

In other words, there's nothing you can do about the choices you made in the past. All you can do now is move forward from this point. Dwelling on what was or could've been or should be isn't going to help you at this moment in your life. Put your best foot forward and don't look back. :-)

[April Snow]

what a few others have said - I try to be as kind to myself as I would be to someone else. I am back here after regaining almost 60 lbs of the ~65 I lost. I swore up and down the whole time I was losing that I would never, ever regain again - at worst, I was prepared to stop and maintain even if it wasn't my goal. But somehow, I let things slip through and got to the point where I wasn't even trying anymore. And my options were to keep going in that direction and just keep gaining and gaining and gaining, or to turn things around and start back in the right direction again.

That's what you've done - and you have made amazing progress, within a couple of lbs of how much you lost before. I'm just starting this turn around journey, you are living it. And that's something to be proud of. I bet you'll congratulate me when I get back to my old low - be as enthusiastic for yourself and what you've accomplished so far - sometimes in this journey, it is really important to look back at where we were instead of where we want to be.

[Trazey34]

I still have a hard time when someone sees me and freaks out at how much I lost - they say I did something amazing...well, I suppose so, but I'm the dummy who put it all there in the first place right??? It seems like rewarding someone for stopping smashing their head against the wall LOL

But something i've known from day one, minute one -- being FAT, letting myself get FAT, being LAZY, being SPOILED -- those are all true, I did that, I was that. But even at my fattest and laziest, that did NOT MAKE ME A BAD PERSON.

it made me kinda dumb LOL but not BAD. Just like being thin now doesn't make me GOOD.

in my mind the two are two completely different things. I'm a bad person when I'm judgemental. I'm a good person when I go out of my way to help someone. I am not a bad person because I ate too much. Get what I mean?

That thinking makes it VERY easy to forgive myself, to shake my head at what a dummy I was, and sure I wish I could given myself a clue back then, but I don't hate her, I don't blame her, I don't condemn her for doing this.

[sluggerbean]

The most difficult challenge in weight loss is mental. The best thing I have found to do is to engage in positive self-talk. Each morning I look in the mirror and tell myself, "I am healthy; I am fit; I am thin; I am blessed; I am beautiful." I am putting the positive energy out there so that it can come back to me!! Some days I have to do this 3 or 4 times so it can really sink in.

Try doing the positive self talk. Come up with your own adjectives that you want to believe about you. You may have to say it to yourself every five minutes, but that is ok. YOU are worth it!!

[pixiefalls]

I love Lin's response. It seems like every time that I would try to lose weight before I would always dwell on how much I could have lost in a certain time frame, etc. This time around I decided I would not dwell on what could have been and let the past stay in the past. Every day is new and fresh and I want to treat it like that. I forgive myself now when I don't eat always as I should, just pick up and move on. I agree with the others that said to cut yourself the emotional "slack" you would for others. It, to me, is a freeing mindset. I knew to be successful I need to give myself some "slack".

[IAmTheGlue]

I'm going to say what has been said time and time again in this thread. Be kind to yourself. Be as kind to yourself as you would a friend or lover. Treat yourself gently. Give yourself lots of slack. Not saying give up. Just saying give yourself credit for trying. You aren't perfect. I'm not perfect. No one under the sun is perfect. But what you are is good enough and you are trying. You wouldn't kick a friend who is down, so don't ever kick yourself. There is enough hurt in this world. I try my best not to add to it by trying not to hurt anyone. Not even myself.

Congrats on the weight loss so far. Good job!

[AlmostMe]

Ughhh!! I find this really tricky. I can't believe that I'm here and having to lose 100 lbs to be close to 'normal'. That was a huge shock to me. And I'm smaller than I used to be (but didn't weigh myself). I feel sick when I think what I've done to myself.

[everbella]

Originally Posted by Trazey34

That thinking makes it VERY easy to forgive myself, to shake my head at what a dummy I was, and sure I wish I could given myself a clue back then, but I don't hate her, I don't blame her, I don't condemn her for doing this.

Thank you for attaching a photo of your progress.
It must feel amazing to have lost a person!

I like the quote by Zig Ziglar too.
How do you motivate yourself everyday?

[LaurieDawn]

I lost almost 100 pounds, and was down to a relatively healthy weight in 2007. Then, I began working full-time, finishing my undergrad degree, and preparing for the LSAT, in addition to my full-time-plus consulting gig. I did that for a hellacious year, and my weight began its meteoric rise. I then enrolled in law school while continuing to work, something almost no one else in my class did. In my second year of law school, my husband of 18 years left me, making me a single mom of five kids. And I continued to gain.

Am I mad at that person who gained all that weight? **** no! I am grateful to her. She went through a lot of insanity and worked really hard. Is my life easy now? Nope. But it's much, much easier, and should continue to get better. As Trazey said, there's really nothing to "forgive" because she really did nothing wrong. Could she have made better choices about food and exercise? You betcha. But that doesn't mean she didn't accomplish some amazing things in the face of adversity, so I am not going to second-guess her food and exercise choices during that period of chaos.