[Carianne]

Let's see If I can try to put it into words. It seems the closer I get to goal I sabatoge myself why? Because I'm scared to be small. IE 2/15 155.6 2/24 -.8 4/5 +.6 4/12 -1 4/19 -.4 4/26 +1

Does that make sense?

[journeygirl]

I can totally relate to this, oh boy. I am just starting out in my efforts again, but I have lost significant amounts of weight 2 other times in my life. The more recent of those 2 times I got down to 145 starting from 188, my goal was to get to 130. I remeber the day I stepped on the scale and saw I had dipped down below 150 and it was funny because I can't say I felt good about it, it was more like I was shocked, I never dreamed I would make it that far, it didn't seem real. I was 15 pounds away from my ultimate goal and then everyone really started to notice my weight lose and I was getting all these compliments and my weight lose completely halted. Then I started to feel paniced, then I slowly started gaining. 2 pounds might as well have been 20 for the way it made me feel. I tried to calm myself down but just couldn't regain control. Over the coarse of the next year I'd go through significant gains and then just evening out for a bit followed by another gain. I now weigh 194 pounds, and I feel like I'm finally regaining control of myself again. I'm getting to the gym regularly and have my eating habbits under control and have stopped all my weight gaining behaviour and am just waiting for the pounds to start coming off again, but I don't want to do the same thing all over again, where I get close and then apply the emergency brake, followed by throwing it into reverse. For me I really belief it has alot to do with the attention I start recieving from men that scares me. It's like my weight is a barrier between me and that world (the world of disappointing relationships). When I'm heavy I still get some attention but not the same type I get when I'm thin, it's seems to me like men get more aggressive the thinner I get and that world is opened up to me again. This is a really interesting topic to me too, I'd like to know why or if some other women feel they need there weight for some reason.

[SkinnyMemories]

You guys are going through what I am going through.. Everytime I lose a significant amount of weight I feel really good... but as soon as everyone notices my weightloss I run back to comfort.. I loved the attention of people seeing that I can lose weight but all of a sudden Im out of my comfort zone and escape back to what everyone knew me as.... I dont know what it is.. I think that part of it is the feeling of being vulnerable. I hate to feel like Im not in control.. I feel that the smaller I get the more likely that some one will try to take advantage of me. My weight is my protection or so I believe.. I recently lost 30 lbs from December to March.. in the month of April I gained 20 of it back. How is that possible.. I asked myselfI just retreated to my old habits that took 3 months to stop. I had finally thought that I complete control over myself and my eating problem.. Well here I go again about to pick up where I left off in March.. But now I must lose the 20lbs. I feel horrible but this isnt the first time that Ive done this. I havent learned my lesson yet. Does anyone have any advice on how to get over this mental state..

Skinny Memories

[journeygirl]

I personally think we have to figure out why we think we need our weight and go from there, work on destroying that need or somehow proving to ourselves that the weight doesn't help address any problems, it just creates other kinds of problems. I read the Dr. Phil weight lose book and even though I didn't follow his advice I thought he addressed so many real issues dealing with being overweight and that was something he touched on "why we need our weight". I think a lot of us think well, "I just need to lose some weight here, have more self contol and just stop eating in a way to contributes to being overweight", but it is more complicated then that. I realize that when I look back at all my attempts, and the times I came within pounds of success, and ran the other way. This is a LIFESTYLE change, think about changeing jobs, even if you were to stay at the same place but your job discription one day just totally changed and your whole work routine was different, you wouldn't know what to expect everyday anymore, it's all new, even your desk was moved, sure you can make a new schedule for yourself of what needs to be done when but for the first little while you are adjusting to your new duties, new resposibilities and your wondering if you're doing everything right, you feel insecure for awile, maybe even wonder if anyone else notices you don't look too sure of yourself. In you old job you are comfortable, you don't need a schedule to know what needs to be done when, it's automatic because it is what you are familiar with and you are successful at it. I see this as comparative to changing a life that supports us being overweight, to a life that supports us being healthy and of a normal weight. We now need to change our role in our lifes and make a new identity for ourselves, instead of being the girl who doesn't care about her weight I become the girl who is health concious, and a little bit fussy about what I eat. We know what it is like to be overweight, we know what to expect, we know how we are going to feel everyday, and we know what our day will bring us, and If you are anything like me you are consumed with being overweight. With everything I do my thoughts are on how I look, and I am uncomfortable being overweight and I don't do a lot of things because I'm overweight, but I know what to expect out of my day, and out of my life. Then if you skip over everything it takes to actually make those daily changes and stop doing all the things that make your life what it is now as an overweight women, or man for that matter, and you stop being the person everyone else in your life is used to, finally when you get past all of those hurdles and the pounds start dropping off and you start looking like a new person, and also if you are anything like me when I lose weight it seems like no one but me can notice the first 20 pounds but the next 20 people think that you've lost 40 pounds overnight, that is what it looks like to them. Then after all that there is a whole new hurdle to get over, the way everone is treating you an looking at you, also what are we to expect out of life now, is it supposed to be a better life now that we have the right body? Are we supposed to be happier, and oh my gosh, what if I'm not happier? For me that way everyone starts looking at me is strange, men especially, I feel like when I've become thin the start coming out of the wood work and that scares me. This is no small thing, change is hard, even when it is supposed to be for the better, like that new job I believe there are stages through out a weight lose journey that we need to just try to relax and adjust and get used to our new roles. Like the new job the first few days we think okay I don't know what to expect here but I'm hopefull and a little bit excited and nervous, then maybe there's a few days where we slipped up at a new task and we feel very discouraged and feel like "I hate this job, I want my old job back, I want to see the same faces I saw everyday at my old job, we had fun", but remember the pay and benifits are better at this job. Then after some time passes our new job becomes more routine and easier to do, we are running down our taskes with no problems at all. I think we go through these times when we start losing and then when it starts showing to other people and the closer we come to our goal the more we need to deal with what we expected from this and it is change. We made the decision to lose weight months before but now the fruits of our efforts are apparent to anyone around us and I believe that is stressful in itself. We need to relax, accept each stage as it presents itself soak it in - look around, reject the negative and embrass the positive, but stay in your own head, going outside of that is dangerous.