CONGRATULATIONS on passing your driving test!!! I know what a huge deal that is -- my daughter got her license last October.

Weight loss and intimacy is a VERY good subject to chat about. When my new husband and I began dating, I was afraid to let him see "all of me." It was a big problem for me until he told me that his ex-wife was substantially larger than I was. That helped me to "get over it", but I will be so happy when I can just feel good about myself without having to do a quick judge on whether I'm bigger or smaller whenever I see another woman. Self-esteem is such a HUGE issue!!!

i have been with my fiancee since i weighed about 160 lbs... i was afraid for him to see me then. Now even though im over 80 lbs larger I dont care... he loves me for me. He has never said anything to me about my weight gain but sometimes I wish I was smaller and im worried that he is embarassed of me.... I know that this isnt really the case but sometimes i just get these thoughts in my head... but its just my own insecurities talking.

I am a single girl and have been for the past 6 months. I had a 2 year relationship before this last 6 month dry spell. I weigh 190lbs, I just lost 4 pounds in the last 2 weeks and feel great about that, but on this topic of weight issues and intemcy, I have totally removed myself from that scene, I don't even try to mingle with the opposite sex because I don't want to be touched or seen naked. In the beging of the 2 year relationship I weiged 148lbs and was on a major fittness kick. I begain attracting alot of attention and got caught up in a relationship and proceeded to gain back all the weight I had lost previous to meeting my fella. When I started to gain weight again I was never comfortable being touched by him and I didn't EVER want to be naked. It wasn't anything from him that made me feel that way, it wa all me. Now here i am again on another weight loss journey, but learning from my past experiences what not to do. I feel like it will only be a matter of time before the offers start rolling in again, but I don't want to be with anyone until I can feel better about my body. Is that anel, or weird or what?

Journeygirl, there is nothing wrong with not wanting to have a relationship until you feel better about yourself. You need to love yourself before you can love anyone else!

When I started dating my bf, it was my freshman year of college and I weighed about 145-150. I was not very comfortable with my body, and I had never had a sexual relationship with anyone before. More than my weight, my biggest concern was that I had acne on my chest! But he put my worries to rest and after that I felt much more comfortable with myself.

Since I've been with him, I gained and got to 180, then lost back to 150, then gained back to 185 before I started my current weight loss. When I was up at my highest, I did start feeling uncomfortable getting naked. I hated catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I felt like my fat got in the way of any intimate activities. Since I've lost, I can definitely see a difference. I am more comfortable being naked, and I can tell that my bf finds me more attractive at this weight (I know he loves me regardless, of course). I'm hoping that the close I get to goal, the more attractive he'll think I am! And of course, the better I feel about myself, the better I feel about being naked.

I was always embarassed, and sometimes still I am, but it's something I'm working at. My fiance has told me I don't know how many times that it just isn't a big deal, especially in the heat of the moment In the begining of our relationship I was about 170 and now I'm 80 lbs more. I gained that weight pretty fast, in about 2 1/2 years. I don't think I realized just how big I was until I had gained it all I put off fooling around for so long. It would be a couple months inbetween...the poor guy I realized I talk to myself very badly. I could never say things like that to anyone I know, but yet my internal dialog was horrid. No wonder I weigh this much and no wonder I have bouts of depression. Here lately I have been trying to see myself in a more positive light and things are on an upswing

I notice, for myself at least, that after I work out I feel good about my body, what I can acomplish with it. And definitely sexier. And as I lose weight (and inches) are more comfortable with it.

If someone had asked me before I started losing the weight if it was a problem I would have said no. My dh doesn't care and I am still comfortable with myself. But now I can see what a big difference between then and now in how I feel and act.

When my now DH and I started dating I was 175ish and then got up to 204 in a year. he never said anything about my body, but I know he likes my body better this way- our intimacy level has skyrocketed since losing some weight. Part of it is surely my confidence level but not all of it because I was always comfortable with my body- at 175 I'd walk around the house naked- I love being naked. so the weight, even though it came on in a year, it still seemed slow, so nothing really changed for me. This time at 174 I'm more toned than what I was before and I love being naked even more!

great thread!
and yes- congrats on passing your driver's test!

While I was married I was always 200 + at any given point. I hated my husband seeing me naked and of course hated seeing myself. This definitely showed in the bedroom. I didn't want to be touched, had to have the lights off, etc. I feel bad now looking back because I know he was attracted to me no matter what.
Now I have lost over 70 lbs and it has made a HUGE difference in how I feel when it comes to it, but I am still very self conscious. This is something that just keeps getting better with time as I exercise and continue to lose weight. My BF has been making a lot of comments lately on how good I am looking and that really helps me. I bought my 1st little (ok, maybe not that little ) lingerie set thing and wore it the other night and he loved it!!! It felt good feeling sexy, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to hide around the door either when he 1st saw me.
I can't wait till the day I don't freak out when he touches my legs cause I'm scared he's going to feel dimples!!

So much is being said here that I can totally identify with... but my thing is I feel sexy when I'm LOSING and I feel uncomfortable in my skin when I'm GAINING or STAGNANT. I'm a little scared by this because, eventually, I will stop losing. Will I feel sexy at that point with my "new" body?

Hey Everyone,
Weight loss and intimacy used to be a really big problem for me. When i started dating my ex, i was 120 lbs. Over the 6 years we were together, I went up to 170. My BF didn't want to have sex with me anymore. He told me that he wasn't attracted to overweight people. I was devastated and tried to lose weight. I dropped 30 lbs and he was happier. Then my mom died and i gained it back. He was not so happy. We parted ways. When i met my current BF, i thought my weight was going to be an issue, but it never has been. He loves me for me, and i love him for that.
Now I can lose weight for me, not for anyone else.

Wow, what a different perspective! I read some of your posts (particularly about at 180 being "the fat girl") and I think, god, I would KILL to have only weighed 180 in college! I spent all of my time in high school and college over 250 pounds and near 300 toward the end of college. I'm now 300 (okay, 299.5 ), and I absolutely LOVE my boyfriend. I never got close to guys in high school or college because of my size (I was more "one of the guys" and always a good friend, but never the girlfriend). I can't even count how many times a guy I was close to and had a crush on ended up dating one of my good friends...ARGH! but I digress...

My weight has had a HUGE impact on intimacy. I barely even let a guy TOUCH me until my very last semester of college, and even then, we were both completely drunk. Otherwise, I probably would have freaked out long before it got to the touching point I graduated college still a virgin (had done most stuff in my drunken encounters after parties, but never everything, ya know?). I always felt horrible about myself the day after those drunken encounters because I knew if he saw me when he was sober, he wouldn't want anything to do with me.

A little over a year ago, I met my Jeff. I met him online, and I was sure that when we met in person, he would be absolutely repulsed. Lucky for me, he wasn't! We have been happily together ever since. At first, I always had to have the lights off during sex, but after just getting caught up in the moment during daylight a few times, that fear went away Now, normally I would worry about getting too personal or whatever, but hey, it's an intimacy discussion, right? So here goes...

He ALWAYS used to ask me to shower with him. I could not stand the thought of him seeing me naked and VERTICAL! Standing just makes the rolls hang down (the bottom of my stomach actually touches the tops of my thighs, no thanks to a large amount of scar tissue from having an ovarian cyst removed), and I couldn't bear the thought. I finally told him why I didn't want to shower with him, and he looked at me like I was ******ed. He just told me he didn't care about my weight at all, that he just wanted to be with me. How sweet! (FYI, it was still almost another 6 months until I ever actually got up the courage to shower with him, despite his sweetness).

Nowadays, I have been with him long enough to know that he truly doesn't care about how I look. He loves me for me (or else he wouldn't have stuck around for so long), and I know how lucky I am to have him. I still get very self-conscious sometimes, but then I just remind myself that by now, it's nothing he hasn't seen before, so let it go! I've NEVER been thin, so I don't even know what my body looks like without rolls or ripples. I'd really like to find out. OH, and the other day, we were watching a movie together, and there was a sex scene where you could see the lady's back. Jeff was like, "that's nasty how you can see like every vertebrae in her back. you shouldn't be able to see the bones!" That made me happy, too, knowing that he never wants me to be a stick figure

I think we, as women, have an unrealistic idea of what men are looking for. As I mentioned before, I have had a lot of really close guy friends. Sure, they hoot and howl and act like pigs when the skinny chick with the big boobs and low-cut top walks by, but that's just society's affect on them. Most of the guys I have known say they think it's gross when a girl is TOO skinny. A girl with shape and even a little meat is usually preferred (I've had guys say they feel like they would "break" a skinny chick). Also, if it's gotten to the point in a relationship (or encounter or whatever you may be doing with a guy) where intimacy becomes a factor, then he's already into you enough to not care about some jiggle or lumps. We all know what body parts he's really after, and we've got 'em no matter how much we weigh! It just takes most women (including myself) too long to realize that.

Jill, I loved your post! Thank you so much for sharing your story. It's really true that although guys, when in front of other guys, will say they like skinny girls, in fact a lot of them want a girl with some meat on her bones (or a little "junk in the trunk!"). I heard that most men thought that Renee Zellweger looked way better in Bridget Jones than in any of her "skinny" roles!

Also, on the same idea, my bf's mom lost a lot of weight a couple years ago. He says that afterward he felt weird hugging her, because he was afraid of breaking her and it felt like hugging a skeleton! (His mom looks great BTW, and does stuff like cycling 100 miles, etc.) When I ask him if he can tell if my belly is getting smaller, he says "I like your belly, it's all soft and squishy. If you lose too much weight, it will be hard and bony!"

Oh, what a GREAT topic. I have soooo much to say about this and it is incredibly inspiring to read all of your stories!

I was always chubby - very bad self esteem. As a teenager, of course, I got love and sex mixed up big time and made a lot of stupid mistakes. My sister was the skinny athletic beauty queen - I was the short, plump, bookworm. We fought like cats most of the time I got into a violently abusive relationship in my late teens, that lasted until my 23rd birthday. During those years, I went up to about 175 pounds and he seemed to encourage that - that way, he said, no one else would look at me.

As soon as I escaped that relationship, i was determined to get thin and I started exercising and eating low fat rabbit food. I was fanatcal about it - step aerobics, boxercise, high impact aerobics after work 4-5 days a week. Within a year, I was 145 lbs and had six pack abs and muscles all over. It was probalby the first time I could hold my own with the good looking popular girls at work and I got a LOT of attention from men. In fact, after a couple years, i started to get really disgruntled about it because it seemed like I was merely a body - there was NO one in my life who cared if I had a brain (and admittedly, I have a way high IQ) or soul. Just good legs and a nice ***. So - it was fun for a while - the attention really nice - but it all felt so SHALLOW.

So I stopped the fanatical exercise and eating. Besides that, I quit my job and started a business around the same time so the gym was no longer on my walk home. For the next couple years, I gradually gained weight - and got really comfortable not having any relationships. I figured if someone was going to like me it would have to be for what was inside - I wasn't really concerned anyway because I got really happy and content alone anyway.

One day, around my 30th birthday, I had a mind boggling encounter with a man from another country - we just fell head over tails in love, from the first moment. He seemed to be the "one" - and I was deliriously happy for about a year and a half. In fact, he moved here to go to school, and I started learning his language in order to move to his country after school. We had an incredible intimacy, a total mind-body-spirit connection and a wonderful sex life. I thought - gee, finally, someone who loves me for me! I was so relaxed and free during that year and a half!

One day, without ANY WARNING whatsoever, he woke up from snuggling in bed with me and said "I'm so sorry, I can't do this any more" - got dressed, and left. From a distance he called me, who was obviously devastated and tried to explain himself. There were many reasons ... not wanting commitment was one of them. But the one reason that cut me to the core was that, he said, he was really attracted to tall thin women and he knew that no matter how much he loved me, he'd never really want to look at me - and if I was going to just keep gaining weight he was sure he'd end up cheating some day.

You could have taken a knife and driven it into my heart and it would not have hurt as much. I was destroyed and lay down and didn't raise my head again for years.

Over the ensuing couple years, I lost my business, lost my apartment, and then faced financial ruin over 9/11 and the changes in the economy. I also gained a lot of weight - passing 200 last year and hitting 220 spring. My highest weight ever. I also started a new business and started getting my life together with the help of an amazing therapist.

Anyway - last summer, I was at an outdoor festival by myself. This big long haired tatooed dude caught my eye - and apparently vice versa. He asked me out and I thought - holy crap, how can I go out with this dude? I said yes. And over the next couple weeks, he pursued me, quietly and steadily - breaking down all my defenses. For one thing, he believes that I am absolutely the most glorious creature hes ever seen. If I never lost a pound, he'd be okay with it. On the other hand, he cleaned up very nicely with a little encouragement and everyone tells us what a great looking couple we are together I can barely remember the other guys name. And there is something really freeing about knowing that someone thinks you're very desirable no matter your size. Suddenly, I seem to have the willpower and desire to try again - knowing that I'm doing it for the right reasons, not to catch or keep a man. I've got a big snuggly loving one for all time - despte all the crap before him, I don't feel even the remotest fear of him leaving me and we are planning to get married next year.

On the flip side - I forgave my ex. I realized that I am really not attracted to fat men either - its very undesirable to me, a big turn off. I know that I'm a hypocrite and am trying to come to terms with that - but it helped me to forgive because I do understand. Doesn't mean its right, but... at least I'm being honest