[berryblondeboys]

He thinks it doesn't count on what it did to my body, or had no effect on my body as I was only at that top weight for a year or so. I don't even think he thinks the 10 pounds I lost the year before this concerted effort counts either, towards the totals. I do.

My skin had to stretch for a year to be that size. Worse, it was that size, dropped 40 and then went back up 30 and throw in a pregnancy in there too.

He thinks of my weight loss of what I've lost currently - he somehow thinks that the 20 pounds I carried before that was all re-absorbed and my body doesn't have any lasting effect of it. That my loose skin issues are really only the current 75ish pounds I've lost.

Now it is true, my skin is still shrinking up and probably will for awhile, but it will never be good. I'm a saggy baggy elephant!

What are your thoughts on it for your own body? So many of us have been up and down and all around... All I know is that I now weigh about 100 pounds less than I did in 2004, 90 pounds less than I did in 2009 at this time, 80 pounds less than I did in 2010 at this point.

I count it as I've lost about 100 pounds... as my body has been there - and not for a minute, but for over a year.

[XLMuffnTop]

I think of it a lot like drag racing. What counts is your top speed, not the sustained speed. To me, the fact that I saw 252 on the scale ONCE, not to mention numerous times, makes it my highest weight. That is the (re)starting point on my journey/ticker.

As you stated, there are obvious external ramifications, such as saggy skin and stretchmarks, of reaching that high weight, regardless of how long you were there. Some people have nice elastic skin that bounces right back. Mine isn't. It's like a shoving an adult foot in a child's sock. It may still look like a sock but there ain't no going back to what it was before it was misused. LOL!

So, to sum up, I agree with you.

[berryblondeboys]

Originally Posted by XLMuffnTop

Some people have nice elastic skin that bounces right back. Mine isn't. It's like a shoving an adult foot in a child's sock. It may still look like a sock but there ain't no going back to what it was before it was misused. LOL!

So, to sum up, I agree with you.

My skin is awful too - purely awful. I have so many stretch marks on my tummy from pregnancy, you can't even count them as they are like an Escher painting where the transform, connect, branch off, etc from each other. I have terrible saggy arms (this I hate the most). And it's from all the weight loss and the pregnancies - not just the most recent stuff.

It totally is like trying to shrink up a sock/socking that is all stretched out.

[Lambiechop]

For all intents and purposes this time when I tell people how much weight I've lost I start from 259. It's where I began this journey in May of 2011. In reality my high weight was 312 in 2006. The closest people in my life know that is my high weight but there seems to be more of a stigma attached to being over 300. A lot of people have seen 200 and something but not as many have pushed over 300 lbs, especially in my peer group. I hit 300 at the ripe old age of 21. It's a personal choice and in my head I know I've lost 130 lbs but not everyone else needs to.

[Arctic Mama]

Eh, I don't count my top weight, either. I got up to 270 with my second pregnant, but when I got serious and decided four months after that to lose weight (for the first time ever!) I clocked in at the weight listed in my stats. And whether or not it affected my body and shape is kind of moot in my mind, as I am an accumulation of my journey and my issues are what they are.

I can't play what-if or imagine things may have been different if I weighed more or less - I can't prove that and it doesn't matter anyway! I'm healthy, my body is sexy even if it isn't perfect, and I'm not going to look like I've never had children or been morbidly obese. The matter of degree just doesn't mean that much to me.

My husband doesn't always know the right thing to say or the best way to say it, but I know he is very proud of what I have accomplished and would love me even if I hadn't done a thing. How fat I was or how much I have lost doesn't much matter in the face of that, and I just can't expect him to focus on every detail like I do. It's not his nature, nor his body.

Just my .02

[shishkeberry]

I was only at my top weight for a few months but I was there. I count it.

[angieand2girls]

I'm like you Arctic Mama. My top weight was when I was in my second pregnancy and I was 267 (well...I was nine months pregnant when I weighed that much so maybe that doesn't count lol). But I've never even thought about counting it. Whatever I weigh when I start my weight loss journey is what I clock my weight in as....and that's been all over the place because I've had so many journeys lol.

[kaplods]

I "count" my top weight even though I only held my top weight for about a week.

My highest weight that I sustained for more than a month was somewhere around 380, but I still "count" the 394.

I joined Weight Watchers with my mother about six months before my wedding. Mom lost about 70 - 80 lbs (and kept most of it off ever since, regaining and relosing the last 20 lbs periodically, but never reaching her highest weight again).

During that six months I gained and lost the same 20 lbs, and 394 was my peak (the weight gain occured during an incredibly stressful period when we learned that our hall had been double booked because the person making the reservations left with the reservation book. Thank God we called to confirm. They did eventually straighten the mess out, but it was a very stressful time).

I don't care if I had only spent one DAY at 394, I got there, so I do count it, because I'm extremely proud to say I've lost over 100 lbs. If I'd decided that the 294 didn't count because it was probably water retention, that would have been ok too.

I think "counting" is in the eye of the beholder, and what we count doesn't have to be what anyone else counts (for us or for themselves).

I don't "count" my youngest sister's highest weight, because it was during the last weeks of her pregnancy and counted the weight of the baby. She counts it and that's what matters to her (I don't tell her that I don't "count" the weight of the baby. She doesn't need to know that I count differently).

When she would complain about her baby weight with her first son it was hard to sympathize, because two days after having the baby, she was back in a healthy weight range and her stomach looked like she'd never had a baby. She only ever had a weight "problem" with her third son. After he was born, she had 15 lbs she wanted to lose (she only needed to lose 10 to get into a healthy range) and she lost it all in 6 weeks.

I understand that she counts differently and the 15 lbs were important to her, but it's kind of hard for me to wrap my brain around "only" having 15 lbs to lose (or for that matter, being able to lose all you want to in 6 weeks).

I can understand why people count differently, but unless you're counting in a way that makes it harder for you to succeed, the counting method doesn't really matter. Whether or not it counts, and what it counts for is entirely up to the person doing the counting (though they should probably keep it to themselves if it they disagree with another person's counting method)

[RoyalAthena]

For me it depends:
I was at my top weight for a couple years (maybe). The scale wasn't a part of my ritual back then. I count it. I have overcome alot and I deserve to own that number. I don't tell everybody. Sometimes family, friends and sincere people who want to congratulate/motive me.

I am doing a challenge with some friends who didn't know me at my highest weight. So with them, it is considered as being 22 pounds lost.

[berryblondeboys]

I wouldn't count a pregnancy top weight for so many reasons - there's more than just baby - there's a placenta and water and you carry extra blood in your body, etc. Both times I was pregnant, 3 weeks post-partum, I weighed 30 plus pounds LESS than when I went in for delivery.

But I think it's more that my husband doesn't realize the mental battle this is for me. Sure, I was 'only 255' when I started this effort,, but I could have been any weight. While I watched the scale, I did nothing to control the numbers. I got to 275 quickly - very quickly. In the span of 2 years I went from 185 to 275. (I had recently lost 50 pounds and then gained it back plus 40 more in two rapid chunks). So, even my weight gains were never slow - allowing my skin to adapt. I gained FAST.

I know he says it to comfort me - as the loose skin bugs me, but like someone mentioned before - I need to 'own' where I have been - because it tells the full story for me.

[Prim2012]

I use the weight I was when I first started focusing on losing weight. I still have the Weight Watchers card from almost 5 years with the 278 as a reminder. I was so shocked I couldn't even stay through the entire meeting. I lost the bulk of my weight during those first couple of years (dropped WW and went on my own) and have gone through several stops and starts and gains and losses along the way. I've been losing and gaining the same 20 pounds for the last 2-3 years! I'm not sure if I'll ever reach the goal I have in my head but that's another topic.

[TripSwitch]

The only reason I even know my "top" weight is that they weighed me when I checked myself into a fat farm this time around... 228lbs.!!! Otherwise I would have "guessed" somewhere around 200lbs. (I stopped weighing myself after I hit 198, because I knew what was coming next.... and if I didn't see 200 on that scale than it simply didn't happen did it?)

And for the record you'll never get me to openly admit to ever being that fat... It's just not going to happen.... Yes, I can't deny that I was "heavy"... that was obvious... But what's become rather apparent to me is no one really cared exactly how much I weighed... And I prefer that it stay that way... I consider my exact weight to be something highly personal, along the lines of my age, and how much money I make... People can speculate all they want... But my motto is "A lady never tells, and a true gentleman never asks"

[defenestrator]

Most of my time at my top weight was in the low 260s, but I hit 271 at one weigh-in and I think of it as my top weight as well.

I spent about 16 years or so hovering in the 240s, then I went on a treatment plan for my PCOS and reacted badly to it. The combo of the medication and then coming off of the medication made me gain 25lbs in a span of about 4 months.

I'm beginning to accept that my skin is going to be a mess. My belly I had already accepted, but the insides of my arms are getting bad and my thighs are getting bad. My goal weight is about 125 below my high weight and that's a lot of weight to lose in your 40s.

[linJber]

I'll probably never know if my top weight really was the 252 I show here. I didn't have a scale for years and only got weighed at the doctor's office. It was consistently in the 250s. When I decided to lose weight I didn't have a scale. I joined a gym on a whim and the next day really jumped into the eating thing with both feet. I got a scale after 2 weeks because I figured I'd want to know how much I lost. At that point I was about 246. Over the next 8 weeks I lost almost exactly 3 pounds per week, so I added 3 pounds per week for the first 2 when I didn't have a scale and came up with 252 as my own "official" starting weight. I imagine I might have lost more than 3 pounds the first week because I cut so much crap from my diet I had to have lost a lot of water weight. But 252 sounds OK to me. It isn't like anyone really cares about the exact number.

I will say that I have some loose and baggy skin, but it isn't horrible, especially for a person my age. Many of my friends who were never heavy have loose skin,too - it's just part of being over 60. I like to think of it as having size 12 skin and a size 10 body. And none of the bagginess started to show until I had lost about 80 pounds, which is the main reason I quit after losing 90 instead of going for 100 as I first planned.

We can count our highest weight however we want, but I don't think your weight on the day you deliver a baby as being your actual weight. I'd say a truer measure of your actual weight is probably a week or so postpartum, after the abnormal fluid weight is pretty much gone. And for those who gained a few pounds with pregnancy, those extra pounds can be gone in a month or 2. I was 208 the day my DD was born and 180 at my first doctor visit after. I'd say at that time, 180 was my highest weight, not 208.

Lin

[alaskanlaughter]

my top weight was 270 right after giving birth to my oldest son who's now 14...i dont count that as my starting weight though...i count the weight i was when i "started" thsi time around, about a year and a half ago, to watch what i eat and exercise...at that time i weighed 230...i know i hit 247 right when my younger son was born, who's now 6...i count both those higher numbers as part of what my body's been through, because no one in their right "weight" would be my height and weigh that much for any reason regardless of pregnancy LOL

on the other hand, the lowest adult weight i've ever seen was 198 about 8 years ago when i was working out hard and watching my weight...and the weight came back when i stopped going to the gym...i tended to settle around 210 naturally when i'm not exercising or watching my food

right now i weighed in at 187 today!