Calpurrnia,

I'm liking this personal trainer thing more all the time...I'm having lunch with a former student of mine--fabulous writer; in fact she's going to work at a local private Christian school for a year to know whether or not she wants to be an ENGLISH TEACHER!!!!!!! But I digress...she is the one who is a blackbelt, and I am going to ask her if she would suggest this kind of "accountability" between us. If it's not kosher with her, I'm going to pursue a personal trainer. The problem is that small southern towns (i.e. less than 16,000 souls) have not a plethora of trained people to cull from.

Dear NeverBinThin,
I can very much relate to your story. I've been there. Although I have been trim and fit in my life it didn't last long. I didn't feel comfortable in my own body!

This time it will be permanent and I know it. The reason is the change is coming from inside of me, not the outside in.

You can't change yourself from the outside in. Something happened and you still are not over it. When you FULLY deal with what happened to you then you will see your fear disappear.

How do I know? It's happening to me. My nutrition and exercise program is more than a lifestyle change. It is life changing program! The more I address the way in which I eat, the speed, the kinds of foods I eat, the way my body feels when I exercise; the more I become in tune with me. The end result is unraveling the truth about what happened to me, grieving the losses fully and then moving on.

Have you ever been in therapy for what happened with your father? There's a lot more to discover about yourself and what happened to you. Problems with body image stem from sexual abuse, over controlling parents, and many other issues.

I know, I've been there.

dear never,

i think the most important thing is to remember why you want to lose weight. i agree with you, if i could be 100 pounds overweight and healthy as a horse, i would love it! if you arent losing weight to gain attention that's the thing to remember. you have a husband, i hope you have a strong marriage there, so you are secure in a relationship with someone. you dont need to lose weight to catch eyes. you want to lose weight to be healthy. you are obviously a very intelligent person, but it doesnt always help to be smart, because you can think about things way too much sometimes. i'm like that. by trying to take my life from a much simpler view i am making some progress in every aspect of it. it's a very slow process, and i have just recently started. it started for me on my 25th birthday last month. i decided that i didnt want to continue feeling tired all the time, that i didnt want to leave the house a mess all the time, that i didnt want to spend the next 20 years yelling at my kids instead of hugging them. i didnt wake up thinking, "god, i want to be a sexy little thing who can get any man she wants". i want to be healthy again. i want to go hiking in the mountains with my kids and help them to stay healthy as they grow.

so, all that said, back to the point i guess. remarks from others aside, you need to keep the reason why you are losing weight first and foremost in your mind. if you have a goal in mind to be healthy, not a sex object, then remember it when people say something to you. when they say, "hey you're looking really good", you say to them, "i look how i look, but I FEEL great!".

keep up the positive thinking. i hope i was some kind of help... this was my first posting and always try to remember WHY you have chosen to do something.

k jessop*

*giggles* I wonder if I know where you're from! I know exactly what you mean about that, though. Auburn is so small, but I really lucked out with my trainer. And remaining accountable with friends is a lot of fun, definitely, but I've always had problems with it. But then none of my exercise friends has blackbelt! Lol.

My advice: if you go around "shopping" for a trainer, be sure you don't sign any contracts before you have a trial run. I know that most places give you at least one free training session. The trainer I'm working with ended up giving me like a month of free training sessions (she was being moved from one company to another and decided not to make me sign a contract that would only last 20 more days before having to sign another one), so that was very very lucky. But really, if you can avoid it, don't sign any contracts until you know for sure that you like that particular trainer.

And if that doesn't work out, consider getting <i>Body for Life</i>. It's so great.

Have a great day!

hey.

i just wanted to make a comment about this never wanting to be thin issue. I think its interesting and deserves a comment.

please don't take this the wrong way. its not ment to be an insult or a show off of knowledge. but something interesting that i learned and wanted to share here.

first, i just wanted to say its really cool that so many people in the same boat are willing to share their thoughts and support. that's one of the reasons why this site is probably so popular. the support is wonderful.

second, i took a psychology class this past semester (i'm a psych major) and my professor said that really struck me as interesting and i think it applies here. he said most of our problems as adults come from things that happend to us as children, and if we ever want to get over those problems (be it weight, love, boyfirends, or whatever) we need to come to terms with those problems, to deal with them and morn them. its difficult to do this because who wants to think about these kinds of problems? they're depressing and make us sad, bring down our day etc. but , neverbeenthin, it sounds like you're doing a great job. its amazing that you can actually talk about it and are coming to terms with it. i'm so sorry this has happend to you. i'm sorry that we have to deal with issues like this, be it weight or bad things that happend to us as children or happening to us now. i wish such things didn't happen.

but perhaps it makes us stronger?...

take care.
~ralph