I understand - I was a fat kid until I was 15, then I lost a lot of weight and kept it off (albeit unhealthily during most of that time) for four years. I started taking care of myself physically... then, I decided I deprived myself of yummy goodness and went on a big, constant binge (combined with stress and some very difficult circumstances), and BAM! On came the weight! I ended up weighing ten pounds more than I EVER did, even before dieting and eating disorders!

But now, I'm developing healthy habits that I'm not ever going to let slip away. The thought of losing all the weight just to get FAT again terrifies me, and it would be such a waste for me to drop those pounds just to watch them come back on. I don't care what the number says, but once I'm down to my GW, I'm expecting nice abs (4 pack or so) and to be probably around a size 4. If my abs disappear and I get any bigger than a 6, I'll know it's time to work out harder and make some diet adjustments!

That's for sure. The lowest weight I've ever seen was 131. I saw it once. Haven't seen it since. I think my body has found its comfort zone and wants to stay there. I only eat about 1200 calories a day, so in order to lose more weight, I'd have to drop my calories even lower and I really don't want to do that.

I worry about this a lot. My goal is 160 lbs, which is STILL 40 pounds more than my stick figure of a husband. But, I keep telling myself that even at my THINNEST (and I was pretty wasted away) I was never under 140, that I'd had 3 children, and that I won't get down to the same weight I was when I was 15. Even after all that, I just think I'll hit 160 and be a size 10 again, and think "Well...10 more pounds would get me to a size 8...let's do it!" And then eventually my anorexia will relapse and I'll be screwed...

I am conflicted on what has caused this worry for me. One is I have OCD so I worry that that will kick in on my weight loss making me wanna loss more and more. Another part I think is how I see myself. When I was 16 I was maybe 100-105 lbs then I got pregnant and gained my highest weight at almost 160 when I delivered. I did lose most of that weight 1 1/2yrs later weighing in at 113. But I lost that in a very unhealthy way that I could never and would never do again. Then I had kid number 2 and weighed 130 after him. Then with three and four I never lost the weight. In fact after number four is when my calories dropped so low without me even knowing it. I guess that is my biggest worry is falling back into old habits and dropping my calories so low without seeing that thats what Iam doing.

For me, it's not so much the pounds on the scale as it is the size. An 8 is the skinniest I can get realistically. Even then, if it's too hard to maintain, I'll stick to a 10. It's just not worth being that restrictive. I could probably stand to go down to a 6, but I just have visions of my sister when she was a size 4 and 5'10". I don't want to go that route.

My fear is that I will never see my goal. The 190s just seem to be an impenetrable barrier. Years and years ago, my weight stayed in the 190s forever and just seemed to be where my body got comfortable. Now after going through a 6 week plateau, I fear that I won't be able to go any lower. And am I really willing to cut my calories any lower to get to goal? I don't know, right now I'm not. (I know, I know - more exercise is the answer, but I can't seem to get that going lately either.)

Rubberlegs, I hear you on the size. I would love love love to get to a single digit size - 8s would be great. If I were the size I wanted, would the number on the scale really matter?

Exactly. That siren of 122 is beckoning me. And, I have "secrectly" been thinking about trying for 119, and then I thought 117, because it would be a round 155lbs lost and in the teens. And then I could finally feel thin.

But honestly, I don't know if my body will let me get to 122, let alone 117. I keep plugging away though. If I never get there, c'est la vie, but I sure am going to try my darndest. Especially because I would love to be at that weight for the start of the semester in late August.

Exactly! If I can stay under 130 ... maybe it would be safer to stay under 125 and I could do that for sure if I was only 119 ....

I have thought of this, and it came up recently because even though I am nowhere near "too skinny" I had 2 people in the course of a week mention to someone else that they were "worried about me". Now one was my MIL who bless her heart firmly believes that you should never be thinner after children than before children. So even though I am still WAY bigger than SIL, I am too thin because I am thinner than I was pre kids. But SIL isnt too thin because that weight is "normal for her". The other is my neighbor who only met me about a month before I got pg and I blew up like a balloon the second I got pg. So to her mind I have lost even more weight than I really have.

My solution is I have a body fat % I wont go below. And I have a person I trust to look at me and be honest. I know for a fact that if I got too thin they would tell me and it would really mean "too thin" without agenda.

The bottom line for me is if I get to a point that I have to FIGHT to go lower I will stop. I could stay here and be happy, but dangit I am caught between sizes.

I USED to worry that I'd never reach goal, but then I realized that goal wasn't the most important thing. I'm healthy now, a healthy weight, I look much better, feel much better. I still WANT to reach my goal, and may even tweek it a bit when I get there. Not sure. I got 5 pounds from it before pregnancy and at that point, I figured either goal or 5 more would do it for me, but I wouldn't know til I reached it. I certainly have no inclinations towards being a rail so going beyond just isn't a concern. But I'm content with where I'm at enough that I haven't forced the issue and focused on it much.

I wish I was afraid of not being able to stop losing. I have a history of eating disorders since 15 - I was tiiinnyyyy... then I got big after having my daughter (five years ago) and thought my chub was cute. I went down from 185 to 165 (on BFL) and stayed there for about 3 years, but generally I've been overweight for five years now. My ED has gone the way of chronic eating - anything I want - all day long. I've flip flopped so much, I can hardly see reaching my goal or sticking with this for very long. I want to be afraid of unstoppable dieting, hehe.

I dream of getting to this day. When I've maintained for two years, I'm sure I will much more confident about my ability to continue maintaining. But until I get there, I'm just gonna have to worry about it.

I definitely hear you on the wishing I had known this 20 years ago! In my freshman year of college I had a weight obsessed roommate and we spent of the year in cycles of starvation and binging. After that, I decided obsessing about my weight wasn't healthy and basically gave up hope on every being thin. If only I had known then that it is possible to lose weight in a healthy way and not feel hungry and deprived all the time. All those years I put so much energy into finding clothes that hid the way I looked; I could have been putting that energy into looking good and feeling good about myself. But I guess the consolation is that I did get to eat a lot of ice cream during those years.

At times I worry about that, but I try to not think about it too much. I don't know if my goal is right anyway, since I've never been at a normal adult weight, so in a way, maybe that once I'm there, I won't have the temptation of "I could try to shoot for the 110 lbs of when I was 15" or something like this. Of course, it could also be the contrary, but by now, I've pretty much accepted that I'm a meso-endomorph build, and will never have a "shrimp" figure nor should I aim for one. I just hope I won't get delusions of grandeur once I'm at goal, and that whatever I stay at will be comfortable enough for me to live with it, and not strive for some elusive last 5 lbs that I can't lose anyway because I'm not made for that body type-wise. But of course... I'll only know when I'm there.