Yes. No. I don't know.

The thing is, a while back I started on the "fake it 'til you make it" thing. At the moment I don't know how much is fake and how much is make. Until a few months ago I had the rottenest self-image ever.

I think parts of me are pretty, or attractive, or whatever adjective you want to use, and parts are not. Overall, I'd say yes, I feel good about how I look. I did not feel that way until I reached adulthood and did not feel that way when I was at my higher weight. Particularly when I was heavier than I am now, I did not feel attractive and that affected my self-confidence and my relationship with my husband. Now that I'm more confident, and growing more so with each pound gone, I think I project that self-confidence and that in itself is attractive. I hope that makes sense!

I did consider myself beautiful when I was thinner. Now I don't think I am ugly but I am far from pretty. I think once I lose weight and become confident in myself again, I will feel better about my looks.

It depends on my mood. If I'm being a witchy, PMS-ing shrew, then I'm certainly not pretty. But if I'm my sweet self, I'm a really beautiful girl. I don't wear a lot of makeup, and I'm not a fashion plate, but I turn the most heads and get the most compliments when I am completely myself.

And this thread just breaks my heart.

In the words of Sarah in "A Little Princess": "I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young. They're still princesses. All of us. Didn't your father ever tell you that? Didn't he?"

First of all let me say that I am shocked at how many of you women are gorgeous in your avatars and say you don't think you're pretty! but, i'm sure if i had a photo avatar someone would say the same to me.

I have not always been overweight, and throughout high school I'd feel like i looked good enough until I saw a picture of me, Ugh! I hated the girl in the pictures! And that was at 135.

Now at 258 I don't even see me in my minds eye. i felt beautiful on the day of my mock interview, and asked for my dress rubric photo to be e-mailed to me. I feel like I look bloated and fat and hideous. But when I'm out 7 about I still feel I look good enough. And good enoug his good enough to me! I am a mom, a wife, a student, a daughter, and aunt, a sister, I have enough going on that I'm okay with good enough so long as I can say I'm healthy, happy, and fufilling my duties.

I have never felt pretty and never really been told that I am even from family members. I have always had bad self esteem, it has been slowly improving in the last couple months. In middle school and high school I felt absolutely hideous. Looking back I was probably in mild depression (that was also around the time that my dad left). Now that I am in college it is not much better although I dont feel AS ugly. I hope that one day I will be able to stop comparing myself to others, and feel like I am worth it and good enough. I dont know if I will ever look at myself and think that I am pretty; hopefully one day I will be able to see beauty in myself( I am working on it! ) but not yet.
I will say that sometimes recently I will look at a picture and not recognize myself for second and think that that girl is attractive but I wouldnt say pretty.

Aside from my grandma, I don't recall ever being told I was pretty. And grandma went on about it so much that even as a kid, it sounded shallow to me! I "clean up" pretty well, as one poster said - but I'm not a fan of the hair/makeup routine, so I don't typically get a lot of attention.

What I have noticed, however, is that being successful at this weight loss thing is changing me from the INside - I really do walk taller, look people in the eye longer, and smile more readily. It feels good to take on a project that culturally, we're told is nearly impossible and almost everybody fails at, and yet here's a whole crew on 3FC who's bucking that trend. Maybe it's feeling like part of a community, maybe it's the "achiever aura" around here, maybe it's just the inner sense of pride, but yeah, it's getting a lot easier to look in the mirror now and like what I'm seeing.