Is it REALLY all about health???

We talk alot on this forum about being HEALTHY and FIT and so on and LIFESTYLE.
I do this too. But with a recent absolutely unexpected jump UP the scales, why oh why am I so discouraged? I mean, if it is about HEALTH, then why am I even weighing myself? Why do the numbers BUG me so much if I'm that much healthier? Would this jump up the scale mean less to me if I was, say, within 10 lbs of my goal weight? And I KNOW that when I was 244lbs, it was all about the numbers, baby, because lower numbers meant better health (blood pressure, risk of obesity related diseases and so on). But have I redefined HEALTH the smaller I get? So I'm questioning myself...and you too

SO, be HONEST! Is it REALLY all about health? Or are the numbers important to you? And did they get LESS important to you as you approached goal or were within normal weight boundaries -- and do you redefine HEALTH the smaller you get? And if you are MAINTAINING, would a 5 lb jump UP the scale, even if it was exercise-related, bother you?

Thoughts?

Kira

Health, Vanity, Numbers, Clothes, Confidence, Happiness....

There is definitely more than my health involved.

It was, but it's not anymore. If I ever gain the weight back, it will be about health again. Maybe it's about a healthy mindset? I think it's about control too.

I've posted freely many times that I'm in love with clothes and shopping. I may be happy I have more energy and confidence, but I am ecstatic over my closet full of cute size 6 clothes!

As a maintainer - I have been within my red-line weight for over 4 years (with one blip that I corrected). I wouldn't want to gain 5 lbs - none of my clothes would fit.

I do have to say though - when I was heavy, I was so tired and lethargic all the time, depressed, falling asleep. There is a lot of vanity involved, but I am so happy with how I FEEL - I really can't underestimate the health portion of my transformation. I feel GREAT most of the time, whereas before I felt lousy.

I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the numbers... I mean, I use them as a general way to keep track of my progress, but I don't get depressed when the scale goes up or particularly excited when it goes down. They're just numbers to me.

But I can't say it's all about health, either... there's a huge "looks" component for me. In just a few pounds I'll be out of the "overweight" BMI range, but still have a lot to lose before I'm satisfied with how my body looks.

And yes, I know what you mean about redefining health... I think most of us do that! Think about people who started out 100+ pounds overweight, and now run marathons or do other amazing athletic things... maybe "healthy" initially meant being able to walk up stairs without being winded and not eating an entire half-gallon of ice ream, but now they might think of their health in terms of their latest race time and taking in just the right combination of nutrients each day.

I will say that if the numbers bother you, maybe it's worth it to stop weighing for a while! Put the scale away for a month and focus on the process, not the results.

The numbers are a method of measuring how I am doing. I like concrete data. Instead of being happy with walking 30 minutes, I want to wear a pedometer and see how many steps I walk in a day. Then I can challenge myself to increase those steps and to increase the number of steps that I make in that 30 minute walk.

Concrete data that I can analyze and compare. I guess that is why I like calorie counting.

Those numbers encourage me. When I was at my highest weight, I could not really tell that I had lost 10 pounds. Seeing it on the scale encouraged me.

However, I am not kidding myself. I want to look better but feeling better and moving better is more important.

nope..... I just wanna look HOT!!

Yes, it is about health.

Would a 5 lb. gain bother me? Like Glory said, as long as my clothes still fit, and the gain was because I increased muscle and not fat - no.

The number on the scale is not important. I weigh myself daily so that I do not end up where I was before. The scale is a tool that I use to help assess how I am doing.

As I approached goal, the number DID become less important. In fact, I reset my goal three times, and then lost an additional 10 lbs after I declared "goal". Since health and fitness were my ultimate goal, the weight goal had to be "tweaked".

When I reached my first weight goal (140 lbs), I did not feel that I was at a healthy weight, so I lowered my goal by 5 lbs. I did this again when I reached 135. When I reached 130, I continued to exercise and experimented with finding my maintenance level of calories. My body finally settled into 120 ish, and I have stayed at 118-122 ever since.

Now, please note that I am 51 years old. And, I do believe that my age is a factor in how I answer this question. Health and fitness are a lot more important to me now, than 20 years ago. Only in the last few years did my weight start affecting my health.

In this order:
1.To look hot
2.self-confidence
3.clothes
4.health
I know that order might not make sense to alot of you,but that is just the way it is!

It is about health, sure, but I think most of us have a packaged deal. I mean I have goals, dreams, things I want to do and I can't right because of my weight. I also do want to look nice, you know normal and all. I want to feel better too and tackle some core issues I have with food. I do pay attention to the scale, sometimes I downright obsess over those numbers. I get upset if it skips up and I even cry about it on occasion.

I think it is a number of things and to me health is the top one. I want to loose my weight so my skin is better. I want to change my lifestyle, settle in to being happy and living. And I want to look nice. And I want to wear things I want to wear. Hehe..

Health IS important to me, but I've always been honest about wanting to look better. I want to feel better about how I look, and I want to be attractive to the opposite sex. Sometimes I feel like people think that's a shallow reason for wanting to lose (nobody in this thread has implied that!), but I don't feel that way at all. I think that how we feel about how we look is a really important factor in how we relate to others, so it's a totally legit reason to want to lose.

So, honestly speaking--for me, it's looks first, with health running a close second. I just really hated the way I felt when I was heavier. I felt like a lumberjack, heavy and slow and totally unattractive. I still feel a little like that, but much, much better.

Mostly vanity for me, lol. My pants stopped fitting and I started feeling fat. I want to fit into my clothes. I had to buy a pair of size 8 pants yesterday, when before I was a size 4 or 6. *sigh* I know some people would say 8 is small, but I'm not a tall person. If I started fitting into my clothes and smaller sizes though, but wasn't at my goal weight, I'd be okay.

For me, this journey is mostly about health, as my moniker says -- my health got very bad when I got very heavy and I hated how terrible I felt. There is no doubt that we all want to look better when we look in the mirror: but for me, that will be the bonus, or icing on the cake (becuz I don't eat icing anymore).

I want to feel more comfortable in my skin, but more so, I don't want to feel so tired and I want all the pain to go away. I believe that if I lose more weight, then my health will improve immensely (as that is but one means by which we can gauge ourselves to see how we are doing).

I prefer to be a bit more focused on NSV's like smaller clothes, which was how I always gauged how I was doing in the past. My main goal is to get into a ladies size 18, then a 14, and then we'll see from there. I have hit a couple of plateaus along the way, but I'm in this for life. I am looking for a healthier today and tomorrow ...

I think I am "healthy" in the basic sense of the word. I eat local organic stuff for the most part and I am very active. I can climb mountains and run and ski and bike and feel great.

So I am struggling with this journey, bc part of me feels like I need to lose weight to reach the societal ideal, and part of me wants to be happy where I am now. I can buy cute clothes and look cute in a 12. In fact I just did this morning But when I see people around me I feel like that is not good enough.

Looks-wise, there are advantages to where I am now (c-cup, voluptuosity) and looks-wise there would be advantages if I were a 6 (no muffin-top). So I really just want to get to a place where I can accept myself at any weight.

So I guess I don't know what the journey is about for me. Sometimes I wonder what Kate Harding (Shapely Prose) would have to say about this site.

I started this journey all about how I wanted to LOOK. I mean, let's face it, my big "Oh my goodness this must be taken care of" moment was when I first tried on a wedding dress and realized that I'd be looking like -that- on my wedding day.

But now, it really is about being the healthiest me I can be. As I got closer to goal, this started becoming more and more my primary focus. Once I hit goal, when my body gave me the choice between a sustainable, well-exercised, nutrient-fortified "overweight" me and a starving, unsustainable, too-tired-to-exercise "normal weight" me, I went with the first one. That means I'm still bigger than a lot of folks, but I know that I am healthy, and that's my goal at this point.