So, back in 2013 there were a few confession threads about our worries, insecurities, and plain old quirks that come with losing weight. The threads are long closed and I didn't see any others, but if there are I apologize. This is meant to be a no-judgement, no-holds-barred zone.

So, I'll start.

- I worry that I will hit my goal weight and be unhappy still because of saggy skin and deflated boobs.

- I cannot weigh myself every day. I get too obsessive about the number, a number that sets the tone for the rest of the day. I find weighing in 2x a week is better because I see progress each time.

- I hope losing weight will boost my career, give me more credibility because I will seem more disciplined and attractive. I work in a very male dominated industry and attractive women have much more of an edge.

- I was 150ish when I got married and now 8 years later I've really let myself go. My husband has always liked me curvy, but now I'm just fat. And for years I have been going avoiding sex because I'm so embarrassed. My husband still adores me and wants sex, and I'm hurting him and neglecting his needs. We've had sex twice this year, with not-so regular sessions of oral sex to have some intimacy (and so I didn't have to undress). My husband would never cheat, but I've become irrationally paranoid that he will and it will be my fault for condemning him to a sexless marriage. I'm 30 and in love and should be enjoying a healthy sex life! This is my biggest motivation to drop weight this time. Not so much for him, but for me.

- I see so many photoshopped images of actresses, models, selfies, etc., I don't think I even know what a real woman looks like anymore. But I can't help comparing myself to something that isn't real.

Whew!!!! Anyone else have anything they want to confess?

Hi Leopardspots.....love that you have put it all out there, nothing held back!

Almost 40 years ago I was you. Had a promising journalistic career, fantastic husband and life was so good. But I let myself go, got put on the night shift at the newspaper where the head honchos didn't have to see me and sex was almost non-existent.

Somehow I did get pregnant and then had to quit my job due to a difficult pregnancy that my weight probably contributed to somehow. Never did go back to work and had a second child. Over the years the weight kept piling on. I was the fattest mother all through my children's' school years. Never had any nice clothes because I looked fat and frumpy in anything I wore.

I did manage to get within 20 lbs of my ideal weight back in the mid-1990's but blew it, regained everything and packed on more.

Now here I am at age 69 with health problems all due to my weight. I now have a newborn grandchild and something has finally clicked in my thick skull. I don't want to be the fat grandma who can't even get on the floor to play, or go for a walk or carry the child around. This is my last chance to get the weight off and live what life I have left comfortably and healthfully at a normal weight.

So, Leopardspots, consider my life over all these years. I've really lived in the shadows, not fully participating due to my obesity.

Don't live your life like I did. You are only 30 years old!! Get your excess weight off, keep it off and enjoy a full, loving, exciting life. Don't settle like I did. I chose food over everything in my life--my children, my husband and my health. (I will add that my wonderful husband has stuck by me all these years. But like you, I feel I have cheated him out of a normal sex life because of my obesity.)

I'm tired of sitting on life's sideline. I'm tired of regrets. I'm through with putting food first.

I wish you the very best in your weight loss journey. Do it now, Leopardspots.

264/256/160

I don't eat a lot but I probably eat all the wrong things. Not Mcdonald's and donuts, but too many carbs/red meat/dairy. Instead I spend almost every night at the gym for the past few years only to maintain my weight and not lose an ounce. It's better than gaining but it's pissing me off that I'm busting my butt and I don't even look like I go to the gym. I should be ripped by now. I don't know how I stay motivated but it's probably fear of gaining. When I was losing it felt great....now I just feel like this is almost pointless.

I have friends that go to the gym less than I do and they are very toned.

buckeyegal Your story really motivated me as well... thank you for sharing... you're going to be an amazing grandma!

Like you leopardspots I also worry that I will get to goal and still be unhappy because of loose skin. I've been overweight since I was 12 and obese since I was 16. I'm nearly 24 now... that's a lot of weight to carry for those years. But, fingers crossed and much toning and strength training and cooing sweet words at my skin to persuade it.

I want to be able to wear normal-people-clothes... shop in normal stores for normal sizes not be a "plus size" any more, as modern as the market is becoming. Also, a bra without triple reinforced straps. Please.

I get twitchy about eating things which come with no calorific value or nutritional information on them. For this reason i trend towards foods which are packaged, processed or tinned. Really need to get over that one

Great thread, hugs to you all

Wow! What an awesome thread! It is so encouraging to read other stories and see that people have had similar experiences as me...sometimes it feels like you are the only one carrying around guilt and shame due to weight issues.

In my case, I was the normal body weight until about 17 years old, when the pounds started creeping in here and there. By 23 I was 170 pounds and at 25 when I got married, I was 185. After having 2 kiddos, I was 190 and realized I had to get healthier. I lost about 25 pounds over a year and was feeling great. I decided to become a surrogate mother to help a couple have a baby and between the hormones necessary for IVF AND getting pregnant with triplets, my weight once again was on the rise. After delivering the twins (one baby passed away before 12 weeks of pregnancy) I knew I wanted to do it again. I started my next surrogate pregnancy at 175 pounds, but again the IVF meds and getting pregnant with Quadruplets was very challenging. This time I delivered one healthy baby (the triplets passed away at 15 weeks of pregnancy). After that, I just started letting myself go. I was up to 200 pounds when I needed to have a hysterectomy at the age of 36. Four years later and I was at 233.

The very hard part is that my husband has always been overweight. He is over 400 pounds and very, very miserable in his life. We have a really negative air in our household because he is always crabby. He deliberately sabotages my weight loss efforts, going as far as dishing me up junk food and laying it in my lap. We have not had sex for 2 years due to a combination of weight issues and ED. He is pre-diabetic, but does not want to change. I have no support from him.

I feel I have let my kids down throughout the years because of my weight. I was the tired, fat mom who couldn't/ wouldn't get off the couch to do things. I've had 7 knee surgeries and a partial knee replacement and I am only 41. I bought all the wrong crap at the grocery store, used fast food for convenience, ect. So, now at 13 and 15 my children are overweight too. I am finally trying to be a positive energy in this household. I am buying fruits and veggies, very little treats and no pop. I walk everyday and encourage the kids to be active too. With my husbands health/ weight issues, it is a very real possibility that he will die at an early age. My greatest fear is passing away from weight issues and leaving my children parent-less. I have to make these changes for me and for them.

Thanks for helping me unload that! No one knows these internal struggles that I have, nor the hurt and emotion of all these years when weight has been the bane of my existence. I pray that each of us on this thread find the hope, courage and success to be the people we really want to be!

Shannon

stren003 Wow I am so impressed by your selfless act of surrogacy-multiple times! What a sacrifice to help others out. I can't even imagine going through what you did with all the difficulties and some sad outcomes. If you can do that- you can do anything! I recently went through a rough time in my family and when I am struggling to stay on my diet, I think, ok this is not as bad as [X]- I survived that, I can do this! GOOD LUCK!!!!

What a thread, you all are amazing! leopardspots I know it's gotta be hard not having intimacy in your relationship. I have been very surprised to learn over the last few years that many many people I know have sexless marriages. Even more surprising is that over time some of these sexless marriages evolve into mutually understood "open" marriages. I am so shocked by the prevalance of this!

buckeyegal You are so hard on yourself. You say you choose food over everything in your life, you're not alone in feeling that way. But please remember that food has played an important role in your life, it may have brought you comfort in a way that you shouldn't sneer at. Sure, there are ways to comfort oneself beyond food and it's important to find those but you can't move forward if you are so hard on yourself. It's much easier to take care of a body you love than it is to care for a body you hate.

novangel I am really inspired by your candor. I hope you drop the guilt about eating foods that you like, you're fit, you're healthy, you're doing the things that you love. There is more to life than being ripped. You are an inspiration, think of yourself that way!

MsTibbles I remember I felt the same way when I was a calorie counter, I was afraid to eat anything that I couldn't calculate. It was one of the driving factors in abandoning calorie counting and I'm so glad I did.

stren003 you are an amazing mother, look at how much you've done for yourself and for other people. Look at how much you've put yourself through to bring happiness to others. I don't know how you did it. And now you're taking charge of your own family in a way only a mother can! Your kids and your husband will thank you down the line. The heart of the home is the mother, once you get healthy everyone else will follow!

My confession - I'm very regretful about the way I have handled my predisposition to depression. I've always battled slight depression episodes and have refused to medicate although I did seek counseling. I don't know if that's always been the right decision. Especially when I suffered post-partem depression, that was the worst and I wish I would've saught help for it, but I was certain that if I did they would put me on medication.

I have a weight-related confession. After letting go and gaining 50 lbs or so over a few years, I actually decided to gain 30 lbs on purpose to reach a "round" 250 lbs. In part, it was a release after holding back for so long. It took only three months of constant gluttony to gain those 30 lbs and reach my highest weight ever. Now, 8 months later, after several attempts to lose the weight I cant seem to keep more than 10 or 15 lbs of it off before eating my way back up close to my high weight.

You're all such amazing women! These are such difficult things to do... I've watched my brother pretty much let go of life and dedicate himself to video games as he got older. Now he's 20, he is in college, but has made no new friends, lives with my parents, eats very poorly, and doesn't excercise. He plays video games literally from the moment he waked up to when he goes to sleep often, only taking breaks for bathroom and food, and maybe sometimes TV... I worry about him. I want him to be happy and fall in love with someone, feel confident...

For me, I began to take better care of myself when I was in 9th grade after going vegetarian. I began eating much healthier and working out, and lost weight. It got obsessive and unhealthy though, and I lose too much weight, went a year and a half without my period, and began gaining all the weight back.
While I've been doing a much better job with getting myself to the gym (so hard to do during the semester!) and portion control/intuitive eating, I worry I'll gain the weight right back.
I've always struggled with pursuing romantic interests due to insecurity, fear of rejection, and anxiety. I'm 21 now and have never had any sort of relationship. I hope that through losing these last 10 lbs, I'll get the confidence I need to pursue people. I'm also mad at myself that I feel I need to lose weight to pursue people.

I worry my brother will never take care of himself.
I worry my weight will always fluctuate up and down like it has ever since 9th grade.
And, I worry about all of the girls and women I know who hate themselves because of their weight, or struggle with eating disorders, or who abuse medication like adderall to reduce food cravings and lose weight. I wish we were all taught to love ourselves just as much, or maybe more, than we love our neighbors.

As someone who is older than you and has been there I have to tell you that although your insecurity is normal it's not going to go away with weight loss. Losing 10lbs will have an effect on your body but not necessarily on your mind and if it does have an effect on your mind it will be temporary as you move on to obsessing about something other detail of your body/self to change in the hopes that it will make you happy. Changing your weight to make you feel more confident is about as effective as putting a bandaid on a broken bone - it doesn't work.

Don't feel sorry for the girls who weren't taught to love themselves. Learn to love yourself and then in turn grow up to be a mother who can SHOW her daughter how to love herself. That's how you change the world, not by feeling sorry for it.

Self love is everything. Without it we are nothing.

I know, I even shock myself sometimes when I think about this, haha. Thanks for your reply, though... I am glad to find someone that can relate in some way. I'm just afraid now that I messed up my body and won't be able to lose the weight...

stren003, I Bow to You! I could never imagine being a surrogate parent, but you are a saint!! God bless you for doing that ~ multiple times!!

My confession is: I literally don't care what other people think. I resent comments or criticisms. I am not here to decorate anyone's world! I haven't stepped on my scale in a year because I don't want to hear it, even from an inanimate source.

That said, I am eating healthy and am hoping for weight loss to happen indirectly because of it. I want to buy new clothes (size 12 or under, please) because it is SO, SO, SO much easier to find ones that are available and look good at that size! I'm a 14 and haven't been able to find anything I like in years! So now I'm a little frumpy, I'm afraid.

I also want (one day) for people to say, "YOU LOOK GREAT! HAVE YOU LOST WEIGHT??" and me to say, truthfully, "Oh I have? I haven't noticed!"

Confession: I've had an eating disorder for a long time, but it involved restricting then bingeing - so I either stayed stable at a higher weight (140s/150s at 5'5", then as the bingeing got worse, I would periodically get up to 190s and maintain there for awhile bingeing, then struggle down to 140s/150s). So I never got to an unsafe weight in terms of being too thin… and when people would say "it's never enough" in regards to people with EDs losing weight, I'm like…. NAH THAT WON'T HAPPEN TO ME.

Except, yeah, it's not really enough. 190s: I'll be happy to just lose anything. The 170s to 190s are the worst. Ugh. I'm so fat. This sucks. 180s: Slightly less fat, this sucks, the 170s and 180s are the worst. 170s: Ok, I'm slightly getting there but I'm still FAT ugh once I'm in the 160s I'll feel safe. 160s: Ok I'm getting there but it's like…. the 160s are STILL fat, I'm still overweight. Can't wait until I get into the 150s. I'll be safe. Then 150s: OMG I NEED TO GET INTO THE 140s, the 150s are TORTURE, I'm so close but yet so far, omg, this sucks. 140s (current): I NEED TO GET TO THE 130s, THE 140s AR EHORRIBLE< SO CLOSE BUT YET SO FAR, the 130s will be safe.

Will they, though? Part of me is like, yes, it will be, because I haven't been in the 130s since I was like, 13/14, and I'm 25 now, and like… it's just THAT MUCH DIFFERENT from the 140s. And I've been "re-losing" regained weight this whole time, so it's hard to get that excited about losing weight you regained in the first place, sometimes twice. I'm really close to losing all the regained weight. I'm about 6 pounds away from a "new" low weight (since 2003/2004). So I feel like that will be different. But what if it's not?

Great thread:

Confession 1: I only SERIOUSLY started my wt loss journey when my now ex told me that my weight was the only thing stopping him from proposing to me (I now know that was total BS)

Confession 2: There are many days that despite having lost the as much as I have, I fear that i will never get to my goal weight

Confession 3: I fear that if I make that goal wt, I will not be happy with how I look anyway, or that I have some type of body dysmorphia.

Im sure that there's more, but that's all that I can think of right now

I joined just to comment on this thread.. so here goes nothing
I've been "chunky" since childhood. Not obese, but slightly overweight. Chunky enough for my thin, gorgeous mother to alternately put me on a diet ( no dinner for 3 months) and make fun of me at every other time ( do you REALLY need to eat that?). The confession is that in past 2 years I finally lost most of the chunkiness but in many ways it made me worse! I look better naked and wear smaller clothes, the benefits end there. I was always physically very healthy, rarely got sick, exercised frequently, had no issues with blood sugar, etc. I was maybe 15-20lbs overweight but my weight stayed stable and I never binge ate. I also could go out, talk to people and more or less try to have a social life. Now that I'm thinner ( mind you, not thin enough for my mind.. I still "feel chunky"), I never go out because I can't trust restaurant food, I can't drink alcohol because all I think about is Calories, I get constant headaches, insomnia, digestive issues, food intolerances, etc. I wish I didnt have to eat because it seems like everything I put in my mouth makes me feel sick. No social life to speak of, I wear sweats most of the time and yeah when I look in the mirror all I think about is butt and arm flab. and oh yeah I binge eat. Not carbs or fat or whatnot like people do, I binge eat VEGETABLES. No joke. I can eat enough broccoli and spinach to feel like vomiting and still feel hungry. In my mind its "free food" calorie-wise but binge eating is binge eating! Plus I'm actually kind of afraid to eat and jealous of people who can eat a sandwich without thinking that much bread and salt will kill them. Bleh.
But hey I have a 29 inch waist now. All worth it right..