Its interesting that right now, my ultimate goal weight and size is to be what I was when I met my boyfriend. I was around 180-185 and a size 14/16. But when I was that size, I still always wanted to be smaller, and at times was very unhappy about the way I looked. But now I look at those pictures, and I realized I looked good I know alot of that unhappiness had to do with being in HS, and having mean skinny sisters lol.

I just hope that when (notice I say WHEN not IF!) I get back to that size, I wont be unhappy with myself, like I was then.

just kind of rambling I guess

~Liz

This is really too funny, because I was JUST thinking the EXACT same thing! I'm looking at pictures of myself 6 years back (which is now my goal weight), and I remember being SO unhappy with myself...and now I want to be right back there!

It's interesting how you perceive yourself...I hope that I can be happy with myself at my goal as well, and I think once I start seeing myself fit into smaller clothes it'll all be good...but I guess I won't know until I get there!

My goal weight is 130, which is what I was about my sophomore year of high school. Back then I thought I was a whale. To be honest, I thought I was huge when I weighed 115 also. The only time I ever felt "thin" was immediately after I started puberty, when I had a huge growth spurt and lost some weight (I think a lot of young girls plump up right before puberty), and I was like 5'2" and weighed 103.

I am already starting to feel "thin" again, despite the fact that I used to think I was fat when I weighed so little. I think it is different now because I have much more muscle and I am much more physically fit. I do wonder sometimes if I will feel happy with my results when I get to 130 though.

I have mused over the exact same thing. I was heavy early in High School and then my senior year I lost a good deal of weight. I kept it off through college and then started gaining a little bit. I was about 180 - 15 pounds over my senior year and college weight - when I met my husband. It's amazing to me to realize that I was so very pretty at that time when I would look in the mirror and think, even after losing a lot of weight, that I was so fat and ugly. I can finally see the tiniest bit of difference in my face (I've lost 20 pounds as of today but I'm 6 feet tall and have 60 more to go, so it doesn't show nearly as much as one might expect) and I feel so much prettier. I really hope that when I get to my goal weight, I can appreciate how good I look and not hate what I see in the mirror. It makes me sad that when I was so pretty before, I didn't even know it.

My goal weight of 150 is what I weighed in college -- when I thought I was fat! I have always felt big, but I guess that's what happens when you're 5'10" and big boned! I am feeling much better about my body now than when I was in college, even though I'm still 22 pounds away from that weight. I am more toned and fit into a size 10, which was what I wore in college. I think our perceptions are skewed when we are younger -- not that they're not now, but just moreso during our teens and early 20s.

I almost wish that I had felt like I was fat at some point in time, I might have started trying to lose weight earlier on. I was quite happy with my body at my goal weight, but I was happy with my size when I weighed 105 pounds in high school and when I weighed 191 pounds after college. It was only after I saw some pictures that I realized that at 191 pounds I was seriously overweight and not just "big-boned" and "curvy".

I am much more fit and muscular now than I ever have been before in my life. I have been thinking about revising my goal weight because my real goal is to drop from my current size 6 down to a size 4. When I look back at pictures, size 4 works for my body. Size 2 is too thin for my adult frame and I can see right now that even at a muscular size 6 I still have a little too much body fat.

Jdoggmartin, I know what you mean about the sizes -- I fit way better into a size 10 now than I did when I weighed less earlier. Last time I lost weight, at 150 I was barely squeezing into 10, and only sometimes -- I still wore a 12 of my favorite jeans (Old Navy just-below-waist bootcut). Now my size 10 of my favorite jeans is even a little loose -- if I tug at it (I mean a lot of tugging), I can yank them off without unbuttoning or unzipping them! And I bought these when I weighed around 153 or 155 or something. As an adult, I have never been less than a 10, and only barely have I even been a 10. I'm really looking forward to fitting those size 8 jeans!

Sometimes when I think back on being a teenager, when I thought I was so fat, I wonder how I managed to avoid developing an eating disorder. I think I have the personality type (perfectionist, all-or-nothing attitude, and I am a bit obsessive-compulsive) and I certainly had all sorts of negative body-image issues back then.

What's funny is I have this distinct memory of sitting on the bus in like 10th grade, and this girl was saying she needed to borrow a pair of black jeans from someone for some reason, and I offered mine and said "What size do you wear, like a 5?" and her response was "Oh my GOD, that is SO BIG!" (At the time my size 5's were too small for me.) I felt totally awful, even though I know she didn't mean it the way it came out. Thinking back, I wonder what was going through that girl's head when she said that.

Okay, this whole post was totally off-topic, I'm just rambling now. I think teenagers have a LOT of body-image issues, and it's kind of depressing. I remember when the girls in HS would look at magazines at pictures of people like Kate Winslet (this was around when Titanic came out) and say "She is SO FAT!" when in reality she was way skinnier than them. I also think location has a lot to do with it -- the saying "you can never be too rich or too thin" is supposedly especially true in Los Angeles, where I grew up (and since there's not really a winter, there is a LOT of exposed skin and tight-fitting clothes).