Hi, I am extremely overweight and feel absolutely terrible. I have a very low self esteem about my body. I weigh 288lbs. my goal is not even realistic so i have a goal of 43 lbs right now. I have three children and need to get myself healthy again! I need mental thoughts that will get me through tempting times. One i have heard from a thin person is "nothing taste as good as it feels to be thin" I want to feel that feeling
Hello and And I often say that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, and it is true! Hang in there... once you begin losing weight and feel and look better, you will begin to feel it!!!
I'm new too. In fact, I just started this today. My 13 year old daughter and I are both overweight. It has started affecting her heart and blood pressure, so we've started watching what we eat and working out together. What works well for the two of us is using the Wii Fit Plus. It isn't a hard workout, but it does get us both moving . . . and we compete with each other for the highest scores
I'm not sure if your kids are willing to workout with you, but if so, try to make it into a fun game that you all can enjoy!
Good luck to us both! We've take the first step by knowing we have some weight to unload. Now it's time to take it off!
I'm new too. I understand low self esteem. My niece who married last Oct. gave me a picture of the 2 of us and I look like a linebacker next to her petite frame. I wanted to cry when I saw it. She of course thinks we look great. I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't like it at all. We can do this together.
Hi, I'm new here too. Stay string mama. I feel your pain. I too have been filled with self-loathing about my weight, currently 280, down from 310.
I have two young children, and I just keep saying to myself every day that NOTHING teaches like example, and I refuse to allow my children to suffer the childhood I experienced as a fat kid.
I think it starts with self-forgiveness. It's easy to gain weight and learn self-hatred, we live in an obesegenic environment. We are surrounded by airbrushed images of the super thin, and cheap food loaded with fat, salt, and sugar. A lot of people have struggled with weight. Don't beat yourself up if you make a mistake, just jump right back on that health-horse!
Best of luck to you, you deserve happiness, stay strong.
Hi, I'm new here too. Stay string mama. I feel your pain. I too have been filled with self-loathing about my weight, currently 280, down from 310.
I have two young children, and I just keep saying to myself every day that NOTHING teaches like example, and I refuse to allow my children to suffer the childhood I experienced as a fat kid.
I think it starts with self-forgiveness. It's easy to gain weight and learn self-hatred, we live in an obesegenic environment. We are surrounded by airbrushed images of the super thin, and cheap food loaded with fat, salt, and sugar. A lot of people have struggled with weight. Don't beat yourself up if you make a mistake, just jump right back on that health-horse!
Best of luck to you, you deserve happiness, stay strong.
Hello and And I often say that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, and it is true! Hang in there... once you begin losing weight and feel and look better, you will begin to feel it!!!
YOU HAVE DONE AMAZING WITH YOUR WEIGHT LOSS!! CONGRATS!! I JUST HOPE I CAN SUCCEED AND PASS ON SOME GREAT ADVICE AS WELL
Welcome Marymo!.....I started at 373lbs.; trust me when I say that you will soon feel confident and positive as you start losing the weight...it does not take long.
Also, I found the thread called Weightloss Support very useful.
In fact, just this weekend; I started one up about Chip Addiction...and many have responded..this too becomes very supportive and insperational. I am so happy that a friend told me about this site.
Stay strong.....
Rachel3 I have reached that first goal and feel much better. Still have much more to go but am staying strong I thought id share that with you as you were right!! Thanks again for the kind words!!
Mary, i use self -disgust about my body to kick start me on a diet when i've slid back to a really bad place and it works a treat. But then you have to let go of it at some point because continued feelings of self loathing are extremely destructive. I'd say as soon as you start to see weight loss, and feel motivated those negative feelings should drop away. If they don't, you may need extra support. If you are not getting enough here, see a professional counsellor. There is a lot of support here but some people may also need a more functional kind of support if you know what i mean. This site has helped a lot of people so i hope you find it helps you too.
If your self-esteem issues are deeper than your body, then see a good therapist. I found a lot of myself self esteem issues were dealt with in three years of therapy. It seems to me also that fat isn't the key reason for it but its just one and the most obvious one so overweight people can tend to think that when they are skinny they will love themselves and life will be all perfect. But i have read it a few times and of course experienced it myself that you may still have a lot of your problems even though you have a lovely new body that you don't hate any more. So you might as well start out by addressing those emotional issues at the same by but with psychological tools and not just diet.
But generally one thing i have become aware of since all that is that success and achievements, however small, do help us become stronger, more confident people. So nurture every little success you have. Store that precious memory. Use it for inner healing.
With dieting, one of the things i have focused on this time is keeping my mental health as stable as possible. I have had some stresses in the last few months but i have strategies to help me deal with them. For instance, Rather than keep trying to lose when i'm in an emotionally bad spot, i just stop right there, keep eating my good food but eat at about maintenance level. I stop worrying if the scale goes up a little bit so long as i know i am sticking to my food plan and not indulging. Avoiding indulging in my risk foods is key for me. And when i am happy again, i can start focussing on my reduction. So do whatever you can to kick start and maintain optimism and feelings of wellbeing.
I know a lot of people don't like this sort of approach - about having forbidden foods - but it really works for me. I have plenty of foods i love and living without the danger foods is really not hard and in fact helps me. My danger foods are all foods made with refined sugars, but not fruit and not savoury foods. But if my danger foods were kentucky fried chicken and burgers, they'd be on my list of forbidden foods as long as they needed to be also. Whatever triggers a binge should be on the danger list unless you are sure you can eat them in moderation. Working this out helps.
I know a lot of people can eat sweets in moderation but many attempts at trying that has only seen it fail time and again so i no longer think i can do it. Its been now three years since i first had the idea of quitting sweets. I'm on my second working diet doing it and i am more committed than ever to making it a lifelong rule. I have a couple of out clauses where i think the danger is as low as possible but i am not sure i will take them. But thoughts of this kind are something i develop as i go along. There are physiological reasons why refined sugars bugger up our diets. Its to do with hormones. Insulin, leptin. Seratonin. When you are a little further on your journey, ask me where to find good info on these things or go looking yourself.
But back to the mind. While you are learning about nutrition and healthy eating, and maybe about exercise too, give a lot of attention to learning how to manage your moods and feelings. That's why i think therapy or counselling would be a good idea. Books teach you a lot too but i think when you have been in a bad place for a long time, you need a real experience of a supportive relationship. Sometimes the learning is quite subtle and but eventually it catches up with us. Find someone you really connect with and someone who you think you can come and go from for a period of time.
In buddhism, they spend a lot of time on compassion. That includes compassion for yourself. Its worth trying to cultivate a practice of compassion for yourself. You can do that in a meditation practice if you could consider learning that. Compassion means not wanting others to suffer, or in this case you and taking steps wherever possible to alleviate that suffering. The steps are not necessarily things like giving away all your wealth and going to work in a caring role or things like that. One does according to ones abilities and resources. But you can start with kind words and thoughts and actions. As the dalai lama says, kindness is my religion. so learn how to be kind to yourself. Practice.
Now that you've started your weightloss journey, tell yourself how proud you are that you've decided to have a go. Tell yourself lots of little positive messages about what you are doing. Ignore the doubts. Ignore the negativity. EVeryone has them but they are not really helpful when we become obsessed with them. Focus on the small positive things you are doing. If you do have problems, ask someone who might be able to give you a good answer. Do some research, learn learn learn. I always find when stressed and struggling that talking to a counsellor type person has a huge effect on me so now its my first port of call when i start having problems. I don't bottle them up and spend days and days on beating myself up.
Everyone can do this, including you. You can change your life and your body and your feelings about yourself.
Im new and need support
And I often say that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, and it is true! Hang in there... once you begin losing weight and feel and look better, you will begin to feel it!!!
