I know this is backwards thinking, but I'm afraid of finally being slender and pretty. I've been invisible to the opposite sex for SO long that I've actually grown accustom to it and feel a strong sense of comfort about it. Also, my family (parents, siblings, and relatives) have always negatively commented on my weight. I guess I feel a twisted sense of relief for NOT been regarded as physically attractive because the people in my life do not aspect "the fat one" (me) to go far in life because I'm fat.

I am slowly, but surely, loosing the weight. I'm just afraid that once I do get to my weight goal, that nothing will change. Specifically, I'm afraid my love life will still be non-existent, that I will still not be able to find "The One", and I will still have the insecurities that I currently have because that's all I know. I fear that nothing will change even though I will finally possess a small body size/frame.

Can anyone relate to what I'm talking about?

It's very likely that many things won't change, weight does not cause security or insecurity. I know plenty of skinny girls that can't get a date, that don't feel secure with who they are, that do stupid things out of insecurity, that don't take chances in life, that get divorced or can't keep a boyfriend etc. Being thin is NOT the answer to happiness. For many of us who have been overweight for a long time it becomes so easy to pin our hopes on that but the truth is we withhold our own happiness from ourselves and then when we "achieve" the weight loss we don't know how to give it to ourselves. Being thin is not a virtue and it won't fuel you with self love in and of itself.

Losing weight is one thing.

Learning how to love yourself is a completely separate issue!

I've been on a long road to self acceptance for almost a year now and I see remarkable differences between how I feel about myself now vs how I felt about myself before. I've been working on my confidence and building my body image. It's a daily exercise but it pays off!

You will be the same but just a smaller exterior mass.

I think a lot of what Wannabeskinny said is true. It's very easy to think being thin is going to solve all of our social problems, especially when confidence was lost, or anxiety came with weight gain. That negative mentality takes a bit longer to go away than the weight itself, and you have to work at it, just like you have to work at your diet and exercise.

The good news is you can start working on it now. When you find yourself thinking negatively, interrupt the thought and try to think of things you've done good instead. You're going to have to actively monitor your thoughts, which is a difficult thing to do at first, and the compliments you say to yourself may seem forced, or not true.. but keep at it.

I like to make sure I'm always celebrating something. I've talked about it a lot on these forums when the topic comes up because it's what helps me. It's extremely tough sometimes. I suffer from clinical depression and I have some bad days even on meds.. but overall it helps, and the positivity towards my diet and exercise spills over into other aspects of my life because it's all about being positive about myself.

TL;DR - Mental health is another aspect we have to work on that goes hand in hand with diet and exercise.

Look, things will change but possibly not in all the ways you expect.

If you lose a lot of weight you will look very different physically (people I know, don't recognise me). You may also look more physically attractive. But there is a world of difference between looking physically attractive and finding "the one" or for that matter "anyone".

Here are a few examples.

I lost the weight and my wife left me. In other words, true love doesn't see the fat.

Yes, more women look at me. But a cheeky glance doesn't constitute a date or a relationship.

So lose the weight for things that are guaranteed. Like feeling more healthy. Or more self-confident. Love, well...you can't do much about that.

You don't know what will happen until you lose the weight, I'd try not to worry about it. While it may not solve some problems, it may solve other problems you didn't even think of and still be worth it.

In my case I did not expect that my blood pressure would be normal after only 30 lbs lost. It did not occur to me that I would also sleep better (I must have had sleep apnea before?) And the other day I went to the dentist, in the past I had trouble breathing when reclined all the way and they were working on the back teeth, but no problems this time. There are many other things that I'm discovering all the time that make this well worth it and all help keep me motivated as well.

I agree with Jez, confidence can change your life for the better. However, confidence is sometimes hard to come by for some of us.

I found a great deal of help in that department by listening to motivational speaker Tony Robbins. If you've never heard of him, he has helped many thousand of people over the last 20 years or so with a lot of problems.

I don't think any of us were saying confidence doesn't improve your life. We were more saying that you don't magically gain confidence with weight loss. Usually it's something people have to work at.

Yes, DeSaini, I can totally relate.

When I lose weight, the people I know, men and women, tell me how beautiful I am now. Some tell me I'm model beautiful. I've had guys I know tell me how I'll have to beat the guys off with a stick because if they weren't already spoken for...yada, yada.

I got divorced from my jerk of an ex-husband at my lowest weight in 20 years and I thought " finally I'll find someone to love me and treat me right "...
Well, so far, I could beat the guys off with a toothpick and not break a sweat.

Three years and 3 lousy dates later, I'm still alone. For whatever reason, I seem to be undatable. Maybe the people I know are just being nice when they tell me I'm pretty. Maybe I have some fatal personality flaw or other dealkiller that I'm unaware of. Maybe it's my lack of self confidence.

Whatever the case, losing weight has done nothing for my love life but raise my expectations and lead me to disappointment.

Yes, it hurts. Some days it hurts lot.

But what's the alternative? Staying fat because losing weight isn't giving us the life we'd hoped for? We just gotta keep on doing what we're doing, love life be d@mned, because the benefits still outweigh the let downs.

I know, and I'm sure you do to, that the only person I can count on to love me and treat me right is me. If I could do that, not finding someone else to do it for me would sting a little less. I wish I could tell you how to get to that place mentally and emotionally, but I don't know how, just that I should.

What else can we do but keep trying until we figure it out?

Awesome post Streudel.

Weightloss didn't solve all my life problems (if any) but it sure was easier to cope with my issues being thinner than heavier. Being heavy is just another issue on top of everything else.

And for me? I felt SKINNY at 185. That would be someone else's heavy. It was just perfect in my situation.

Thanks Ian.

It's definitely not just singles who think losing weight is going to make this great impact on their love life.

I thought at the time that losing the weight would improve my marriage. For as much as my ex-husband said he didn't find a fat woman attractive, he found one that cared about herself even less attractive.

I'll say this: Being single might suck at times, but it beats the heck out of feeling alone with someone sitting right next to you.

As someone who was obese my whole life and then who got to a normal weight, I can say that losing weight was a good thing, mostly because it got me to realize that my weight wasn't what was "wrong" with me and it was great for finding self-acceptance. Yes losing weight, I'm no longer so conspicuously fat that people stop and stare or make rude comments, but I'm also not suddenly a social butterfly, painting the town red in tight, short mini dresses and come-get-me shoes. I couldn't flirt when I was chubby and I still suck at it now. If I want to be good at it, I actually need to exert myself to put in the practice, and I didn't really need to lose weight to do that. Sure, maybe my weight and my perception of myself shaped me in a way, but losing the weight didn't suddenly make me an alternate version of myself, at least personality-wise.

So I guess in essence, has losing weight been worth it? Huge yes!!! I am more confident definitely probably because I feel less conspicuous and less like people are looking at me and judging me for my weight. But the truth is that, even that confidence hasn't translated to me putting myself out there more for relationships or for other things because I'm finding I'm not really a forward, outgoing sort of person whether I'm obese or not and there's nothing wrong with that. Losing weight has improved my life, but it hasn't fixed the issues I see in myself OR made me less hyper critical of myself (if anything it's made me more so). Losing weight will change your appearance and if that's the only thing holding you back from happiness then yes, losing weight will change everything. But those other internal things like self-esteem and inner peace and finding balance when it comes to other people's opinions, losing weight probably won't affect any of those. One has to work on those things specifically. It's still all worth it though, and one learns a lot about oneself from the process, so KEEP GOING!!!

I'm realizing that losing weight is such a complicated process, mostly mental.

Some people think that if they lose weight suddenly their issues/problems will go away.

For me, losing weight has not done all that much for my self confidence.

I've been seeing someone for a couple months and he's constantly telling me how beautiful I am, how much he loves my body, etc and the compliments are hard for me to handle.

He's also always telling that guys are "checking me out" when we're at a store or walking down the street but I never see it.

My self-esteem is always going to be something I need to work on, despite losing all this weight.

+1

I grew up obese in a very fat-phobic environment, and I internalized those messages, which destroyed my self-esteem. So, yes, losing weight automatically lifted some of that burden. It hasn't fixed everything, and in some cases has brought new issues to my attention, but I find life much easier to navigate at this weight than I did at my super high weights. Everyone's experience may be unique; what's important is that we find out what matters to us and choose what we want to do about that.

I will say this, losing this much weight has given me a huge boost of hope/confidence in believing the impossible is possible.