Quote:
Originally Posted by Nola Celeste
I absolutely loathe when people conflate "thin" and "pretty" as though they're one thing. I see it all the time (sadly, even on some posts here): "Ohh, I can't wait to lose the weight and be sexy again!" "I wonder how much weight I'll have to lose to be pretty?" "I remember when I was hot fifty pounds ago." I just want to say, "Good lord, ladies...if anyone else said that crap to you, you'd want to sock them in the jaw--so why would you say it to yourself?"
I dunno ... I do see what you're saying, and on a dispassionate, intellectual level I can see where you're right.
And yet - vanity is my #1 motivating factor for weight loss, #1 by a long long way. I mean, I can pay lip service to health factors - of course I don't
want diabetes or heart disease - but those are not the thoughts I draw on when I'm facing down temptation. They are too vague, distant probabilities, they just aren't what really drives me. Looking trim, strong, hard, ripped, strutting the way I do in my mind - that's what really motivates me. And I can't believe I am alone in that.
Now I know that's not the same as declaring myself ugly now. There's plenty that's attractive about me - some of it physical, some of it not physical. But I'm not pretending I look terrific the way I am, either. I don't. I'm fat, and it doesn't look good. I don't look healthy, I don't look the way I want to, I can't wear the clothes I want to wear.
So I don't know exactly how to strike the balance. No, it's not great to beat up on yourself saying things like "I'm so ugly, how much do I have to lose to stop being ugly?" But it's also not great to dismiss the power of vanity as a motivator. If decided to just be okay with how I looked, I wouldn't have any real motivation at all.