So. Darn. Frustrated.
 

This seems to be a theme! I am having the worst time getting to the gym this month! It's hot, work sucks, I just don't want to go! I also want to just be able to eat whatever I damn well please!!!

So frustrated!!

Usually I try to stay super positive. I have net several weight and fitness goals, I know I am doing well on paper....but I see no difference.

Now I have started fixating on my saggy fat skin. It looks horrible!!! Why bother with this all if I still look ick!

Argh. Sorry for the negetivity. I try talking to my husband but he just looks at me with that very supportive smile and says we will deal with the skin thing as it comes up if we have to. Uh hello?? We have 25k laying around somewhere??

Anyway that's my rant.

It's a choice every overweight person has to make, be healthier and a smaller size and KNOW that the skin issue will be there, or stay overweight and risk health issues. To most people, the obvious answer is to lose weight and deal with the skin. Gaining large amounts of weight is a grievous injury to the body, loose skin is the scar left by that injury when it's "healed." You have a scar when you've had a significant injury, that's the way of things. When you've lost all the weight, perhaps your insurance will cover some of the surgical costs. It happens all the time. Now is not the time to fixate on that. Fight each battle one at a time, or you'll exhaust yourself.

When you get to thinking that you want to eat whatever you please, remember where that got you. Remember that every bite of food you put in your mouth is either helping or hurting your body, injuring or healing.

This is a tough road. And so frustratingly long! Try to calm yourself down when you get upset without food. What helps ME, (and may do nothing for you, but here it is) is to put on a "video postcard" type movie. You know, the ones where it plays nice music and the video switches from scene to scene of waves on a beach, wind in the palm trees etc? If you have Amazon Prime, there are lots of free ones on there.

I'm sorry you're having a rough time. I so get it.

I see in your siggy you say you have a goal to go to Hawaii. Have you done that yet?

Thanks :) I know it is a long road. It just gets to me sometimes

No, we have not gone yet. We are both losing weight, and the Hawaii is our ultimate weight loss reward.

Ah, well Hawaii is super worth it. Have you picked an island yet, or will you island hop?

No idea. We want to renew our vows on a quiet beach..we know we don't really want to be around a lot of people. So we will see what we come up with.

Any suggestions?

Like Minidoodles surgery, I have heard of people who had a tummy tuck or in some cases just had the excess skin removed and insurance paid for it, but I heard you have to go through a song and dance to have a doctor say that the surgery is "medically necessary." That could be due to the excess skin causing an infection or other serious side effects.

I think it's more important to get the weight off for health reasons. Depending on your age, the excess skin might not be that big an issue.

I have BC/BS so I am hoping that they will cover some of it. I don't mind hoops.

And I am only 40, so it is an issue!!! Lol. Kids are almost all grown and hubs and I are planning on moving and shaking for a long while, I plan to do a lot of beach visits.

This may be more my list than yours but some may pertain to you.

* So you can wear a nice dress to your kids' wedding
* So you can play with your grandchildren
* So you can be comfortable on a plane
* So your knees don't hurt you all the time
* So you can be comfortable in any seat in a restaurant
* So you can walk for miles and miles
* To avoid diabetes

Can anyone add to the list?

Absolutely. Obviously my heart lies in Maui, but for quiet you want Kauai. You'd love it up by Princeville. Hanalei Bay is amazing.

I think what was meant by age is that the younger you are the more it goes away on it's own. As we age skin is less elastic. 40 is plenty young for the body to reabsorb some of the loose skin. I am much older and had gotten down to my goal weight.I was not too pleased with excess skin left. I gained some back and now am working to get that off because it is WAY easier to hide the loose skin under clothes than that same skin refilled with fat.

My pc crashed right after I posted :?:
RE: {Kids are almost all grown and hubs and I are planning on moving and shaking for a long while, I plan to do a lot of beach visits.}
lazylion; I'm happy that U got to read my post before it deleted :) The reason my BC/BS paid for the operation room/anesthesia is because our deductibles were paid-up for the year & so we were left w just a 20% co-pay on my surgery bill. Things happen to us in life & get crazy & What is Important is that we 'Can Fix ourselves' & we Do-it! U raised your kids & this is Your turn to sparkle again... Some ppl bleach their teeth or get boob implants, do what gives U pleasure. My friend called me 'tiny butt' in my bikini bottom, so I bought a bottom w ruffles to make me look bigger; it turned out that her dh was getting hot seeing me in my suit & my friend wanted me to wear a 'bigger bottom' so he would stop watching me :o Please your dh & yourself & follow your Christian morals. I believe in U & I know U will achieve your Goal. Please remember to 'just eat 1 serving size portions' during meals unless U r eating 'raw veggies' then splurge on those :p It does help to lift hand-weights @ home during tv commercials, etc. because muscle burns fat even when we r sitting & sleeping too :D

Your beach season is coming next summer, get a Vision board w swim suits on it :cool: that U want to wear! I know those boards help & so does a pic on a mirror or fridge. U r going to b @ goal & Luv your bod again :smug: In 2015 dh & I want to go to Hawaii, @ the island it rains least/it's dryer side; I read March has the most & June the least rain. So 6 mo. prior to making reservations we'll research the islands weather more.

PS: At parties/cook-out bbq's I don't drink beer/booze instead I take a bottle of cold 'Skinny Girl' Bethenny Frankel has a line of drinks made w agave & the cals/carbs r veryyy low & U won't put on any extra pounds. They taste great & U can add your own fruit to her Margarita's, I take a bottle of hers or Moscato wine to not b a party-downer & everyone likes them too, so I have to share. My 24 yr. daughter-inlaw drinks the beer straw-rita which isn't terrible, but the fruity Moscato & SkinnyGirl drink is still better & it only takes me 2 drinks to catch a buzz & I'm done. My dh & kids laugh @ me because I can catch a buzz from regular soda-pop & its high sugar content if I haven't eaten any breakfast/lunch & then drink soda :dizzy: U could Add me to your buddy list if I'm not here daily & U want to b in touch w me.

Cheryl, I agree w your list & I Luv it :)

Maui, U r soo close to your goal 'Congratulations'!!! R U living here on the mainland or do U live on the big island/Hawaii? The Packers thing confused me :dizzy:

Friends r coming soon for a cook-out & swimming w us; I gotta go prep the salads now, hubby has ribs on the grill started & I hear music now. I hope everyone has a fun & safe weekend :wave: :dust:

We split our time between Maui and WI ;)

Wow! Thanks for all of this everyone!!!!

I am for sure going to make lists and boards and get out of this funk!!!!

I know I am doing well. Almost down 60 lbs, it just sometimes is overwhelming.

I do weight watchers, which I love! And I really can eat anything, I just know that I have to account for it. I wish sometimes that I was like my 22 year old daughter..she can eat anything and still keep her amazing figure. Even at 22 I couldn't do that! But she also has great hair lol!!

I've been obese since grade school and only had a couple years at an almost normal, but still overweight body (in high school, achieved through crash dieting on prescription stimulant diet pills).

I'm 47 now. My husband (also morbidly obese and also trying to get thinner & healthier) also reassured me that the loose skin was something we could deal with down the road. He didn't mean surgery necessarily, just that loose skin really was the least of our worries.

The skin bothers me a little more than I thought it would (so do the wrinkles, though I kind of like the bit of gray hair), but hubby and I do have a bit of an odd perspective in that we're choosing to set a different standard of beauty for ourselves.

"Battle scars are beautiful" has been a sort of motto for us. It began only a few days after our wedding, when a mammogram revealed a golf ball sized tumor in my right breast. It turned out to be benign, scar tissue from an old car accident injury, but removal left me with a not so terrible scar (standing up), but lying on my back, there's a golf ball sized divot in the breast that makes it look like a volcano, the nipple sunk into the crater.

Hubby assured me that the scarred breast was beautiful to him, his "favorite boobie" because it reminded him how lucky we were that it wasn't cancer. He helped me see the beauty in a scarred, battered breast.

I started seeing my stretch marks as beautiful silver tiger stripes after hubby and I saw a comedian on tv talking about them that way.


I have (mostly) come to terms with the fact that I will never have a body found sexy by billions, but I really only need to be sexy for two people, my hubby and myself.

Battle scars are sexy, I tell myself. Health is sexy. Being able to climb a flight of stairs without experiencing heavy sweating or an asthma attack, damned sexy.

One of the sexiest experiences of our marriage occured one afternoon when I discovered I now possessed a pair of bingo wings. Hubby walked in the bedroom as I was swinging the flab back and forth, transfixed with horror.

Hubby broke out in laughter and asked if I was trying to fly. We both laughed so hard it led to all sorts of sexiness. Humor is very sexy.

And we're going to need it. We're both going to end up looking like ginormous, hairless, pink flying squirrels by the end of this journey.

We're on medicare and permanent disability (weight loss will help, but not cure our health problems) so the chance of surgery becoming affordable to us are practically nil.

Battle scars are sexy and beautiful. Health and fitness aresexy and beautiful. Humor is sexy and beautiful.

I'm going to be the sexiest and most beautiful hairless flying squirrel I can be.

I used to be SO proud of my loose skin. It shows that it was working and the weight really was coming off. It was empowering to me. But I'm weird.

Yes, I get that it's battle scars, and proof of how far I have come. I also get that I did this to myself and that there are more reasons other than looking good yo lose weight.

I know it sounds shallow, vain and completely superficial...but I want to look HOT! Like "socially acceptable" hot. I used to, growing up, into my 20's. I was never "skinny" (I am Italian, there have always been curves lol). But I was for sure a hotty. Of course I know that in hindsight. Even 30 years ago I thought I was fat. I cannot remember a time my mother was not putting me on a diet, the first one was at 8 years old. I delivered my first daughter at 180lbs after gaining 60 while being pregnant...and my mom was worried when she found out I was pregnant how I was going to carry the baby, being so fat when I got pregnant.

This is not a mom bashing session or an excuse. This is my point, for 30 years it was in my head everyday that I was fat. Even when I wasn't, and I never noticed when I actually got fat. To me, I looked the same in the mirror, fat. I gained 200 lbs in 15 years and never really noticed. Yes. I knew I needed to diet. But I ALWAYS needed to diet. But I did not "see" a difference.

Now, I still don't see a difference. I want to see a difference and all of the deflated empty balloon sag masks it. I know it's stupid, irrational and totally in my head, but I live 2 miles from the beach. I live at the water, in Surf City USA lol. I want what I had, and never knew it.....

That's why this is frustrating. I am being vain. I won't give up, I refuse, because in my head I also know that I am doing the right thing. I know I feel so much better, and I never knew I felt badly before. I am living and doing things I have not done for years. So no. Not quitting.

All that being said, time to go do my weekly weigh in and see if I have gone down to 60 lbs total lost!

Good luck!

I envy that you got to experience being hot by social standards. Many of us (thin, obese, and everything in between) will never have that experience, because society tells us we're too short, too tall, too thin, too fat, too curvy, not curvy enough, eyes too small, too close together, too far apart, chin too strong or too weak, nose too big or too small, breasts too big or too small, teeth too big or too small, skin the wrong color, too many freckles, acne, scarring, disfigurements big and small.....

All my life, I've been hoping to lose the weight and experience "hotness" for myself. I had reasonably nice skin, hair and teeth and a "pretty face," surely hotness was within my grasp.

I didn't start to get a handle on my weight until I was 40 years old, but I looked damned good (I thought) for a 40 year old woman. There was still hope...

And then the weight loss started revealing wrinkles and saggy skin. I had some dental problems we didn't have money to fix. I started having symptoms of perimenopause and started to see my beautiful, smooth skin turn crepey in places like my eyelids and the back of my hands. Arthritic knots starting appearing on my fingers - fingers that I had always seen as slender and graceful for a woman of my size.

Hotness is now eternally beyond my grasp unless by some miracle, hundreds of thousands of dollars fall in my lap. Even then, any semblance of hotness would be a long shot and would require many painful, risky procedures. Procedures that would, at best, be partially successful.

I GET IT!

Really, I do, but you can mourn what you've lost (or in my case, never had in the first place) or you can rock the body you have. Feeling beautiful and sexy is a choice. It's not an easy choice, especially with society whispering and even screaming in our ears that we are not only "not hot" we are not even fit to look upon.

It's not just vanity to believe societal nonsense, it's utter bull.....pucky. You can believe the B.S. or you can learn to create your own "heat." Call it delusion if you wish, but the alternative is living in the cold.

KNOW that you were extremely fortunate to have experienced "hotness" during your lifetime. Most of us never do and never will. I'm not complaining. I'm extremely fortunate to have gotten as close as I did. I never experienced hotness, but I also haven't (knock on wood) experienced grotesque disfigurement.

Being less than hot only sucks if you let it, and if you choose not to celebrate your escape of much worse.

This may sound harsh, but I only mean it to save you the long term pain of self-chosen misery. You are using lost hotness as an excuse to feel miserable. Get over it, or you will give up the weight loss. Or worse, you will end up unhappy with a body and more importantly, a life that many would and will envy.

Create your own beauty, because while it isn't easy, it's something no one but you can take away from you.

I understand. Hugs.

I picked out the above lines from what you said. I've had problems in this area, also. The last time I lost 140 lbs, my doctor showed me my before and after pictures and ask me if I saw the difference. I remember telling him that I felt different (lighter, healthier,etc.), but I didn't see a big difference. I was still 200lbs, and fat. He told me then, that if I couldn't see the difference, I was bound to regain the weight. Unfortunately, he was a medical doctor, and not a psych Dr. so he didn't really elaborate at the time, but he was right. I gained 100lbs back, in almost the same time it took to loose it.

You are obviously "hot" to your husband, maybe you just don't see it. My suggestion is to engage a counselor to help you see the positive changes you're making in your body, and not just the flaws. When you make your goal trip to Hawaii, you want to FEEL as hot as you will look!

Hi, yes I can add to it. *#1. I never had a weight problem except for the 1 1/2 years that I gained 25 pounds going from a size 10 jeans to a size 16 tummy/jeans, when my dh had cancer & was on chemo & he refused to eat Unless I ate w him {2x weekly: pizza's, ice cream sundae's, everything fattening to help Him regain his weight & appetite back.} I was already 5 pounds heavy from eating too many winter carbs & my size 10 felt snug; but I ate w my darling hubby as he wanted & he did gain 20 pounds back & looks healthy again :smug: Dh thought I could lose my fat in a couple of months :o but it took me almost a year of 'healthy eating' & I did hate that 1 1/2" of loose belly skin drooping & dh saw it & was fine w me having the surgery & the scar was minor in my no-no area & totally invisible after 2 yrs.
My other is *#2. My mother-in-law 5' 1" tall was over 250 pounds & she took my young son to a movie. She spoke to me later that night crying; saying she barely fit into the movie seat & she asked how I stay a size 10 w 3 kids & cooking, etc. I told her I only ate 1 serving size portions @ all my meals except for raw veggies that I double, because I want to nurture my kids & help my grandbabes grow-up & see graduate high school. She asked me to 'help her' to reach the 'same goal' so we found a WW meeting & she met her goal & wears a lovely size 14 & is happy & confident. She wears a swimsuit & goes to swim aerobics & swims in our pool & wears shorts w/o feeling embarrassed. That was 19 years ago & she's a lifetime member of WW & never eats over 1 serving size per meal of anything; we r Both eating whatever we want, just Not bingeing on a 2nd serving or super-size servings.

Almost everyone has gone through times of grief or living in fear; I did as a child & I survived it & I am Thankful to b here.... Do whatever Pleases U :hug: & helps U feel Happy & Confident. And Don't let anybody else's remarks or stares affect your dignity; because ppl care, & 'we care @ 3FC about everyone', this place is like a giant-church-family. But remember that if we put 'Lots of junk' into our bodies, chances r our body health Will fail us & Nobody ever wants to go live in a 'assisted nursing care home' when we're young/@ +50 yrs. etc. from poor health/medication needs, wheel-chair bound, etc.
*#3. I had a high-school friend Brenda that was +50 pounds over-weight & a prior smoker & in her mid 40's she became diabetic & lost a foot & she committed suicide 2 yr. later. Her depression/frustration 'killed her' & she minimalized it; nobody picked-up on it.
Let Somebody 'know' if U or somebody U know feels depression, etc from their problems; God created us All in beauty & w Love & as a huge extended family :angel:

We're going horse-back riding soon, it's a lovely afternoon in MI 74*. B happy & enjoy Your week :dust:

You are right. And I am working on my head along with the body. It's just so hard sometimes. I think changing my head is much harder than my body.

Yes, I have considered therapy. I have been in an out since I was 8. Another "gift" from my parents. LOL!

I am actually not worried about gaining it back, but ironically what I am worried about is going the other way. I know I have hallmarks of an eating disorder, and the truth is that if I don't get my head under control I will never "see" it.

In other news, I didn't make the 60 lb mark, I am actually up a few lbs, but I expected it.

You'll get there, stick with it! ;)

Yep. I know. I am a stubborn chick lol. I made the decision Jaunary 27 to stop the insanity and make changes. I gave myself and my family my word. I don't back down on my word.