Great article. I think making a list like that is good because it gets all those demons and unspoken fears out there into the world so you can take a look at them. I'll definitely need to do this and really think it over.

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Diary

All good points, and I'll add another . . . I'm afraid of all the excess skin. Make no mistake, there will be a significant amount of that for me. I've been way too fat for way too long not to experience that. Surgery is not an option for me. However, since I have restarted my journey, I have come across many people - both on this site and others - that say once all is said and done excess skin is not as bad as they'd originally feared.

I also came across one woman's personal website where she had a long blog about her excess skin and her fight to just deal with it. According to her she had an inordinate amount of excess skin. The pics I saw of her . . . you could not see it at all! She looked spectacular! In the end she simply said, "Excess skin won't kill me. Obesity will." I'm hanging on to that.

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My Journal
Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. ~Bob Marley

I am afraid to lose weight because..

1) when I was thin I was abused
2) when I was thin I was so depressed I couldn't function most days

but mostly.....

3) If I lose weight I will have to learn to love myself, and I don't know how to do that.

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This was an eye-opening exercise that shows how much I have to cultivate to foster healthy self esteem and confidence. I'm going to list my top two, seeing as I think in paragraphs and can never give short answers. I'm all about details and elaboration.

1) It's easier to be fat because the fat is an umbrella insecurity blanket-- it is easier to use it as a scapegoat than deal with the self esteem issues of weight loss.

For example, I now battle with the stigma of small breasts. I went from one extreme to the other and am constantly subjected to comments injurious to my self esteem. My mother likes to pick on me a lot. “Why do you spend so much money on Victoria’s Secret bras when you do not have breasts to fill them? I bet yours sag even though they are small—think of the extra skin!” It’s difficult to feel confident about my changing shape when I constantly have to fend off such comments from family and friends. When I fret over how a bra can be worn with certain shirts or dresses my friends and coworkers laugh at me and tell me that I have no reason to be worrying about that, that there’s no reason I need to wear a bra anyway.

Clothing is another issue; it is difficult now to find anything that fits because my torso is so petite. I can shop in the little girls department. I am constantly defending myself against accusations that I am too thin, that I am mentally unstable.

2) I am afraid of being thin because it increases the ability to shunt me into the relationship arena and opens me to prey to males. I've always felt threatened by men and my weight loss has started to draw their attention. At work, those who wouldn't even look at me before have noticed and tried to hold conversations. Adipose tissue is the perfect barricade to lock myself in and keep others out... but it is disappearing.... I am twenty-two and I still feel threatened when I am walking my dog and pass a driveway of young male teenagers playing basketball. I feel like I am in danger and need to get out of the area as quickly as possible. The young landscapers are the worst; they think they are immortal with their muscular bodies and tans, honking at me as the drive up from behind. I’ve really learned to rely heavily on the middle finger.

I used my excess weight as an excuse not to involve myself in relationships: if I couldn’t properly care for myself, why would anyone want me in my neglect? My friends nag me, saying there is nothing to hold me back, that all the reasons I now spout in avoiding men are excuses. They do not want to hear that I’m focusing on my studies and working full-time to support myself to afford college and to survive, that I want to focus on starting a career and don’t want to bother with relationships. I don’t want to devote time I do not have. There’s entirely way too much on my plate between work, school, and family, that it wouldn’t be fair. If I barely have the time to devote to my dog, allocating time for a partner seems dim.

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Shit or Get Off the Pot
HW: 190 | CW: 115 | GW: 105?

You know I want nothing more than for you to love yourself as much as I love you.

For those who don't know, I'm her husband. Not some creepy guy hitting on someone I don't know on the intarwebz!

EDIT: I'm a moron and just realized that I've made my last few posts under Sarah's account! Doh!

-lucidspoon

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Is people won't see me as unthreatening.

It sounds stupid but I love to make people laugh. I have found though (being fat is a great way to observe human nature without being noticed!) that thinner/normal people are threatening to some when they are trying to make people laugh and can get cut down because of it. At parties I can chat to anyone - guys and girls - and because I am overweight I am seen as unthreatening. It never occurs to girls that I may be hitting on them (I'm not, I'm in a very happy long-term relationship) and guys don't think that I'm a threat to their picking anyone up. I can flit around, be myself and not worry about how I'm being perceived (other than being the 'fat guy'). I'm worried that that will change. I know it won't with my friends, but I'm worried that meeting new people will be more difficult.

Second biggest fear has already been mentioned. I lose all the weight and I'm just plain ugly. There's no getting around it then!

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[url=http://www.TickerFactory.com/weight-loss/w5HLRyj/]

Awesome thread!

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I saw a really good blog post that put this really well. It's "grieving for your former fat self". You don't want to let go of that person. That person got to eat whole pizzas without guilt! It's really hard to let go of how you see yourself, and it's a struggle to move on from that. I definitely think that's one of the reasons I sabotage myself.

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Diary

I've accepted that I will always be ugly -however - butter face is still a possiblity - you could always work on being a butthis face... Paper bags exist for a reason

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Mal, you're frikkin hilarious!

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It is good to know i am not the only one who doesn't think they are pretty. My husband always tells me I am beautiful, but I just don't see how. However, recently I was hanging out with my brothers and they all have HUGE noses. So I am learning to be grateful that I did not get that nose!!!!!

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This is an awesome thread. I've started the exercise, but I'm going to go sit alone so I can think this through. I'm also going to do as another poster suggested and immediately write a positive to combat the negative. I want to get past this once and for all.

I too have lost the weight, not all of it, but enough to get noticed and then immediately sabotage myself. Like I can't take a compliment. I've got to figure this out, it's been bothering me for a long time.

This idea is perfect for trying to do that. Thanks.

I'll come back and let you know what I've found out.

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I relate so much to what everyone's saying here. I am TERRIFIED of losing the weight, for a few reasons. Most of all, I feel scared of men. When I'm bigger I feel sooo much safer out and about in the world. When I've been thin, I feel like I'm being assaulted almost constantly, and I feel afraid to leave the house. I need some assertiveness training to go along with weight loss so I know how to handle uncomfortable situations better.

Ha, ha, ha! I was a healthy weight once (when I was 19) so I know from experience that I don't have a pretty face! Big nose, poorly defined jaw, small chin. I can't say, however, that I'm not interested to see if I've grown into my face in the last eight years. I grew a beard as I started to put the weight on and I haven't seen my whole face the entire time! To be honest I have no idea what I look like now, but knowing the raw materials I started out with it can't be good!!!

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[url=http://www.TickerFactory.com/weight-loss/w5HLRyj/]

I have been thinking about this all morning. I just can not come up with an answer to the end of the sentence. "I am afraid to lose weight because....????

I DO know that anything that has to do with losing weight makes me incredibly emotional. Sometimes I feel so excited and motivated, sometimes it is purely nervousness that I feel, and sometimes it is such sadness that I could sit there and cry.

I've got to say that I really don't know what is causing these emotions. I wonder how I could get to the root of the matter without having to pay for a psychiatrist. ??

I DO know that I CAN be successful. (I had lost 60 pounds at one point) However, I also know that when I retreat from weight loss, it feels so comfortable to crawl back into my old lazy, "fat-lady" habits. It kinda feels like crawling back into a nice warm bed after a long, cold day. (Cheesy, I know, but that is exactly the mental image I get when thinking on it)

I will keep working on this one because obviously there is something there.

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~tiffany

BMI under 30!! I'm no longer OBESE!!