Common Problem

[HowlinWolf]

This is one I have heard a lot of people talk about. Short background: After about a year of slow/steady weight loss, I'm at a weight that's a BMI of 24. The problem is, I still feel overweight and unattractive. I guess a lot of this feeling is because you become so self-conscious when you lose weight (ironically, I never felt this fat before I lost weight.) Where I'm at now it better than I was before, but I still feel different than other people. And having a "healthy" BMI doesn't guarantee that you're attractive - it just means you're at a health weight (assuming your bodyfat and all is okay.) So my question is, ignoring that you guys have never seen me, do you think my fears could just be because I've learned to see myself as fat? Or is a high-but-healthy-weight the problem? I guess a lot my friends have made comments (positive ones) about it, but then again, most of them said i didn't need to lose weight in the first place, even though I obviously did. I generally have a hard time judging for myself on whether or not I look better.

 

[ohdiamonds]

I think your problem first of all is that you care too much of what others think. You need to ONLY care about how you feel about yourself and if you think you're not looking good than you should find exactly what it is that you don't feel good about.

I think my biggest worry after I lose the weight will be if im tone enough. I have a huge fear of tons of loose skin. So, I know that I need to work on toning after losing weight. What is it exactly that you don't like about yourself right now?

 

[Camy]

My BMI is low, 21.9 (as of today) or even lower. I started off with an BMI of 27, so not exactly super high but overweight.
I still feel fat, in fact I do not look skinny. I look "normal", but I still have a flab of fat on my tummy, my thighs are still chunky and I am just not the way I would like to be. While I stay in the healthy zone (so between 18.5 and 25 BMI) I will continue to lose until I feel comfortable (that is if my body allows me to lose more weight). I have to live in this body and nobody else. I have some other issues that I am also addressing, and I am sure my own body image is worse than other people see me, but still.

So I say if you can and want to lose more weight you can continue to lose. If you think you are "done" and it is more about how you see yourself, then maybe you should do something else, look where your problem lies. Ask people around you, people who you hope will be honest, what they think if you think it is just you seeing yourself as too fat.
I ask my man often if I look fatter or thinner than that person (pointing), so that I can have an idea of what other people see me as. I know he will be true to me, since he has been along the whole ride.

Plus you have to consider that the BMI is a pretty simplistic way of doing it, I hear often that it doesn't take into account how muscly you are etc... (but most people just aren't that muscly). I know that at my weight I still look heavier than other people at my weight. That may be because I have a very small frame, my bones are light due to some medical problems I have, or I am just unlucky.
But in any case what is important to me is how I feel and how I see myself. If I feel good and see myself as pretty, then I have achieved my goal. And that may be at a BMI of 24.9 or at a BMI of 18.6... what matters is how you feel!

 

[ewyrick]

Although it's always dangerous to say much when we know so little, I agree with ohdiamonds and you're describing a self-esteem issue rather than a weight loss issue. Your BMI is within the recommended limits. You don't say anything, but the recommended waist size for women is less than 35 inches (measured about an inch below the navel.) If you waist size is below 35 inches, then your weight health issues seem to be resolved as long as you maintain that.

To maintain our proper weight, I think, requires that we learn to react to life differently. I ate junk to change the way I feel. There are "living life" tools available to change that. Those same tools will work to resolve self-esteem issues. Not overnight, but eventually if you keep working at it. The paradox is that as long as you are doing all the right things to be physically and mentally healthy, then the less you care about how attractive you are the more attractive you'll be. That has to be genuine, but it helps to "fake it until you make it."

- Ed