I struggle mentally after weight loss

vjeklova

New member
Hi everyone,

this is my first post here and already kind of heavy, so I apologize for that in advance.

In the past two years I lost 60 kg of weight (132lb). My weight is currently 163 lb and if someone told me two years ago that the number on the scale would be that, I'd laugh it off, claiming it to be impossible, I attached two photos, one was two years ago during the summer and the other is two weeks ago or so. Seing the numbers and everything, I feel like i SHOULD feel proud of myself, proud of what I accomplished, proud that I work so hard on myself and that it shows. However, that's not the case.

I hate my body, maybe even more than I did before, the loose skin (I had skin removal surgery on my stomach and will have my thighs skin removed on november) aside, I hate my hips, I feel like my butt is gigantic, I see myself huge in the mirror and overall I feel like nothing I've done so far is enough. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder how could anyone ever be interested in me romantically and I feel like all my insecurities and my mental state shows on the outside. I'm worried that I give off this kind of energy that'd put off anyone who might be interested in me. I can't help but look down on my feet when I pass someone, I never start a conversation, I just feel really uncomfortable around people that I don't know and that's something that i struggled with my whole life, but it has never been this bad.

I cry myself to sleep almost every night, hating myself and my brain is unhelpfully repeating how I'm not enough and I hate that. I hate that I became so obsessed with the way I look, pointing out every imperfection instead of finding something I could love about myself. I'm not like that when it comes to others, on the contrary. When my friends, who struggle or claim they don't like something about themselves, approach the subject, I'm the one who points out the good stuff about them, I'm the one who's trying to help them feel good about themselves, so why can't I do that when it comes to myself? I'm just really tired of feeling so under the weather all the time, being sad and hurt all the time and I feel kind of lost, not knowing what to do. I'm constantly on edge and feel uncomfortable when people point out how I lost a lot of weight, how I changed and look better etc. My family is starting to be worried about me because I'm tired a lot (I struggle with sleep when my brain just won't stop) and when I laugh with them, it apparently seems fake. The fear of gaining weight and repulsion that I feel towards myself just influences every single aspect of my life and I don't know how to fix it. I even tried therapy but stopped going after second meeting when I wasn't able to say any of this out loud to the therapist, I tend to just shrug and say I'm fine because this feels like I'm being an idiot for feeling that way.

How do I get out of this cursed circle? Thank you so much for any advice ♥ Also, english isn't my first language, so I apologize for any mistakes.


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Hi Vjeklova and welcome to the forum. You're not the first person here who struggles to get used to their new body and it kind of breaks my heart. You look great in your pictures! I wonder how you felt about your body before losing all this weight (which is a terrific accomplishment, by the way). Were you overweight for a long time? I could imagine someone who's been overweight for most of their adult life to put a lot of hopes and dreams on weightloss, like it's the thing that'll change your life and everything will be great. And then after losing weight they realize that the only thing that's changed is their weight. They're still not an Instagram beauty, no rich&famous new friends showed up and work is still work. So then they suddenly have to face all the insecurities they used to blame on being overweight and it's HARD. Could that be a part of what's happening for you? Feel free to tell me if I'm completely wrong, of course!

(If you do end up going back to therapy maybe just take your intro post with you and read it out. I've done that in the past with things I found it hard to talk about.)
 
Oh, Vjeklova. You could be me 14 years ago. It took me a couple of years to feel proud of my new body after losing 36 kg in 28 weeks back in 2007. I had trouble coping with compliments & had all sorts of issues. I felt like saying to people that they never made much fuss over me when I was overweight, so why now? I hadn't felt so bad about myself when I was really overweight & I was the same person. Therapy is what helped me & time. I agree with LaMaria's suggestion that you write down what you told us & take that to a therapist. If that therapist does not seem like someone you can open up to then try another therapist.
You look lovely & should feel really proud of yourself. I'm so glad you have joined our forum. There is a thread with lots of motivational sayings, quotes & articles which may help with building self-esteem. You'll find it at https://www.fitness.com/en/forum/th...d-or-affirmations.328990/page-70#post-1032780
 
Hi Vjeklova, welcome and congrats on the weight loss, quite an accomplishment!

I have lost a similar amount and struggle with it a lot. Wish I could tell you how to learn to live with it, but I can't. I can tell you however that if you start a diary here ( https://www.fitness.com/en/forum/forums/weight-loss-diaries.1494/ ) you will find some good support and help. Maybe we can figure this out together!

Nice pictures by the way, you are a very pretty girl!
english isn't my first language, so I apologize for any mistakes
No problem, your English is just fine. And this is a weight loss forum, not a grammar forum! We have a number of members who don't speak English as a first language, they get by fine. I kind of like the diversity.

I know you are still looking at the forum, post something, tell us how you are doing. Good, bad or otherwise we'd like to hear from you!
 
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