We say we will, but will we?

I was just sitting here thinking, I often tell myself that when I reach my ideal weight I will FINALLY be happy with my body/weight. But honestly, will I?   As a woman, we often are never satisfied with our bodies. So I was just wondering, when you reach your ideal weight, do you think you will finally be happy with your weight/body? or do you think that you will always be battling total self satisfaction?

I think it's a stretch to say that anyone will be completely happy. We'll always find flaws with our bodies. But I can say that I'm a lot happIER with my body now than I was before I lost 18 pounds. :-) There's a lot of grey area between 'completely happy' and 'completely unhappy' after all.

I think when i reach my ideal weight i will feel great with my cloths on, but after having a baby and getting really big i have so many stretchmarks that i am not sure i will be satisfied with my body. I hope that I wont feel really self conscious (like i do now). I think that there is always room for improvement on some level but i will be totally excited to have reached such a big goal of loosing the weight. i will be proud of myself 

I think being at a healthier weight does help a lot.  At the same time, it really forces you to acknowledge the things about your body that won't change regardless of your weight.  So I guess what I'm saying is, even though I've pretty much lost the weight, I still occasionally struggle with body image issues.  But I am winning the battle more and more often, if that makes any sense.

This is just my opinion, but I think you have to learn to be happy with who you are now in order to be happy with yourself at your goal weight. It's a mental issue, not a physical one.

I think you all are right. I think you must first learn to 'accept' yourself before you can be happy with your body. I am learning to be happy with my present weight. I am learning to not to concentrate on the scale and go by how i feel.

I hate to say it, but I still am not. I am 5 foot 4 and went from my highest at 156 pounds to 130 now and at the beginning I was getting compliments and all and that fueled me to keep it off. The thing that makes me unhappy is when I saw a chart of the weights and heights of kids in my high school (I'm a sophmore). I saw not ONE person. girls and boys, over 121 pounds, so I still have it on my mind everyday about losing weight, looking in the mirror all the time and that's no way to live. I think that once people reach their OWN healthy weight, they should work to help appreciate their body. I am working on it, but the key is confidence and I believe you can do it with some will power!:)

I always said when i was 110 lbs id be happy but when i got there i found that id never been less happy or satisfied  with my appearance and wanted to drop 10 more . I doubt if i do drop those 10 that ill be any happier ill just find something else wrong with my body

I don't want to be fixated on a certain weight to be happy.  I could just stop eating and reach a certain goal weight, but I'd be miserable (and hungry).  So I think I'll be happy when I can run X miles, or lift Y weight.  I try to focus on progress with what my body can do, not its size.

YOU'RE IN HIGH SCHOOL SO YOU STILL HAVE A LOT OF GROWING TO DO. DON'T BE FIXED ON THOSE CHARTS, BECAUSE IF YOU DO THAT MIGHT MESS WITH YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE. I HAVE LEARNED TO GO BY HOW MY BODY FEELS. AND RIGHT NOW I FEEL GREAT BECAUSE I AM EXERCISING ON A REGULAR BASIS. EVERY ONE'S BODY TYPE IS DIFFERENT SO GO BY HOW YOU FEEL AND NOT BY THE SCALE. CAUSE IF YOU DO THEN GIRL, YOU WOULD GO CRAZY...LOL..KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND JUST LEARN TO EAT RIGHT AND EXERCISE AND YOU WILL DO IT.  BE HAPPY WITH YOURSELF AND JUST PUT IN THE DAILY RECOMMENDED EXERCISE AND HEALTHY EATING AND YOU WILL DO IT. JUST BE HAPPY WITH YOU AND DON'T LET NO ONE DISCOURAGE YOU.

I made it to goal, and I'm still not happy. Went under goal by 15 pounds, still not happy. I know I can't keep going down, and I'm maintaining, but dang it I just wanted to be happy!

So in my experience, the answer is: NOPE.
But what I am happy with is my improved health. I can breath right, I can go hiking, my blood pressure isn't off the charts, I can cross my legs and sit in airplane seats just fine. Ah life is sweet in that aspect.

But naked? ewwie.

I suffer from depression, and losing weight won't make me happy.  However, it will make life a lot easier.  My mom's side of the family suffers from heart problems (my mom lost over 60 lbs a couple years ago, and has kept it off), and I don't want to die young.  I want to get married, have kids, have grandkids, go places.  And although food feels great RIGHT NOW, everytime I overeat, it hinders my chances at doing all the REAL things in life. So maybe it'll make me happy.

Original Post by funindasun:

I hate to say it, but I still am not. I am 5 foot 4 and went from my highest at 156 pounds to 130 now and at the beginning I was getting compliments and all and that fueled me to keep it off. The thing that makes me unhappy is when I saw a chart of the weights and heights of kids in my high school (I'm a sophmore). I saw not ONE person. girls and boys, over 121 pounds, so I still have it on my mind everyday about losing weight, looking in the mirror all the time and that's no way to live. I think that once people reach their OWN healthy weight, they should work to help appreciate their body. I am working on it, but the key is confidence and I believe you can do it with some will power!:)

 Huh???

I'm confused, are you saying that in your highschool (age 14-18) no one weighs above 121 pounds?

After losing 130 pounds, I find that weight often has very little to do with it.  I used to always scoff at the skinny people who say that they are fat or ugly, but then I got skinny. The reality is that more often than not, virtually none of your aesthetic will affect your body image. The best way to feel good about the way you look is to find a way to feel good about yourself, with or without the extra pounds.  It's a yuck thing to say, but I've found it to be true in my experience--not just with myself, but with the others I know that have lost weight.

Original Post by mommashay:

I think you all are right. I think you must first learn to 'accept' yourself before you can be happy with your body. I am learning to be happy with my present weight. I am learning to not to concentrate on the scale and go by how i feel.

This is true.  However, the experience of learning to have a healthy body, via weight loss, has made me happy with myself.  I'd never eaten properly all my life and now I do thanks to CC forums.

Original Post by nleavitt:

I think when i reach my ideal weight i will feel great with my cloths on, but after having a baby and getting really big i have so many stretchmarks that i am not sure i will be satisfied with my body. I hope that I wont feel really self conscious (like i do now). I think that there is always room for improvement on some level but i will be totally excited to have reached such a big goal of loosing the weight. i will be proud of myself

gawd do i hear you.  its not the strechmarks as i think my skin is looser or something.  i'm 33/34 and if i don't get back down to where i was, my skin may stay flabby!  i use to have such tight skin.  i suppose when i lose the weight, i'll be ready to tone the muscles to get rid of the appearance of that fracking cellulite.

I think we can always find some problem with our appearance.  It matters a lot more what we are projecting.

At my heaviest, around 190, I rode my bike a lot, renovated a house, did volunteer work and activism, and did awesome sewing and arts and craft stuff.  I was happy with what I was doing in my life and it came across.  I had plenty of dates, including with one of the best looking people I have ever dated (very fit guy who was a bike messenger and practiced martial arts, and was also very smart and sweet).  He didn't think I was fat, he thought I was hot.

At my smallest, around 125, I also rode my bike a lot, but I had dropped out of college and was working as a manager at a gym, living at home, and going through my first big breakup.  Looking back at pictures of myself, I was very good looking, but I didn't feel like I was.  I had no self-confidence and I needed to change so many things in my life.

What I'm saying is that the weight isn't what makes us happy or not.  It's the other stuff...

are you challenged intellectually or professionally?  are you learning new things?  do you feel healthy? are your relationships in order?  do you get enough exercise and eat good food? are you looking at art you like and listening to music you like? are you doing anything to help other people? 

if you're not happy, you should probably look at changing these things. 

  

I've felt better and better about my body as I've lost. I'm still not entirely satisfied, but I'm aware that this is only because of social brainwashing. I'm at a weight that is mobile, healthy and attractive (though not ideal by BMI standards). After another 20 lbs, I think I'll be quite satisfied - because I will put in the effort to make myself feel that way. If I focused on what the magazines tell me to look like, I'd go nuts. 

I’m pretty sure that I’ll be happy with my body when I reach my goal weight.  I’m 38 years old, and I’m pretty much immune to social brainwashing.  When my weight was stable and healthy in my early-mid 20s, and weighing in the 120s, I was happy with my body.  When I get down to 125-130 again, I will be happy wtih it again.  I want to be at or under 130, with the right amount of fat content.  Where that number lands, I really don’t care.  That will be a 75-80 pound drop, so I might have loose skin, which wouldn’t be great, but heck – everything’s sagging these days, so what’s a little more? 

I loved my body when I was skinny.  Sure it wasn't perfect, but I had seen the alternative (60 lbs heavier) and it made me happy to be thin.

When I first went to college and lost around 25lbs, I found myself pretty happy. But the happiness didn't come from my weight on a scale (I didn't even have one!) it came from me looking in the mirror every morning and thinking "WOW! You go girl! You're making an effort to help yourself, and its working, why, look at that tummy shrink! You're awesome!" and that made me pretty darn happy. :)