Looking at old pictures...

I was just looking at some old picture of myself from my senior year of college (2 years ago) and oh my god...I had no idea I looked so bad! It's so embarassing - how could I not have seen it sooner?!? I'm just feeling really upset right now, and I wonder if at some point I'll look back at pictures of myself now and feel the same way. The thought doesn't exactly help my self-confidence.

Has anyone else had this happen? Do you keep "before" pictures around as motivation or do they just upset you?

I like looking at "before" pictures in conjunction with "after" pictures. Makes me see the results and the difference rather than dwelling on my weight before.

You're right, looking at "before" pics isn't that uplifting for me.

Before pictures bother me and I cannot stand to look at them! They are motivating, but they still make me feel down. I try to seek other sources of motivation. In fact, I would be happy to destroy all the pictures of me in the past 5 years. But then I would be destroying memories, too. :P

i have a few pictures from when iwas OBESE from middle school... i was 5'3 and 193 pounds... i get mad at myself and think back about how poor my food choices were back then. I think i was an emotional eater from my mother dying when i was 8 so i always ate... and i know i ate fast food almost everyday... now i don't even have a craving for it... but i love subway! :)

but it makes me upset sometimes to see how unhealthy i was at a young age. i thank the lord that my NOW stepmom was dating my father at the time. She's radiologist and a health freak so she helped my little obese butt out a bit.

I think I'm going to have to stay away from the "before" pictures because it's just too upsetting to look at them (though unfortunately, I think one particular picture is burned into my mind for the rest of time). Maybe one day when I reach my goal I'll be able to look at them without cringing, but until then...not so much.

I really wish I knew then what I know now about eating, exercise and living a healthy life... I feel like I've wasted so much time being overweight when I could have been healthy and in shape.

Well to be honest, the only pictures of me are from when I was in elementary school. I loathe getting my photo taken because i'm so chubby. But I look at the "lack" of photos I have of myself and promise to lose weight so that I can finally take some pictures!

Mobaby, I hope you get a chuckle out of this one: it's been over 20 years since I was in college. I didn't have a weight problem back then... I weighed all of 103 when I graduated. But I cringe when I see photos of me anyway! Why?? Because the fashions were *seriously horrendous* in the 80s. :-)

Poodle perm... baby blue eye shadow... shoulder pads... high-waisted, pleated pants .... YIKES!!

Meanwhile, I have only one pic left of me from my period during which I reached my highest all-time weight... it is sad to look at it. It brings back memories of being too out of shape to walk around the block, even though I was only in my 20s, and stress-eating on fast food and tons of grease. It brings back shameful feelings of being in my sister's wedding and everyone asking me if I was pregnant (I wasn't) and of stuffing cheesesteaks in my mouth and binge-eating at night when my first marriage was going south.  

But it no longer makes me feel bad about myself! On the contrary. That was a long time ago... and despite current battle to lose a few lbs, I can proudly say that I've maintained my weight pretty darn well since that time period... and have never hit that high since. 

You'll be able to say that someday too, and instead of feeling bad when you take out those old pics, you'll feel proud of all you have accomplished.

awww I know those pictures can be a shocker.  I barely found any to use for my before pics because I was so saddened by how I looked i'd always hide or throw away pictures of me.  What makes me really sad is I don't have a whole lot of pics with my son :(.  The few I do have are very precious though and he was strategically placed lol to hide the worst of it. 

Today though, I wish I had kept more pictures around.  It seems odd I guess but now Im missing more the sentimentality of having them, plus as I look back at the few I have it is a reminder of that being the past and I have a new future to look forward to. 

For one of my gifts for myself I am going to take my son and have a nice portrait done of us :) I think we'll both enjoy that.  Do keep some before pictures though! Even if you don't want to look at them now then dont, but hang onto them for the future.  When you do a before and after pic or even as you go along you will see the difference and it will make you proud :)

Thanks for the support guys! Seeing them really was a shock, but I'm trying not to use that as an excuse to eat the M&Ms in our office fridge :) I guess what caught me off guard is that like a lot of you, I just don't have pictures of me during my heaviest times - I avoid the camera like the plague.

And jenmcc - thankfully my old pictures lack shoulder pads and blue eyeshadow!