One thing that realy gets me steaming...

I hate it when thin people assume that just becuase they are thin they are pretty!!! i hate that beyond words.. my mate does it al the time, if we get beeped by lads in cars she assumes its her ALL the time! not me, or my other friend who is stunning, and very curvy.

Also when peeps (im not saying any names) are thinner than you, they say "hard work pays off" and show off their NONE EXISTANT curves as if you wil lbe jealous! call me crazy. But i dont call jutting ribs and hip bones attractive anyway!!

You look pretty thin in your pictures!

the only time i get beeped is when a car nearly y hits me! and am a large enuf target at that. all the best from the slug west sx uk. ps weigh in day today. fingers crossed

It's what you think of yourself that matters. 

I agree with claire.

it's really hard to have a good self-image, to be able to look in the mirror and go "Hey, I look nice!"

But.. it's a very worthwhile goal I think we should all keep in mind as we get closer to your goal weight, to be able to look in the mirror and feel good about oneself. :)

i agree hk and claire.. to an extent.. i feel that their statements are slightly too cut and dry.. to simplistic for such a difficult subject. (sorry guys.. i'm totally not saying anyting bad about you.. really.. i'm just speaking from experience here)

having grown up with a close relative (sister) who was always considered the beautiful one (and me the smart ugly one) i can understand han's feelings.  It's one thing to love yourself and feel good about yourself.. but when repeatedly getting told that you are not perfect because you are either overweight or not as attractive (or in my case.. both) as whoever.. be it a friend or a relative.. it takes some work to get to that point and even then it's a difficult thing to deal with.

you can't change what other people think about you.. or what other people think about themselves.  but this all comes back to self esteem.. are you strong enough to ignore all this or are you going to let it affect you and keep you down?  and if you figure out how to not let it affect you.. let me know.. it's not something that is just easy to do.. you can't just wake up one day and say "i love me" no matter what... we all have our good days and our bad days.. on our bad days we fall into the trap of believing the negativity.. on our good days we can ignore it.  it's the bad days that are hard..

i guess what i'm saying is try and have more good days than bad.. and when you are having a bad day..  then work through the emotional turmoil in whatever way you know how.. be it exercise.. talk to the person who you have a problem with.. whatever.. i feel for you.. i really do..

My sister is overweight and she does the exact same thing.
She always thinks that all the attention is for her because in her mind she's the most beautiful person in the family.
It's quite frustrating.


 

I like what obs just said --

"you can't just wake up one day and say "i love me" no matter what... "

She's right - this is incredibly hard to do - even though we wake up and have unconditional love for our children, our mate, other loved ones....   Why can we do for others what we can't do for ourselves?  It probably has something to do with how it takes 100 positive comments to negate 1 really nasty comment. 

When I get negative comments, most of the time these days, they just go in one ear and out the other.  Life is too short for me to let other people determine whether or not I'm happy with myself.

Do I want to change my weight? Yes.

Am I happy with the efforts I've made over the last 12 months? Yes.

So can I give myself a break? Yes - I'd do the same for you.

This isnt' so much about size = beauty, but mostly how you feel about yourself and your self confidence.   Sure I could be running along the road side and hear a car beeping their horn;  I could either take it as A) move your arse out of my way, I'm trying to turn, or B) Hey hottie, where you going?  

If you choose B, you have improved your self confidence and you're self image.  OK, this might sound really snooty and self rightous, but in my opinion, take what you can get! 

Really hun.  The whistles and turned heads are all going in your direction.   If you want to share those with your mate or whoever is walking with you, that's up to you.   You don't have to tell them.     ;)

I used to get whistled at a lot, and never liked it.  It was always by icky guys who looked like they needed a bath.

self image with me is poor, i might bare in pics, but met me in RL and im in baggy crappy clothes. Once im a 8 i wil lelt go amd wear colour!

Han, wear color now. You're a pretty girl, don't spend years hiding behind being self-concious. When I was 16, I was 115 to 120 lbs. I thought I was fat. I refused to pose for pictures and wore baggies clothes. Now that I am a bit older and have gained quite a bit of weight, I don't have any pictures to look back on to see what I could be again. I regret being shy and self-concious. Have fun now, enjoy what you have now. Live for the moment. Live for today!

well whatever you do, don't wear color when you visit New York City.  On my first visit there I wore a hot pink blouse and had to put on a bright yellow rain slicker when the weather turned wet.  You would have thought I was a circus clown on the loose.  Everybody stared at me.  People were doing double-takes to gaze after me.  I thought it was weird.  I was thinking to myself, Why is everybody looking at me?  I checked for dirt or food on my face, boogers in nose -- nothing.  I was feeling pretty self-conscious.  It wasn't until I met up with my best friend and told him that I thought people were looking at me and he said, "Well yeah, you don't exactly blend in.  We don't wear colors like that here."

Turns out they mainly wear black and gray, occasionally browns.  They use accessories for their color.

But aside for NYC, wear all the color you want to. If it suits you, wear it!

I agree with longwalker too - any guys that whistled/yelled/hollared at me appeared to be a tooth short and too long since bathtime.  Also, on another note, I can attract the strangest fellow in a bar within minutes. You know the one I mean - the guy who's 6'5" (I'm 5'4"), wearing a cowboy hat and great big boots on the hottest day of the year, and says Howdy Little Lady...  How do I do it?

The flip side to "don't think you're pretty just because you're thin" is of course "don't think you're ugly just because you're overweight!"

I know TONS of girls who are convinced that they're complete dogs because they're not size 4's (or even 6's or 8's!) and nothing could be further than the truth. I know it's trite to say it's all in how you carry yourself, but it's TRUE! Confidence is sexy, no matter what you look like!

Obs, you are right.  It's easy to sum it up in a sentance, but it's more complicated than that.

 It took me until I was 40 to finally realize my own self worth.  I had a life of being beaten down first by my mother and then by two husbands.  It something to do with appearance and being put down no matter how I looked, but it was more about them telling me I couldn't do anything right, over and over and over.  It took a second, very nasty divorce and a lot of people going to bat for me to make me realize that I'm a valuable human being all by myself.  Then it took two years of psychotherapy for me to learn to deal with my mother.

I don't know what to say to anyone in the midst of this struggle, except to find people in your life who affirm your goodness and to embrace it yourself.