Its good to feel positive about yourself for losing weight!

BUT its better just to feel positive about yourself regardless of your weight!

This is a space to talk about the things that make you feel good about YOU... because dealing with the outside pressures to conform to a shape or weight suck, and there's more to all of us than these shells we walk around in.

What makes you feel good about you?

It occured to me from reading some posts here today that some of us here feel pretty bad about ourselves for our current weight, our lack of progress on our diets, parts of our bodies that our partners complain about.

All of that is ok and valid, but weight is not everything--our bodies do age and become more and more imperfect through time. There is more to life than perfect abs!

I generally feel good because I'm good at my job, have lovely friends, a pretty nice family, and an awesome boyfriend. I feel pretty happy.

i hear you, my body image is shot. i don't see it ever being the same tho since being obsese =/

I had to resize all my rings from an 8 to a 6!
My arms look thin, my legs look great, I'm starting to get some abs, and I no longer have bulging fat between my shoulders and my underarms! I don't have "rolls" around my back, my collarbone is very visible, I can feel my hip bones, and I am happy and proud to say I have a little butt!

This thread was a great idea. Well I also have an amazing and supportive boyfriend, great hair, I love my eyes, and my smile. I know it may sound funny, but I like my hands too! My nails always grow in real nice and people are surprised I dont them proffesionally done. :o I hate my job but love my co-workers. Some of them I consider true friends. My family is great. (It's just my mom, sister and I here in Jersey) But theyre also really supportive with anything I do. And can I add something to that? My sister whos a workout-aholic and has a great figure never tries to "lecture" me about how to do this or that. She knows I have my own pace and is willing to help when I ask her to. :cheer: She's my own personal cheerleader.

Nice! :)

:jn sounds like your'e looking good!!

I have struggled with self image all my life. My parents are unemotional and distant and rarely praise any result or effort. They took any success as an opportunity to remind me of my faults. For example: when my school choir was in the newspaper being honoured they pointed out that I was the fattest one. When I announced I had lost 50 pounds a few years ago the first comment was "great - are you still smoking?".

This week my organization honoured me with an Award of Excellence for my work. I'm so proud of myself and blushed when I read the program and some of the comments they published from my supporters. There are so many people who think I'm wonderful and some days I can believe it. Other days I'm not so good at it.

But yes, damn it, I am wonderful! I have few physical charms, but I'm intelligent, caring and love to help others. I'm quite talented - I sing and play the guitar and piano, paint, sew, knit, and I'm an excellent cook. I do volunteer work in addition to a full time job, belong to a Toastmasters club and sing in a multi-cultural community choir. Every day people thank me and tell me how good I am, including the man I live with. But somehow, it's never quite enough to fill that empty place in my heart.

Guess I'm having a sad day today...I'm even sounding down to myself. A nice cup of herbal tea in front of the TV is just what I need.

Hugs
Mugs

Aww... don't be down on yourself! Alll that is SOOOO good! :D

Messages from our family and parents can be very hurtful. It hurt like hell when my mom kept reminding me of how fat I had gotten, and kept commenting on how unattractive I looked.

But when I think about it, her comments were geared from two points of view-- one was that she was actually concerned for my health-- the other was that I was not dating, and she was itching for grandchildren. SO! Even though she's my mom and means well, and sincerely believes that she was doing good by telling me these things-- well there was some selfishness involved-- and it just wasn't what I needed to hear.

I'm sure its the same with your parents too mugwump. They may be perfectionists and have a view that withholding praise will make you excell.... its not right for me to guess though because I don't know them. BUT! I bet if you think about it a while... you'll find a reason for their behavior in there-- that probably reveals more about their intent than your actual flaws.

sounds great to me too :D

Yeah- Other people can totally kill your spirit if you don't keep yourself in your own positive self talk.

oggie - great idea for a thread!

i was in denial for ages so i never really had poor body image but i was feeling down generally and that definitely affected me. i have been depressed pretty much non stop for 7 or 8 yrs. i have had 3 non-depressed days in the last yr which makes it hard to be positive

now i see what i really look like and i don't like it. some days i think i have a beautiful face but most days my face and my body look bloated and i feel unhappy with how i look. mainly i try and avoid looking in the mirror as it upsets me. the same with trying on clothes or looking in catelogues and knowing there is no point even ordering the stuff as it won't fit. i frump around in my tracksuit and hardly even bother combing my hair. some days i make the effort to put on a skirt and some sandals instead of my sandshoes and i do feel slightly better about myself. but i never see any point doing that when i'm at home !!!

any ideas on how to feel better about my body would be appreciated. some days i tell myself it's not important but there are days when it really bothers me. today i stopped myself from making fudge so i guess i had a victory but in my mind all i can see is my fat body. hard to move away from that image...

seeing a photo of me in ballet class did wonders for my body image (for a bit)

don't take this the wrong way but if i was 152lb i'd be darn happy too lol

:laugh: oh yes i am pretty happy, i just took a while to realise WHAT i look like. i still look down and expect to find a fat body there :o

it was a good reality check for me :)

I'm not going to get into WHY I don't have a good self-esteem towards my body, as I'm sure everyone can understand that all of us here have had that problem in the past.

However, I will list the things I DO like about myself:

x my eyes. They're catty green and look wonderful out-lined in black eyeliner


Eh..that's it.

But I am proud of the fact that I am an accomplished horse woman, vice-president of the 4-H club, and engaged to the most wonderful man ever.

Now, I know we feel bad about ourselves sometimes because other individuals that don't know anything about us tell us that we need to change our way of life and how we eat and exercise. But sometimes that can drive you to a point of no return because those people are fit and they don't have weight issues and they don't have any problems but again they do have problems and they say their trying to help you but are they because if that is the case they sure don't do in a postive way or anything because they tell you that you're overweight you're fat what do you think that is going to do to your self-esteem. Its going to bring it down. I have a weight problems and I'll admit that yes my parents tell me that having all this weight is not healthy for me and being 18 years of age I do know that this can cause me major health problems such as Heart Disease, Diabetes,etc. Well I'm taking charge of my life before its too late for me to do so. I've started doing 30 sit ups a day and doing leg lifts so I can work my back legs I'm doing lunges so I can work my thighs and get that unsightly cellulite off of them. I want to be healthy and I want to live a long healthy life without any health troubles. I urge people who are trying to loose weight do so because don't put off tomorrow what you can do today to improve your lifestyle. But Media is the main problem I mean they are the ones that say all these lies about the celebrities and just being a celebrity itself puts stress on you and that is why you don't feel good about yourself you don't feel that you're the right size you don't feel that you're pretty enough its all about competition with some inidividuals in this society. But I'm here to say You don't need to be someone else to be you, be the person that God Created you to be

Well said Tiana!

My biggest hang up about myself was that I worked my butt off through high school and college and I wanted a big time career and make a lot of money and when it came down to it my daughter would follow me out the house hanging on to me begging me not to go to work got to me, and I became a stay at home mom. So I do get envious of my friends with careers who tell me all the time that they wish they didn't have to work and got to stay home with their kids, and every now and then I get the comment that it must be nice to sit around at home and sleep in every day and how I must have so much time to myself (not the case!)

But now, that I've focused on me for awhile, and I've been eating healthy, I'm happy to say that my skin looks great, I hardly wear makeup anymore, I've got some very nicely shaped shoulders and arms, I have some little hips, great calves, bony ankles and I have a neck!