Feeling you deserve to look good by maintaining a lower weight.

I want to be good to my body, but food is my comfort and reward (deserving in a whole different perspective) and I use it to feel like I'm 'doing' something (social need).
I want to look different but the positive and negative are interwoven. Maybe someday I will get it sorted out.

My therapist lost a lot of weight and while I am glad for her, it is like I have a new therapist, and it's unnerving somewhat. Her weight loss was gradual, and one day it was just so noticable and I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed before then. She is slim and has always dressed beautifully but now looks even more fashionable. It's kind of weird. I know that isn't what this thread is about, but my fingers just got to typing... lol

Sannah, good work and wishing you success

Thank you everyone. Yes, there is a lot to be said about comfort eating. I do this and I know it started when I was young because I wasn't getting comfort from my mom. My mom is very involved in food too. She is so disconnected from the rest of us but put food in front of her and she is ssooooo connected suddenly (with the food, not us).

Geez, yes, there is a sexual component to be connected with you body and I hope to improve that area of my life as well with me being more connected to my body.

I was thinking about how this disconnection from your body evolves. I was emotionally neglected and my mom didn't pay much attention to me. I'll bet this caused me to not tune into me either. I got the connection with my feelings long ago (connecting with my feelings) but I never realized this connection with your body until yesterday. After noticing this I realized that I can still connect further with my feelings by being more connected with my body. I hope all of you that have posted will try to connect more to your body and check it out. I also realize, however, why a person wouldn't want to connect more to their body - you have to focus on your feelings more and your circumstances, etc. It can be painful at first to be so aware (SAWE referred to this in one of her threads about mindfulness).

This thread has given me a lot to think about. Sorry ahead of time for the novel.

I have struggled with weight problems since puberty. I matured early and the other kids would make fun my appearance, particularly my weight. Looking back, I wasn't fat at all (5'6" and 130lbs), but at the time I thought I must be horribly obese for my weight to garner that much attention.

Rather than try to lose weight or experiment with clothes and makeup, my reaction was to say "Well, I guess I was born fat and ugly". It seemed like fate. I couldn't change it and there was no point wasting my energy thinking about clothes and food. In fact, if I made any attempts to improve my appearance, I'd only embarrass myself by struggling against the unfixable.

In my teen years, people would say "Don't eat so much cereal for breakfast! You're going to get fat!" and I would think "Who cares? I'm already fat. And even if I lose weight, nothing's gonna cure the ugly. Might as well enjoy this food".

In recent years, I have become more educated about nutrition and have been trying on and off to lose all the extra weight I've put on. Unfortunately, I've become the dreaded Yo-yo Dieter. I lose 20 lbs and then immediately gain it back.

I always thought that my problems with weight stemmed from depression. It seemed like I would lose weight, hit a bad spell with depression and lose all my motivation, eat a bunch to make myself feel better, and then gain all my weight back. Then I'd feel really sorry for myself for a few months and trash talk myself for failing yet again before working up the motivation to give it another go. Repeat forever.

Something deliquesce said and something Sannah said has made me reconsider that belief.

When I think about it, I have always been so disconnected from my body. I do not think of it as "me". I don't have any pictures of myself because they look like pictures of a stranger. An ugly stranger. I feel no connection to my appearance at all. I think maybe that happened on purpose, because if I think too much about my appearance, I become very depressed. Better not to think about it at all.

To me, taking care of my body is a chore that I have to do and I just keep putting it off. If I were to write out a list of things to do, it might look like this:

1. Clean gutters
2. Mow lawn
3. Be healthy
4. Fix bathroom tile
etc.

Not only does my brain not make the connection that taking care of my body = taking care of myself, but I really struggle with the idea of daily upkeep. I want to be able to check it off my list and never have to think about it again. Maybe once a month I could take a multi-vitamin and consider my job done.

I feel like my body is such a burden. I wish it was like a house; when I get tired of taking care of it, I can just get rid of it and rent a body. Let the landlord worry about upkeep.

Except I can't get rid of it. I am stuck with this body and that is so overwhelming and claustrophobic for me. I hate being unable to escape things because then, eventually, I have to deal with them.

Anyways, sorry again for the super long post. Upon re-reading it, it looks more like a journal entry than a real post, but I am going to post it anyways. I have been reading so many posts here and haven't been contributing at all. It's starting to make me feel like a creepy spy.

I guess this statement feels a bit off to me...makes me cringe actually..

Really, why? I feel it is part of our sexual relationship. My husband looks great. Men are more visually stimulated than woman from what I have gathered.

On Facebook, an update from a friend of my friend came on my newsfeed. I didn't know the guy at all but he wrote that he went to a wedding last night and he said that his wife looked so hot in her dress. I thought that was so nice. They are bonded sexually. I think that it is great. Of course you want other bonds in addition, friendship bonds, parenting bonds, extended family bonds, etc......

I really enjoyed your post kallinite. You are also spot on to what I am talking about. Have you had any more insight since you posted this?

Cripes! lol, sorry Sannah, we certainly are poles apart on this topic, I bow out respectfully because I certainly do not feel the same way as you about what constitutes a healty relationship.

Is sex bad Melba?

oh god no!! but plastering it on FB isn't sex, isn't love, its the ego. what goes on between hubby and me is well, between hubby and me, and we've been together for 30yrs...

Yeah, I would never write something like that either! I guess because I didn't know him I wasn't embarrassed!

Haven't managed to read the whole thread yet, but it's a very interesting topic. From a very young age I remember having a very negative image of myself - I have memories of praying at the age of 5 to make me look like my skinny friend. Thereafter for a long time I tried to distance myself from my body - who I was inside wasn't who I was outside. It breaks my heart now to look at photos of me as a child and realise there was nothing wrong with me - a little chubby perhaps but no more than that. I think it does come from how you value yourself - I lost quite a lot of weight in my 20s and yet still didn't believe I was good enough, or that just because I wore a size 4/6 didn't mean that I looked as good as others who were that size.

I have gained a lot over the last few years, and certainly in the depths of depression I considered it to be "self-harm by stealth" - that because I have people who care about me, I couldn't just bow out, but hey, if I happened to have a heart attack, that would be fine. This year has been better for me and I have started to lose some weight and become more active again. I think that has only happened because I have begun to accept myself and care what happens to me again, and have a little germ of excitement about what the future holds. I don't want to fall into the trap of thinking that I can only start living when I am at a certain weight, but yes, I do believe I deserve to look better and feel better.