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The Mirror DOES Lie To Me....

lovelyivy, I get the same thing when I turn down sugar and alocohol around family and friends.

I just let them get over it. :)
 
MrsPuddlesFL said:
A little comment of thanks...thanks to everyone for being so open and honest here. Knowing we're not alone in living and dealing with these emotions and physical problems and having friends to share it with makes it more managable.

I second that thank you...support is something that makes a huge difference in sticking with it.:finger2:
 
Yeah they are still my friends and fam. Can't live without em, lol.

It's just funny because of the reactions. When I weighed twenty pounds more and ate like a pig there were no problems and comments, but now that I eat like a person and exercise regularly there is a problem????

Of course it goes both ways- I notice things now about how they eat or exercise/don't exercise, and while I don't say anything I think that it does get reflected sometimes in my attitude.

We'll all adjust I guess. The interesting part of all this will be when summer rolls around and I get to show off what all that work with weights, etc. has done for me.

Hee! Looking forward to all the questions about what I eat/how I exercise that will never be followed up on already...
 
Re: HI Everyone!

figuregrl said:
I've been reading all comments today...All I can say is that all of this has been really helpful to me...To see others struggling with the very things that I struggle with is a RELIEF!! Sometimes you think that you are the only one going through all this crap...I don't have alot of girlfriends that train like I do, so they just have NO clue about the dieting, the training, etc. and what it can do to your moods, your personality, etc. I sometimes feel guilty obsessing over my body and looks (and yes, I do that ALL the time now - it comes with being involved in the wonderful world of bodybuilding and fitness!)...however, when one is in this sport, that comes with the territory, therefore, I try and make sure that I am balancing my obsessiveness so as to not let it take over my life (the training and dieting do that easily...haha), but I also realize that it comes with the 'job' so to speak, so is it so wrong? I am working towards a goal and I have to be the best that I can be and that is all that I can work towards, and yes, if I can piss and moan about what a pain in the butt it is to diet, etc. then I think it's great that there are others out there that I can do it with and that are going thru the same sh-- that I am!!:angel:

Well Welcome!!! We will help as much as we can! As you can see, we all have differant opinions that help everyone feel like they can relate! Glad your here!:)
 
First of all ... I NEVER judge myself by what I look like in a picture. This is for several reasons. One, look at people you like, people you don't think look bad or even particularly fat, and then look at photos of them. Don't they ALWAYS look worse?? My mother is not that big in person, but on film she always looks like a blimp. And the difference in pictures I look good or bad in is not weight (one of my best looking photos is one at my highest body weight ever!), but pose, lighting, hair, and makeup.

The camera lies big time. I am interested in costuming, so when the Star Wars Magic of Myth exhibit was at the Smithsonian, I went there to see the costumes. I couldn't BELIEVE how shabbily made they were!!! I took some close-ups of really cheap, burlap-type fabric, with really rough looking seams with visible tattered threads, in order to take these photos home and remind myself, when I despaired that I couldn't ever make an outfit look as good as the movies, what those clothes really looked like close up.

And what happened??? The camera erased the cheapness and sloppiness as if by magic!! Those costumes came out looking every bit as first class as they did in the movie theater!! Which just goes to show you, film is *not* an honest critic. Think about it. Does *your* mom look more like herself in person, or more like herself on film? Life isn't the movies or a magazine, it's what's standing right in front of ya.



I was sad when I read this:

It seems that the more in shape I become, the more faults I find with my body. When I was fat I wasn't nearly as critical of myself as I am now. The saying "Fat people are jolly" fit me perfectly. I hardly ever cried or became even remotely depressed. Now, I look in the mirror and cringe, and spend many hours a month feeling unhappy with my body to the point where I can't hold back the tears.

and:

I read your posts and feel like I am the one writing them. I get soo depressed about the way I look too. I cried the past two nights, I think mostly because I'm grumpy and overtrained. My boyfriend doesn't understand, but I told him he'd be depressed too If he dieted for 8 weeks, felt like shit , lost a bunch of muscle and hoarded fat.


Ladies, please. LISTEN to the fat girl.

HOW DO YOU THINK I GOT TO BE THIS FAT???

By judging myself by how I LOOKED only, comparing myself to some glorified magazine ideal, and considering nothing else!!!

Folks, I used to be ALMOST 100 LBS lighter than I am today!!! I spent half my day every other day on exercise, and then I ruined it looking at things with that kind of attitude. I began to feel, more and more, "What's the use? I HATE EVERY FUCKING MINUTE OF WHAT I'M DOING, and I'm never going to *look* the way I want to anyway!! Nothing is working, nothing makes any difference, and I hate it, so why do it??" Then I went into complete exercise and food rebellion, and even though I am doing better these days, it appears to be too late ... not much is coming off.

I keep trying to get this idea through the thick heads of the people on the C&C board who keep trollin' the NAAFA board, but they can't quite appreciate the wisdom. Maybe it will make more sense here:

When your only measure of how you are doing on your fitness program is "What I LOOK LIKE," especially when it's "What I look like AS COMPARED TO THAT WOMAN OVER THERE, that other bodybuilder, my friend ZsaZsa, or that celebrated actress, you leave yourself NO WAY TO WIN. No matter how far you progress, no matter how much fat you lose, no matter how much weight you train yourself to lift, no matter how much you inprove your diet, your attitude becomes more and more and more CRITICAL. You pass the first milestone, and it isn't enough. No, no, suddenly you must look like this other person or that other person. Your arms are OK, but your legs really oughta look like so-and-so's. So you get THERE. And you're STILL not happy. You've raised the bar again. And it goes on and on and on and on, and always the only thing you can find to say to yourself is this constant, demoralizing repetition: "NOT GOOD ENOUGH, NOT GOOD ENOUGH, NOT GOOD ENOUGH, NOT GOOD ENOUGH ..."

Folks, there is no way to stick to anything under these circumstances. You need wins, or the whole thing becomes constant punishment with no payoff. And I don't know about you, but when *my* life is nothing but Constant Punishment With No Payoff, I don't find that sustainable. I can't keep going. Why should I??? It's Constant Punishment With No Payoff!!!

I have resolved never, never again to judge myself by What My Body Looks Like. That way I always win. I am exercising now, and even if I never lose another pound again for the rest of my life, I will continue to exercise, because I am not feeling demoralized by not having lost the weight. I am working out for other reasons, and that makes it INTRINSICALLY MOTIVATING!! Yeah!!!

But if I ever do lose weight, and you have to hold me to this, I am still not going to judge anything by how I look, because then comes the tendency to become super critical and the Slow Slide Down begins.

Ladies. I am sure I am the only person on this board who weighs close to 100 lbs over what she used to. In the Weight-and-What-It-Looks-Like Department, NONE of you is doing as poorly as I am!!!

Appreciate who you are. Appreciate the body you have. Appreciate all the fucking hard work you've done. It's good enough. You're fine.

If you can't tell yourself that, ever in your whole life, prepare to get REALLY big one day, 'cause that is how it works out.
 
lots of good stuff Troll...

now, how do you keep progressing without driving yourself to madness?? most of the ladies here on the boards are here to excel, not remain the same as today...and a lot of them (myself included) are very competitive.
 
It seems to me that if you just allow that you do *something* right once in a while, it would be a step in the right direction!

(joke)

No, seriously, from what I've read about motivation, the first step most people don't take is to accept themselves the way they are today.

I mean, come on, some of you have done SO much work here it makes my head spin. What's wrong with acknowledging that? That doesn't mean that you don't have goals you would like to reach. What it does mean is that you pursue those goals feeling *good* about yourself, happy, and energized, instead of saying, "I am nothing but a maggot ... nothing I do is right."

I don't know, some of the Famous NAAFA Troll Brigade swear that they motivated themselves to impossible heights on nothing more than the strength of "I hate myself." Maybe some people can actually get something accomplished that way.

When I try to do that, I personally can't do shit.

That's why I am a member over there. If you start out liking yourself the way you are, you have a lot more positive energy to carry you forward as opposed to all these bad feelings dragging the wind out of your sails. AND you don't feel worthless if you don't happen to reach your goal. That doesn't mean you aren't motivated to do more ... it just means you left the pain stick at home in the closet ...
 
Hi ya, Troll. :)

I don't think we think badly of ourselves here. I think it's mearly a matter of some frustration at not reaching our goals YET. Yes, I cringe when I look in the mirror naked, but when I'm dressed I'm thrilled with my progress. I don't think "I am nothing but a maggot ... nothing I do is right." I am proud of my accomplishments in all areas of my life, including becoming healthier. At one point I weighed 214 lbs and I'm 5'3". 7 years ago I was put on very high doses of high blood pressure medication which caused me to feel tired all of the time and it slowed my metabolism. As I dropped weight and became more active I was able to lower the doses. I'm now completely off them as of about 2 months ago and I feel better than I have since I was a kid. I also suffered from bad diverticulitis which is minimal now because of the changes in diet that I learned here on EF.

I had accepted myself as a jolly fat person. That only lead me to become more unfit and unhealthy, it did nothing to create motivation. I remember the day I went shopping and bought the new size 22 dresses. I thought to myself, oh well, I'm a little bigger this year, no problem. That was sooo wrong. I'm forever thankful that I saw myself in a picture and made some major changes in my life. I'm now able to do things I couldn't do when I was heavier, I can go out all night and not have sore feet, even when wearing 6" fmp's. I can run up and down the stairs like it's nothing instead of asking my daughter to do it for me. The list could go on forever.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do with your body but my experience has been wonderful. I don't ever want to return to my former body because overall, I'm happier now.

A note on Victoria Secrets...I refuse to shop there no matter what size I am because they don't carry any panties or other stuff, not even robes, beyond a size Large. When I was still heavier my husband had given me a gift certificate there and the only thing I could use it for was stockings. At the time I wore a 40DDD and they didn't even have a bra to fit me, and I could have worn an XL in other stuff but their stores don't stock them, you'd have to order from their catalog and pay s/h. I just think that's wrong! It's like they're saying if you're fat you need to shop from our catalog because we don't want you IN our stores. That attitude was even evident on the saleswoman's face. Witch!
 
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