More weight obsessed after weight loss

Hi!

First, let me congratulate you on your success.

I think because we were so overweight, we thought, in our minds, that a certain weight would be the best.

Yet the more you lose, the more you want to lose, even if you were never that weight before or if you were, it was so long ago.

Obesity IS and eating disorder, so to substitute one with another is not so unusual.

However, if you have become so obsessed and it is all consuming, getting some therapy by a person who specializes in eating disorders might be a good idea.

Good luck with your journey!

You are NOT a failure!!! You've come a long way already so take a step back, breathe, and now try to look at the GOOD things that have come from what you've done so far.

If you are sticking to your diet plan and stuck at your current weight, try getting more exercise - that's what worked for me. I don't necessarily mean going to the gym or joining a aerobics class (although those work, too),, I'm simply suggesting that you move more. Go the extra mile, offer to do more chores around the house, go outside and work on your garden or just take a.walk now that the weather is getting warmer, put on some music and dance while you do housework!

Most of all, just give your self & your body a break and know that small changes lead to big rewards. Practice acceptance & patience.

You'll get there!

I am right with you. I am obsessed and have fear of regain. However skin removal helped a lot where I can actually see a flat tummy and not skin. If this is an option it might put you on the track you need to be on. After my skin removal it catapulted me to goal. Good luck I hope you find solace in your choices.

There's definitely nothing wrong with the amount you've lost, considering where you started. I think most surgeons would tell you that you're a success story, especially if you can keep that weight off. My surgery team never once told me to expect to do better than you did. I did manage to get down to a "normal" BMI, but it was through a ton of exercise. I mean it was an absolute obsession while I was losing, and it still is a huge part of my life. That's probably the only realistic way to a lower BMI than you're at, or at least to maintain one long term. It's all about finding the right thing for you. For me, it was weightlifting and riding my recumbent exercise bike while playing video games. I had to find a way of doing cardio that made me forget I was doing cardio. Do whatever gets you moving more, if you're not already exercising too much as it is. Realistically though, weight loss surgery isn't going to turn most people into skinny people with visible abs.

That being said, if you still look at the mirror and see a fat person after that much weight loss, and using the terms "obsessed" and "24/7" to describe what's going on, there's probably something going on mentally. Body dysmorphia is a very real thing, the person you see in the mirror and in pictures probably isn't the person everyone else is seeing. I have a friend who is the size women dream of being. If she were to lose any more weight, she would start decreasing her attractiveness in the eyes of the vast majority of people. Yet she sees a fat girl every time she looks in the mirror. Don't get hung up on the BMI, it was never meant to be a measure of an individual's success. It was simply a measure to track populations, as in how well this country is doing overall with its weight. Muscle mass is different for everyone, and I'm guessing you have at least a little bit of loose skin showing up on the scale (though less than you would have if you had the surgery as an older person). BMI also doesn't take things into consideration like sex/race/ethnicity.

Also, try not to get hung up on the word "obese", because it has come to mean something so much different than it used to. I'm not sure which country you're in but here in America, obesity is becoming the norm and half of people will probably qualify as obese within a decade or two at this rate (we're already at 40% in a 2019 Harvard study). When I was born in 1984, there was a bit more of a stigma of having a BMI of 31 but now most people would never dream of calling a person obese at your BMI. I feel that when most people think of the word obese, they're thinking about people so big they need to buy two airplane seats just to fit. With BMIs creeping up each and every year, I feel it's time we retire our old terminology that comes with such negative emotion and come up with some new categories because obese can be applied to someone right on the line like you, or someone who weighs 600+ pounds (not that I am shaming that, we all had a problem or we wouldn't be here).