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Losing weight, starting to love myself... Is this healthy?
19/f I went through a deep, long episode of depression. I absolutely loathed myself. It escalated to where I was cutting, and I nearly attempted suicide. I had a drink and a bottle of pills ready one night, the only thing that stopped me was the thought of being a buzz-kill for my father's huge 50th birthday event coming up. Before and after that, suicide was almost all I thought about.
I was pretty dang overweight. I wanted to get out of this dark abyss, and not that losing weight would be what would make me worth something, but I didn't want weight to hold me back anymore. It's been about 3 or 4 months since I decided to really start losing weight. I've been extremely loyal to my diet, and have lost quite a bit of weight. Everyone is noticing and complimenting me. It used to be just people I hadn't seen in a while, but now even people I see every day are saying I look great. I'm far from done, but here's the issue.
Instead of loathing myself, at the beginning of the month I realized I'm kind of tolerating who I am now. I'm starting to feel proud of what I look like. Instead of staring into the mirror glaring at the person looking back, I'm noticing how parts of me are shrinking and getting firmer, and it makes me feel pretty awesome. I couldn't see at first, but now I'm noticing and it's a pretty awesome feeling. My journey is far from over, but I've made some good progress.
What I'm worried about is, I don't want to equate my self-worth with how much I weigh. I'm worried that my hatred is going away because I'm starting to look good. I don't want to depend on my looks for my worth. SO, is it normal to feel this way when losing weight? How can I differentiate loving myself for real/ just loving how I look that day? I want to be careful, because I want to like being me for me, not for the compliments and approval I'm getting. I don't know, does anyone know how I feel?
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There is nothing unusual about the way you are feeling right now. You felt unhappy with yourself and when you don't feel good bout yourself whether it be appearance or even a personality reason or even someone else making you feel that way, you will be unhappy depressed and other things until something else shifts. For people who are unhappy with their appearance when they alter or change that "flaw" they tend to feel more comfortable with themselves and happy. So yes, it is normal. And Kudos to you for the weight loss.
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It's totally fine to feel good about yourself once you lost weight. I honestly think it's normal. Only because I went through it too. I wasn't overweight or anything, but I didn't like my body very much and eventually started becoming more fit and people were always complimenting me and I ended up becoming more confident.
The thing is, some people get carried away. They think it's all about how much they weigh and it can turn into an eating disorder.
I agree that you shouldn't measure your self worth on how much you weigh. So don't focus on your weight. I mean it's good to take care of yourself and make good lifestyle choices but learn to love yourself in other ways too. Learn new things and you'll notice you're good at other things and I'm sure your personality is awesome.
I'm also going to give a suggestion to visit a counselor. I mean you were contemplating suicide at one point and you don't want to get back to that point in your life right? I'm sure they'll give some good tips on what to do in your situation as well.
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It's all right to feel happy/proud of loosing weight. After all it's quite an achievement. Well done! But you right it normally starts like this and leads many girls to anorexia. You are far from anorexia but just to be sure that you wont be in that position follow these few steps and your weight will be balanced.
1.Eat 3-5 portions a day. Sounds a lot? Eat smaller portions more frequently. This will not only help you with your metabolism but you will also feel full.
2. Instead of having sugary snacks like crisps, chocolate bar etc. try to eat fruit/vegetable. They have natural sugar which will not make you fat. It is proven that fake sugar (found in sweets, chocolate etc.) is bad for you and can lead you to many diseases. If it is possible cut out sugar completely (eat alternatives with sweetner)or pick a day of a week that you will allow yourself to eat it and stick to it.
3. Avoid take-away meals/microwave meals. They aren't very healthy. Start cooking yourself then you will now exactly what you are eating.
4. Do some exercise every day. It really helps.
PS: Remember looks is not everything. Having a good personality is what matters more than anything. Trust me men don't like skinny girls.
Hope I helped.
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I know how you feel.
I've pretty much done the same thing as you.
The problem is that now that I've lost a lot of weight I still feel pretty ugly and fat and I want to lose even more even though I'm almost underweight now. Yet I still want to lose around 22 pounds or more._.
I'm glad that you don't think that way and it's a good sign that you feel better about yourself :) You said yourself that you were overweight which might have also added to you not liking yourself don't you think? And now that you've lost weight and that part of you that you didn't like is gone you obviously feel better :) I don't think that there is anything wrong with it. I just hope that it's not going to develope into a problem for example an eating disorder. When you have an eating disorder it's all about finding a way to control your life. It's a coping mechanismn. And I hope that this is not going to happen to you. Think about what you're going to do when you've reached your target weight. Will you want to lose more because it's the only thing that you can hang on to?
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