My Dream Really Got to Me - Page 2 - ThinnerTimes

stevegoad · 08-09-2008, 05:53 AM

We have all felt the more painful side of being overweight. Many of us have felt what it does to jobs, friendships, and relationships.

I have personally lost a career over my weight (note, not a job... a career, a story I will tell at another point). I have had dates that stopped in their tracks because of it.

That's one reason I am so thankful about my wife, who met me at my highest (450), fell in love with me when I was about 410, and during a 5 year engagement loved me through thick and thin, so to speak. While she encouraged me to get the lap-band, she made it clear that she loves me no matter what.

I am one who has been very happy, fat or thin. When doing concerts, I joked about weight (I will give some of the fat jokes at a later date too...) I was never one who got extremely depressed about my weight.

My thoughts are, love yourself. If you don't, then all the enhancements won't change that. Weight loss won't do it, and a man won't do it. You have to love yourself first...

snick1899 · 08-09-2008, 07:20 AM

I always told myself that no man could ever love me until I loved myself. As much as I believe that is true, that self love has to come first, I think it was just a way for me to hide behind my weight. There are so many things that I love about myself, my spirituality, my honesty, I'm a happy person, always smiling and laughing, therefore always making others smile and laugh. I feel like I bring so much to the world, but a big part of me is still anchored to the superficial physical looks. Not necessarily in me looking for someone, but when someone looks at me. I guess this is just a very real way for me to realize that I am not ready to date yet.

LisaM · 08-13-2008, 05:40 AM

It took a couple of years post-op before I started truly believing that I was worth loving... and we transmit that hatred for ourselves with every word, with every joke we make about being fat, and reinforce it every time we abuse ourselves mentally while staring into a mirror.

I'm here to tell you that, even at a size 6, there are days when I feel monstrously fat--I found myself making a joke the other night at a party that I was "getting jiggly with it." Funny? Probably. True? Sure, I'm pretty jiggly--but not nearly as jiggly as I was at 300 pounds. It's just the old me rearing it's insecure head--making the joke before someone else can. I brought myself up short and headed the conversation some other direction.

When I was heavy, I was using my fat as a security blanket, a much-hated, hard-to-give-up security blanket... because as long as I was fat, I could blame the failure of my relationships and my failure to get some of the jobs I wanted on that, instead of on myself. Once I lost my protective fat, I had to learn to live in a world where men look at me (scary...) and I finally gave up on my marriage because he didn't want me as a slender person either. I've got the job I was looking for--and not because I'm skinny, but because I have outstanding qualifications.

I say, don't try to jump straight into loving yourself--just try not to hate yourself for a while as your body begins the physical journey. THEN work on liking what you see, then liking who you see. It's a thousand-step journey... and you gave yourself the time to make it when you had the surgery.