Feel so embarrassed about being overweight

[HauntingScream]

I don't know if it's me or if there's a shift in society but I feel ashamed and embarrassed of being overweight. I am trying but it seems so hard to lose weight. I'm finding it difficult to deal with it now and I'm starting to lose confidence in myself.
I almost feel embarrassed to be out and so aware that I'm usually the biggest amongst my family and friend. Everyone around me is slim.
I'm on the borderline of being obese and just don't want to tip into that.
I want to be a normal weight so much. To look good in clothes, to feel comfortable and to be healthier would mean sooooo much but I can't seem to get there.
Can anyone relate to this?

I can completely relate. I've recently lost 2stone but am still very overweight.

It's my works summer do to the races next week and I've been in bits fretting about what to wear and sending everything I've bought back because I hate the way I look. I wish I could cancel but I need to get out and not let my negativity make me a hermit.

I get so frustrated that I sabotage myself when all I want it to be slim and confident. You are not alone

Yes I can. I've just been to Turkey for a gastric sleeve. £3500 but that should pay for itself within a year bearing in mind what i was spending on food/snacks/breakfast/lunches and dinners out and takeaways - I was probably spending £100 a week realistically.

Have you thought about surgery?

Everyone around me is slim.

How, I mean how???

Our household itself no one here is overweight. But most people in rest of our lives are. Everywhere I go, most the relatives, most the workmates, most the fellow commuters on the train or in the pool, most the folk we socialise with. Some hugely so some just enough to be over target thresholds.

I get it. I'm the biggest I've been in a long long time. Size 16/18 currently and while some people may think that's fine at 5ft 8, I do not and I want to be back in my 12s. I hate this! I have a funeral to go to soon and I have been frantically looking for dresses that will make me look slimmer in front of family I've not seen for a decade while I am standing next to my size 6 sister

Yes I hear you as well. Its a miserable rut. Something has to change in your mind I think. I just am too tired to deal with it right now, but I have a realistic target of next summer to be down 2 dress sizes.

You are not alone OP. Its all I think about. I have full length mirrored cupboards in my bathroom and I hate it when I catch a glimpse of my naked body in it.

I am also very overweight, I feel like a second class citizen sometimes due to it. It holds me back a lot in life. I have recently bought a Fitt cube and some meal replacement shakes but I’m finding it difficult sticking to the diet. I’m staring again tomorrow and I’m confident and hopeful I will stick to it. I have around 7/8 stone to loose so it is a long journey.

Your body has no moral value.
it’s neither good nor bad. It just is.
don’t be ashamed of yourself.
Food has no moral value, some food is more beneficial to your body than others and there are complicated reasons we choose certain foods over others. These are usually rooted in years of conditioning, our environment and trauma.
With kindness change can come, sometimes.
But you are worthy in spite of how you feel about your body.

I'm sorry that so many of you feel the same, but comforted that I'm not alone.
When I said everyone around me is slim, I mean all my friends and family. They're all slim and they all work at it. They enjoy their food and will always have desserts and whatever else is going, and they talk about gaining a few lbs and then work to lose it. I just feel like some lazy slob who can't put in the effort to do what everyone else does.
I don't drink and I don't eat too much sweet food so it's down to my snacking (I wish I didn't because I don't need to) and portion size.

Of course.

But while being a healthy weight is a good idea, whatever weight you are does not reflect on you as a person, and thinking it does will make it harder not easier to loose weight. I’d look up body neutrality and do some following.

… It’s also perhaps because you have an emotional relationship with food they don’t? This makes it a lot harder to manage your weight. And if this does ring a bell, then you need to tackle your emotions first.

What @MonkeyPuddle said is so true👍 Very well said.

I put two stone on over Lockdown. Struggling to lose it but made a slow start. Needed to pop to the shop yesterday and even though I'm comfortable wearing shorts (ones that still fit!) I had to wear a hoodie... Its was roasting outside but I just couldn't bear to not be covered up. I feel you OP. It's an awful feeling.

Fwiw, i don't like green tea but I can force it down, I've noticed that helps alot to boost metabolism (I'm going to start that this weekend, had forgot all about it until now!) I usually add dilute juice to it to make it more bearable. Also Thermopure, berry ketones and other energy boosting fitness things (not sure if there's any medical conditions that may be effected so check first if you're interested.) I've used these in the past and they definitely give me an energy boost and helps with the metabolism too.

I've found having a smartwatch/fitness tracker(?!) helps. It logs how many steps you do and I can usually get 10,000 in in about two hours while out with the dogs. It really makes me push myself when I'm ready to turn back. Also, MyFitnessApp helped me notice when I was being a secret eater. I'd totally forget about those two biscuits but having everything logged on there made me more aware of what I was eating.

Life is too short to feel shit about ourselves ❤️ and I think this has been the motivation I needed so thanks so much for posting, I really hope you find a renewed motivation to be who you want to be, we've got this 💪

Thank you @PassThePringles. I hope you achieve your goal. I'm always motivated to lose weight and be a better a version of me. I feel like I want that so much but then end up giving up very quickly as if I don't really want it. But I know that I do so why can't I stick with anything
I'm envious when I hear of friends and family say they get up early and do a workout or they went for a bike ride and I would love to say this is what I do, but I don't do it.
I go out walking and can reach 10k steps a few times a week but not always.
It's true that I have an emotional relationship with food but I turn to food for every emotion, happy, sad, bored or frustrated, Ill celebrate or commiserate with some food.

Hello "calorie counting starts tomorrow" is a nice chat thread I'm on. Some nice supportive chat just gently calorie counting and slowly chipping away at weight loss.
I think it's such an actual ball ache to be in the diet zone all the time that we just can't face it.
I've found setting a long game goal of a stone by December and just being happy to have lost 6lb in 4 months is fine.
I try for 1200 most days but there are many I don't achieve that.

Losing weight goes against thousands and thousands of years iof human evolution. Its nothing to do with lack of willpower and everything to do with a complex series of survival mechanisms that kick in when we restrict.our food intake.

That's not to say it's impossible, as such, but it certainly isn't a moral failing to be overweight or struggle to lose weight.

I'm bigger than I'd like to be, and hover over the overweight/obese category depending on the day. But I exercise regularly, I'm strong, I'm healthy (very rarely get ill), have good relationships and am good at my job. In other words, I'm a whole person, and I don't deserve to be reduced to a number.

Neither do you.

I’m the same tbh.

My weight is a big issue. I’ve put on four stone since the first lockdown and now (I did have two kids within 11 months but still!).

I’m on a great thread called ‘binge eating accountability thread’ if you’re a snacker or you tend to binge eat a lot. There’s a lot of self recognition and support on there. I often feel like ‘I’m going to eat better tomorrow’ and just never do. I’m an emotional eater and I can’t even stop myself. It’s horrible.

Take it one day at a time and try not to put too much pressure on yourself!

I have just had a cancer scare, thankfully everything is ok, but after years of neglecting my health it has given me the motivation to do something about it. I am size 16-18 and absolutely loathe being fat, it's the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing at night.
I have tried a million diets and failed, but I am now focusing on eating a healthy diet packed with whole foods and exercising... something I hardly do.

The good this here OP is that you are aware of what the issue is - the amount of food you eat and snacking. So throw out all the snacks in your house. Write yourself a note to stick on your purse in case you want to buy any while you are out. Only healthy snacks allowed, fruit, etc. Then get some smaller plates, and a set of kitchen scales and weigh out a healthy portion. and stick to it. Get an exercise buddy and you can egg each other on. You can do this!

Hi @HauntingScream , I hear you and I am similar. I am a binger and go nuts where I see cheese, chocolate and crisps.

Unfortunately I house sit a lot and just go wild with their food and then have to replace the lot. I’d hate to think I might’ve been on camera stuffing my face but maybe seeing that would help me. I am actually scared at the lack of control I have. It’s awful and summer just compounds that feeling.

One positive (for me) is that it is the best contraceptive ever. Men have no interest in me whatsoever and for that I am grateful as I don’t like them near me tbh.

And @MonkeyPuddle , your post is lovely and what I personally need to hear as well.

The only time I have ever successfully lost weight is when I didn't hate myself. In all other cases it's been a cycle of punishment and binges.

For me, accepting my body and my weight and being ok with it was the key to start losing weight. It's slow for me (but I was firmly in the morbidly obese category) but my goal is always to end the year lighter than I started it, and so far i've always achieved that.

Accept yourself, accept that your weight and your appearance is the least interesting thing about you and break the cycle of hatred, hard dieting, failure, binging, and self loathing.

I’ve had a terrible relationship with my body and food most of my life, lots of yo yo dieting and gaining and losing weight rapidly. Recently, things have improved and my weight seems to have stabilised and that’s because I read several books that really helped me. They made me realise the root cause of these issues (encouragement from family
members/society to diet from a very young age, being shamed for eating ‘bad’ foods etc).
It has taken years and is very much an ongoing process but I’m gradually learning that I must be kind to myself and recognise when that inner critic is taking over.
these are the books that helped me:

1. overcoming binge eating by Dr. Christopher Fairburn


2. Intuitive Eating: a revolutionary anti-diet approach by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Rosch


3. No bad parts by Richard Schwartz

These books may or may not help you but I’m sure there are others out there which may resonate better. I also had some counselling which helped me recognise the root causes of the issues I had.
This is not about food or willpower or any of the other lies that the diet industry shoves down our throats. It’s about understanding ourselves and learning to like/respect/love ourselves.
Please go easy on yourself x

I tried to lose weight for years, now looking back it was always a half-hearted attempt and I spent a lot of that time trying to "cheat" the insert diet of choice system to maximise the crap I could eat.

I had coaching last year to sort my thinking about food, lost about 3 stone. Hovered at that for a while and gained a bit back this year, through mindless eating and giving myself too much leeway.

I have just finished 10 week Bodyslims online which really works on the mental health side of weight loss, as well as physical. I am down another 20 lbs, so about 4 stone in total from early last year. The next wave of Bodyslims starts in Sept, so hoping to use that to get rid of the final 2 stone.

I am not affiliated with them in any way, but genuinely it has change my attitude towards eating and my inner voice about berating myself for being "bad". I'd really recommend looking it up.

I think I will always need a bit of outside help and motivation, which I am willing to pay for as needed.

I was 20/22 in Jan last year and a 12/14 now

Literally the smallest I have been in 20 years, and never hungry.

This is a lovely post.

Obesity is not simple, much as people want to pretend it is. It's a complex mix of biology, conditioning and environment. Once you start gaining weight it's hard to reverse. You might like to read Why we Eat too Much which is recommended on here.

I have obesity in my family and adhd. I forget to eat then eat lots of junk food because I need the calories fast. I eat when I'm sad or stressed. I have a fussy family so it's hard to make a healthy meal for all of us - in fact my husband's fussy eating pretty much destroyed my love of cooking. So, we eat lots of ready made stuff.

All of these factors contribute to my obesity but I've spent the last year being much kinder to myself. And, ironically, I've lost some weight as a result.

As I am getting older I care less about what others think of me but I do care more about my health. Health feels like a bigger motivator but it is still hard when food is all you think about (as I did for years).

What has really worked for me is to focus less on the food and more on the habits I have around food. I used to graze all day long and could quite happily forego a meal in favour of constant snacking. This was one thing I really wanted to change as I used to go to bed full to bursting point on a regular basis. Over the past 2 years I have gradually changed my habits to 3 meals per day with a smaller snack in front of the TV (not prepared to give that one up at the moment).

It has not made me lose weight per se but I don't feel like food rules my life anymore and I no longer feel scared of hunger. Once I got these habits down, I started calorie counting and am now losing weight slowly. I eat 1800 calories or so per day so it's slow but I am keen for the portion sizes to become habits so that I don't go on and off diets forever more (done that for 30+ years). I'm losing 2-3lbs per month and that's enough for me and I don't feel in any way deprived as I am using habits to my advantage.

It does mean bigger meals at mealtimes, especially in the beginning to avoid being too hungry between meals but overtime as my body adapted it was easy to reduce portions to adjust to a calorie intake.

It has changed my life - sounds silly but I used to be a slave to food and panic if I didn't have a snack or two in my handback in case I got hungry. Now I don't even think about food in-between meals. It just goes to show the power habits have on our actions.