Being FAT is a symptom of emotional problems NOT the cause?

[StrugglingDemonFighter]

I have for years blamed my lack of self esteem/confidence/financial/career success on the fact that I 'let' myself get fat because I am greedy and lazy.

It has recently dawned on me that the reason I am fat is BECAUSE of my lack of self esteem/confidence and until I engage with/battle that I will not get anywhere.

I firmly believe that most if not all people are in the same boat as me. They may blame it on genes/medication whatever but the genetic thing is probably explained by growing up in a household where low self esteem is the norm and the medication thing is down to feeling that that there is something wrong with you BECAUSE you have to take medication. Of course, medication could probably make you put on a small amount of weight due to hormonal/metabolism changes but not to the degree that some very overweight people that put it down to.

Basically you must hate yourself to some degree to put up with feeling like shit/ugly/heavy/sweaty and until you accept it and work on bringing the emotions causing this to the surface, no diet in the world will help you and you will not get anywhere.

So next time, you see a very overweight person and think, 'how could they let themselves get like that' bear that in mind.

All you fellow fatties out there stop hating yourself and work out why you do.

AIBU?

There will never be one answer to individuals bodyshapes or weight etc. Each case is unique.

I've lost 4stone since January, 2 more to go (c'mon HURRY UP) and the cause of my being overweight was lack of self esteem and general unhappiness. Nothing major snapped or happend to change my mind, I just had enough of being a lardy lard arse all my life so joined WW.

Having shifted that weight, I am physically happy (still go that pesky 2 stone) but mentally? Well, seems I have a few more barriers and hurdles jump, amazing how it takes ones mind a longer time to adjust than that of the body!

When I was fatter - 14 and a half stone, 5ft 3 - being fat honestly didn't stop me doing anything. I still played sports, went swimming, went out dancing. I think the only way it would have affected me is if I had wanted to go out and "get off with" someone. But I am married so not an issue.

I post about this so often, am trying not to keep on about it. A couple of months ago, I had my first proper test - a party full of thin, image-obsessed egomaniacs. Firmly resolved not to squeeze myself into something ill-fitting or to make myself vulnerable to the judgeypants, I tried out a whole new look. I wore a very bright tent smock, made my hair very big and wore big jewellery.

People kept raving about how great I looked :)

Better still, I honestly didn't care what they thought

Mission accomplished, I think.

And tbh I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone who didn't like someone because they are fat.

@garlicbutter.... I don't require you to strive to do anything. The very idea :) But as the OP, in common with many others, seemed to be unhappy about their excess weight my suggestion is that rather than waiting for the therapy to take effect and their self-esteem to ramp up before doing something about the weight.... do both together.

I love healthy food (I'm eating a big bowl of home made butternut squash soup as I write this) and I don't really like junk except for CAKE ... though I do actually prefer whole food type cakes...I just eat too much of it all. I am fat. DH says "There's plenty of time to be thin when you're dead!" I also truly believe we aren't all MEANT to be the same size or shape and I would definitely have to give up eating all together to be as slim as some people I know.

People get fat for all sorts of reasons. Until I was put on long term steroid I was always slim. Now I am fat and find it very hard to lose weight whilst on this medication.

I have to put up with people judging me on a daily basis, assuming I am 'lazy' 'stuff my face' and so on.

The knock on effect it that I have low self esteem because I hate the way I look.

We're not all meant to be the same size and shape but we're definitely not meant to be fat.

I think you are right Thingiebob - people do judge, regularly and often. It isn't right, it isn't fair...but it is also not going to change. It takes a really strong character (which I clearly lack) to think "that's their problem, they can get over it" and to be impregnable to their disapproval

I am pleased that some of the posters on this thread are immune to societal pressure to conform though - good for them, I admire that

Hmm. A funny thing happened when I went travelling. I was in my mid-thirties, was unhappy and carrying an extra 3 or 4 stone. At first, I was self-conscious about being on the beach. All the locals looked so toned, fit & confident. After a while, I realised the 'beautiful' people weren't any more beautiful than average, they were simply more confident.

I worked on that. I started exercising outdoors like they did, reminding myself that no-one actually cared whether my tummy flopped around. I took a few dance lessons to learn how to 'open out'. I got confident.

The extra weight dropped off. I wasn't eating less or doing more, at least not knowingly. I was, quite simply, more physically confident. In that respect, the OP's theory did work for me. If you look at how much I eat & drink now, and how little I do (I've got CFS), I should be flowing off the sides of my chair. But I'm not - see, my body's self-regulation works properly. "Watching" your shape can do a lot of damage imo. Given the chance (and barring medical factors), it sorts itself out.

no hmc i genuinely do not let my weight effect my life. i go out, have fun, i travel, i wear good clothes, good jewellery and good perfume. i meet new people, i am chatty, i am bold one could almost say, i date regularly, good looking men (though that is subjective obviously, and not so much since i started see dp .)
its a state of mind if you see yourself as fat, unattractive, boring and dull, because of your weight then others will too. thats a fact. if over weight people choose to live like that and i do mean choose because it is a choice, that is up to them but i am not going to wait until i am a size 12 till my life beings so it can pass me by.
and no i have found no prejudice against me for my size but i suppose i would have to ask you what you meant by prejudice?

I think it's a vicious circle. I feel like shit so I eat. Oh no, now I'm fat and I feel even more like shit, so I eat.

When you comfort eat, you are self-medicating, almost instinctively. You don't feel well because you are stressed, upset, so your body tells you being well fed will make you stronger and more able to cope. Which it does, up to a point, but overdone it makes you feel worse. Just my three penn'orth.

I'm currently pissed off because I have largely stopped eating biscuits at work - I allow them on one day, and thought I had been otherwise controlling portion sizes, and generally stopped stuffing my face. For three weeks I lost nothing, next two weeks I lost a pound a week, then last week I put two back on! I know I need to drink less and move more but I didn't think I'd been drinking any more than usual and I went for a run/walk on Sunday. Gah.

I'm now counting calories on a phone app as I think only a more prescriptive method like this works for me now, but I find it so bloody hard to stick to. I seem (I hope) to have broken the link between emotion and eating though over the last six weeks which is important, but I want to see some results. Time was, I used to just eat less for a week or so if I wanted to lose a couple of pounds but that doesn't seem to work any more.

Fat can be a symptom of low self esteem, low self confidence etc.
I am fat because I eat too much, exercise too little, have no real sense of portion control, not a strong enough desire to change but a fairly robust ability to eat all my wife's biscuits (who is a very healthy weight).
My self esteem is however grand.

This thread makes me think of 'Mean Girls' - "I don't hate you coz you're fat, you're fat because I hate you!"

But no seriously, I imagine there are many people who are fat because they have low self esteen, many people who have low self esteem because they are fat and many people whose weight is unrelated to their self esteem.

No one size fits all explanation

No one size fits all explanation
I like your joke there, manic :)

haha, that was totally unintentional!!

People (including myself) get fat because they eat more calories than they burn. End of. Don't blame it on anything else. I am fat because I love food and don't do enough exercise to compensate.