I know this is common with ADHD and non-ADHD. I am refering to men being self conscious about their bodies as well as women. I am no professional, so bear with me.

I look at pictures of people that I want to look like. I have a little weight gain due to medication and it drives me crazy. I am not that big, but I feel that I am. I do not have an eating disorder... I just look at myself and sigh. I am going to try a gym out in the fall. I just wonder if I am succumbing to a media that broadcasts "beautiful people" and not people who are real. On the other hand, I want to look more fit. It's kind of a Catch 22. Darned if I do... darned if I don't.

I'm the same; I like to be lean and muscular, and I get self-concious whenever I'm not living up to my own image ideals. I've been in a slump for months now and have lost a lot of muscle mass from not going to the gym, and it's quite depressing, which further aggravates it. I don't like people to see me when I'm not in peak conditon, so I become less confident and go out less. I'm trying to get back into a routine of exercising, but it's hard re-starting it once it's been broken.

I feel like my body never looks the way I want it to. It's an issue with me. I don't want to go back to an X-large shirt. Then I fall into the trap all over again. By joining a gym I might give up smoking too.

My body's fairly easy to work with; I put on muscle quickly and tend to be quite lean, but I go through long periods where I feel completely crap and can't keep up with exercising and looking after myself, so my bodyweight goes up and down like a yo-yo. I get skinny during my off periods, rather than overweight, since I'll often only eat a couple of times a day when I'm feeling like that.

The thing with physical appearances is that it is entirely a human made concept. It changes with the times, and is never a constant state. What one person in one part of the world thinks is beautiful is not what someone else thinks. You will never get a true consensus on what is physically attractive. There will always be *one* person who doesn't agree.

I don't really put energy into something that flucates so much. How can I? And as a woman, do I really want the kind of attention that comes with physical appearance? If several guys think I'm gorgeous, what exactly is it that they find attractive? My butt? My legs? And how is this unique to me and me alone? I could have the best set of legs out there. But someone else had amazing legs before me, and someone will have the same set of leg after me.

And do you really have to look any further than popular media? Mick Jagger probably wouldn't get a second glance if he were to drive a bus. But stick him in front of a mike, sing a few songs and shake that butt... and, ooOOOOh baby! :) You've got a hottie on your hands!

I use physical attractiveness to compensate for my unattractive behaviour and lowly social status. :P

I have had the same challenges but yet have had exercise as a part of my life since I was young.

It's all about a decision.

The decision is what you can realistically do with your body.

For me, it was to get back to "factory settings" which is for most, how you looked when you were 18-20 years old.

I'm not sure how long this will last but I can tell you for sure that as a 44 year man, I am very close to factory settings.

I made this decision last November when after a physical I found out that my numbers were alarmingly bad after a few years of slacking off and eating the wrong stuff and it was time to do something about it.

I did this by doing things that I enjoy such as racquetball, running which I do frequently, weight lifting (this one is difficult to be consistant with) and riding my bike.

A key element for me is a very strict alkaline diet which has worked wonders for me.

I also use an elliptical during bad weather.

Anyway, I feel great and have no regrets for any of the effort that was made.
It was well worth it to me.

One thing that is tough to deal with is when people that I know make comments, some good, some bad.

They say things such as, I need to get back in shape, eat right, and so forth and so on, while all the time they haven't done anything but gain 3-5 lbs every year for many years and before you know it, you are 40-80 lbs overweight and my friend, call it what you will but that is obesity and every day that you look in the mirror you know that your body was not meant to be in this condition.

Again, IT IS A DECiSION.

However you decide to live is how you will live...

I don't worry about it. I used to want to be lean and muscular and look like an A&F model, but now I'm more realistic and I'm happy to be in the skin that I am in. I have a slight 'beer gut' but I'm not overweight or obese or anything. Sure, I'd like to lose a few pounds here and there, to be healthier but I'm not depressed over it or anything.

I don't worry about it. I used to want to be lean and muscular and look like an A&F model, but now I'm more realistic and I'm happy to be in the skin that I am in. I have a slight 'beer gut' but I'm not overweight or obese or anything. Sure, I'd like to lose a few pounds here and there, to be healthier but I'm not depressed over it or anything.
I'm not so much as depressed as confused. Why do I care so much about my appearance? I never played sports, so I am unsure how to use excersise programs. I could really hurt myself. This is why I am going to try and get a personal trainer... at least, until I am sure I can do it myself. I would force myself into a lot of pain if I did it myself. I know myself too well. That or I'd get bored and stop, which has happened before. I stopped going to the gym. I am too poor to get the equipment myself. The reason I am confused is because... I don't want to become a super model. I think this will help with my training. I will know when I hae reached my peak. At least I hope so. I don't want to get obsessed like some people do. I want lean muscle mass... not bulky.

It's all a personal decision. For me exercise and diet have been a part of my life for such a long time that I can't imagine going without it.

Start with one thing that you enjoy doing and build from there. Cycling might be a good place to start as it does not put heavy demands on your body but still increases circulation and oxygen intake.

My problem is the opposite. It is hard for me to put on weight & significant muscle mass. I am 5'6" / 30 Years old, and just around 130LBS. As recently as May I weighed around 115LBS and was always 'too careful' about what I ate.

I am also speding a ****load of money on food (high volume but 'clean eating', supplements, creatine, protein shakes, & a personal trainer because in the beginning my form 'sucked'.

Now I lift 3 times a week, take an intense boxing & kickboxing class the other 2, and do intense cardio & abs the other 2 days.

I do some good gains & I am putting on 1 -2 pounds a week. My pants are still very loose even in a size 28 waist.

The older I get, the less I care about appearance, not that I am an eyesore to look at, but I get tired (especially of the woman you see on TV, elsewhere) that all go through a lot self-sacrifice (including anorexia) to maek themselves beautiful. They, and the other people that go so out of their way to be attractive, generally are also shallow, self-absorbed, and difficult to know. I think that if one takes reasonable care of themselves and makes the effort to also show interest and regard for fellow human beings, that is more than half the battle. It's just the bad vices like smoking, or chemical addiction which may be the inhibitors.

I am impressed with everyone that has posted - you all know who you are and you know that you don't have to go to the artificial lengths to attract someone who maybe beautiful on the outside, but very artificial on the inside.:)

WOW! Honestly who cares what other people think about how you look. What are your goals, what do you want to accomplish?

The biggist thing people set themselves up for is failure when starting to work out. That is, they never fully understand their goals so therefore they do not reach them.

I set out on a goal to be a solid 200lbs from 170lbs. I started on a bulking diet through forums like www.davedraper.com and www.johnstonefitness.com and researched ALOT. I kept my diet simple, not alot of chemical substitutions, like protein powder, mass gain mixtures, creatine etc. Eggs, eggs, and more eggs, then chicken, and tuna.

The key, and it's difficult with us, is that somewhere along the line we can get sidetracked, and I sure did. After working on bulking, I immediately got dissapointed and lost sight of my goal, then started messing with my set's, weight, etc and eventually got nowhere. The plan was working, I was just not patient enough to see it through. You have to be comfortable in your own skin, as someone on here put it, and workout for the right reasons, that works for you. Sure you can look like some dork from a abercrombie <= spelling, photo shoot, have the abs, no BF percentage etc, and be weak as all getout, or you can bulk, lift heavy, and have some functional power? Or cardio, for endurance, there's all sorts of training methods, and ways etc, best to keep it simple at first.

I started off with a set of 30lb free weights, that I could adjust the weight for different exercises. John Basedow's workout was pretty much where my wife and I started off at, then when your foundation is built and ready, you can move up to heavier lifts, if that's your cup of tea. For me, being able to lift more than what I weight was a huge goal for me and I was so pumped when I did it.

Also, your workout doesn't have to be a 1 or 2 hour regemine. Keep it simple, the best workout is a short and focused one, no pun intended. Shawn Phillips has a great program out there, nutros.com I believe, which can help tailor your diet to your specific goals.

I've been at this for around 8 years or so now. I've been off from working out on a regular basis now for the past 4 months now with my life getting more and more hectic/chaotic etc, one thing's for sure, is after your done working out, the feeling is so rewarding!

Just my measly 2 cents :)

I've never felt dissapointed with my results from working out; I put on muscle easily and gain cardiovascular fitness very rapidly from just a few 45 minute sessions a week, but I'm very cyclical, so I have periods lasting for months at a time when I feel terrible, can't focus, don't have any energy and can't keep up with things in general, whether it's working out or working in the monetary sense, and it's when I'm in one of those periods and seeing both my physical gains and my efforts in work draining away that I feel a sense of loss and frustration and become self-concious, as much about my own failure to maintain mental stability as about my physical losses.

I started running again a few nights ago, and now that I've cleared out the accumulated mucus in my lungs from months of being sedentary, my fitness is only a little short of what it used to be. Maybe now that I'm on meds I'll be able to keep going, and won't have everything fall apart again in 6 months or so, like it usually does.

I'll weigh in here 210 LOL, I had so many surgeries over the past 25 years and the pain medication caused me to gain weight which seems very hard to drop. I eat less and less and still can't get rid of it. So as long as my wife still cares for me I'm ok with it but would really like to get up the ambition to start working out again but it seems each time I start something else goes haywire and back for another surgery.

Damn ADHD and my poor reading/comprehension skills :rolleyes:

Ok, I re-read your post. I think I know what you were trying to convey. Text is an awful medium to convey emotion anyways but I think I got it.

What you said, "I look at pictures of people that I want to look like." and "I am not that big, but I feel that I am. " Sounds to me you have a outlook that isn't favorable about yourself.

Realize that those people you "want" to look like, do NOT look like that all the time. It takes a tremeandous amount of time/energy to look like that, and furthermore, it IS NOT HEALTHY! Some fat is good :)

To me it sounds like your comparing yourself to someone else in a totally different situation. Do you have cart blanche with your finances so you can just work out all day? Drink fancy mineral water and lay by a pool? Your a real person, who lives in the REAL WORLD!

If there's little changes you'd like to make, take it one step at a time. To me it sounds like your putting un-necessary pressure on yourself to look like all the other numbers out there that the media hypes up.

No wonder why women have so many eating/weight issues. My mother-in-law, got my wife a subscription to Self magazine. Ever read or thumb through it? When it comes in the mail now, it goes in the trash. Every other ad is about beauty, and how you can look better, loose weight etc. Nothing new, just a magazine to make you feel like utter **** after reading it.

Do yourself a favor, distance yourself from the norm of people thinking they're not pretty enough, accept yourself for who you are, and make a plan to go forward from there to drop a few lbs etc if you want.

I'll weigh in here 210 LOL, I had so many surgeries over the past 25 years and the pain medication caused me to gain weight which seems very hard to drop. I eat less and less and still can't get rid of it. So as long as my wife still cares for me I'm ok with it but would really like to get up the ambition to start working out again but it seems each time I start something else goes haywire and back for another surgery.
Dave,

I wish you a speedy recovery!

Are you able to walk or even perhaps ride a bike at this point?

Perhaps just start with one thing that doesn't cause pain but gets the heart rate up a bit.

I am up on my feet all day working in the shop and by the time the evening rolls around I'm beat. I've been thinking of getting back to the gym on the bike which I can do ok this tread just may be the push I need. What really kills me is to see the weight come back after I spend months to lose it. With ADHD I tend to eat on impulse when I get down. I need stimulation and allot of it to keep me from inwardly focusing on myself and preconceived notions that I'm not able to achieve more or hold what I have although I know I can the thoughts are still there and biting at my heals constantly. I guess you can say that is my demon. I can see now why I have so many talents and made a life for myself as a craftman, artist, antigue refinisher, hunter and father.

OK, I am new here, so pardon if I step all over this thread.

It is fairly well known that ADD/ADHD can usually coexist with other orders in adults and a lot of times it coexists with depression. Common symptoms of depression is low self esteem and a poor view of yourself in general. We know that there is something wrong with our personalities with the ADD/ADHD, so maybe we are carrying that over to our perception of our body. I don't know.

On the subject of excercise, I am all for it. I have been working out at a gym since April and have lost 30 pounds and added muscle. Besides the weight loss (or gain, depending on your goal), physical excersice can have significant effects on other parts of your body. It has been linked to helping in dealing with depression. It isn't a cure for it by any means, but it does help. I know I feel a lot better about my self and my body after a good hard workout even if i feel crappy about it before my workout.

Some hints that I have found to stay active in the gym.
* get on a gym plan that you have to go a certain amount of times a month. My plan is that my insurance will pay for my membership, but I have to go 12 times a month or I have to pay for it. That is a pretty good motivator

* get a partner to go with you. my wife goes with me now and it is a lot easier to get there.

* when bringing music, remember that you are adhd and don't just bring one type of music. I find that I need a huge range of tunes cause my taste is always changing. I usually put a little of everything from folk music to pink floyd, from queen to mozart. The best thing I did was to find a podcast that I find interesting and download the shows that I think i will like. It really kills a lot of the monotony of the cardio equipment. I find that it is the only time i am able to listen to these shows and I actually look forward to the time now.

These are just a few suggestions, even though they work for me, I don't know if they will work for you. Good luck