This is my first proper post... Its related to both eating disorder and social relationships so I will post in both. I am a 23 year old girl travelling through Sth America at the moment and had hoped to lose weight (from the food poisoning) and change in diet, but am instead sitting in Buenos Aires, as obsessed about my weight as ever.

Other people around me eat so much dulce de leche, bread, deserts and empanadas, and I am restricting myself so much in comparison but still feel myself putting on so much weight. Even straight after I eat something I literally think I can feel a small layer of fat gathering.

Its not fair. And I´m starting to hate my body. So many of the people around me are skinny and beautiful, and although i get a lot of attention on the street (I have blonde hair and a ¨pretty face¨) I always say to them silently- ´you wouldn´t whistle if you knew what my tummy looks like, my thighs, my arms etc).´

I am getting psychologically sick. I am travelling alone (which has been awesome mostly) but am struggling with social inferiority complexes (cleverly disguised as calm silence) and, for a huge part of the time, total awareness of my body. I cant always control my diet but I always choose the healthiest available option (I am usually on Weight Watchers back home and try to estimate point values). Wine is, admittedly, being consumed a lot more here than back home.

I can never seem to maintain a certain emotional state (I can be completely calm, friendly, in control and then have no idea how to maintain an actual conversation. feel agitated, or get paranoid that the other person doesn´t like me). Ahhhhhhhh does anyone else feel like this?

Honey, I weigh 180 lbs, and I'm truely sexy....it's all how you carry yourself.
...I can sport a st. paulie girl outfit, or saloon girl type stuff, and make it look easy.
I will also have the last laugh when the famine strikes.

people outta eat.

...you'd be surprized at the amount of men who like curves.
girls that look like they're dying are'nt any more inviting.

there's a health factor...
......and you need to be comfortable in your own skin.

yeah, I could loose a few pounds....
......but, beauty comes from within.


I look better naked ....
......but, I have to be conservative.


http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b219/suzannex/me/Photo087.jpg

Lemmie tell ya why skinny chicks were ever popular
...I guess you know about the rubenesk period of the renaissance?

well, clothes designers, wanted to sell clothes.
.........and the men all oogled over the curvatious mannequins.

so they made the shapeless, strait lines with clothes on em.

Thanks Suzannex... I guess its really important to hear that, especially when I am seeing these stick women around me all the time. I guess I don´t feel curvy, but rather just pudgy sometimes-

Although you know sometimes I am totally, dedicatedly, almost obliviously OK with my body and then suddenly I will stop dead and say:

´what are you doing? Ur fat.'

Sometimes I hang out with guys on my trip (I had a boyfriend who was so encouraging about my body and not machoistic at all for 4 years) and they mention hot chicks, and nice asses and nice tits and I become uber aware of my own body. And on the one hand I´m angry that I have to see other women through men´s eyes and realise I am being analysed, but on the other I become withdrawn and depressed about my own short fallings.

Thanks for taking the time to write!

Honey, I weigh 180 lbs, and I'm truely sexy....it's all how you carry yourself.
...I can sport a st. paulie girl outfit, or saloon girl type stuff, and make it look easy.
I will also have the last laugh when the famine strikes.

people outta eat.

...you'd be surprized at the amount of men who like curves.
girls that look like they're dying are'nt any more inviting.

there's a health factor...
......and you need to be comfortable in your own skin.

yeah, I could loose a few pounds....
......but, beauty comes from within.


I look better naked ....
......but, I have to be conservative.


http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b219/suzannex/me/Photo087.jpg

Lemmie tell ya why skinny chicks were ever popular
...I guess you know about the rubenesk period of the renaissance?

well, clothes designers, wanted to sell clothes.
.........and the men all oogled over the curvatious mannequins.

so they made the shapeless, strait lines with clothes on em.
What she said...oh yes...what she said...look from the inside out..and you will see a radiant beautiful woman..embrace those curves.

work it girl...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4873mPdm1Ro

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b219/suzannex/MaeWest.jpg


mae west baybeee

see how they carry themselves?
......they could look self conscience too.

but, they don't.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b219/suzannex/marilyn-monroe-oversized-postcard.jpg


Marolyn Monroe (world icon for femininity, and beauty) - size 14

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b219/suzannex/Photo528.jpg


there's me again, I'm a ham. (no pun intended) .....that means attentionhore.



http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b219/suzannex/me/Photo408-1.jpg


censered! LOL!

.................feel better?

hopefully you at least forgot your problem a minute.
....try for another minute.

Honey, I weigh 180 lbs, and I'm truely sexy....it's all how you carry yourself.
...I can sport a st. paulie girl outfit, or saloon girl type stuff, and make it look easy.
I will also have the last laugh when the famine strikes.

people outta eat.

...you'd be surprized at the amount of men who like curves.
girls that look like they're dying are'nt any more inviting.

there's a health factor...
......and you need to be comfortable in your own skin.

yeah, I could loose a few pounds....
......but, beauty comes from within.


I look better naked ....
......but, I have to be conservative.


http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b219/suzannex/me/Photo087.jpg

Lemmie tell ya why skinny chicks were ever popular
...I guess you know about the rubenesk period of the renaissance?

well, clothes designers, wanted to sell clothes.
.........and the men all oogled over the curvatious mannequins.

so they made the shapeless, strait lines with clothes on em.

Suzzanne is right (and beautiful if I may add).

You sound a lot like my girlfriend Chimaera. She's struggled with an eating disorder for most of her life. She can't help but obsess over her body and it actually took over her life for years. She is now doing excellent and is very healthy, but no matter how often I tell her how beautiful she is she shakes her head and starts picking herself apart. She's 5'4 and 110lbs and still isn't comfortable.

My words of advice from helping my girlfriend deal with this. Don't let this get out of control. I know it is much easier said than done, but think of this as a dangerous addiction. You know if you take a hit of heroin you are going to fall into a terrible and consuming addiction. Issues with body image are almost always your own way of controlling things. Being able to control what you eat, and what you look like and then punishing yourself if you eat something you shouldn't or if you gain weight. I strongly advise that you talk to somebody about this. It will be so much easier to confront this problem now than to do it in 5 years.

Just a side note from a guys perspective here. Men really don't care about the shape of a woman's body. It's all in how you carry yourself - the key being confidence. Here is an interesting article:

While American women see super-thin stick models and feel unattractive and unhappy about their average or curvy bodies, men don't feel the same way. Fully 80 percent of men ages 18 to 50 say they want a voluptuous woman, according to former plus size model Nancy Hayssen, who has written a book every woman could love based on the title alone: "101 Sexy Secrets: How to Be Hot, Sexy & Beautiful at ANY Size!" Another 15 percent of men prefer a woman of average size, while just 5 percent opt for a super skinny lady.

http://webcenters.netscape.compuserve.com/love/package.jsp?name=fte/curvywomen/curvywomen

Take care of your self okay!!! :)

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b219/suzannex/marilyn-monroe-oversized-postcard.jpg


Marolyn Monroe (world icon for femininity, and beauty) - size 14Still a sex symbol 46 years after her death. :eek: :cool:

she was phat.

Where I hang out when I'm not at ADDF. (http://www.hipsandcurves.com/) :D

You shouldn't do that to the guy flagging a fuschia hanky in the left pocket.

I'm not 'splainin or linkin', you guys know how to use teh google.

http://www.hipsandcurves.com/plus-size-lingerie/costumes/Southern-Belle/X7251.htm

i could rock that

http://www.hipsandcurves.com/plus-size-lingerie/costumes/Southern-Belle/X7251.htm

i could rock thatSo could Grafter. ;)

That one's not in the closet yet, I'm sad to say. Real sad actually.

That one's not in the closet yet, I'm sad to say. Real sad actually.Christmas is coming. :)

As much as this hurts me:

Moderator Note:

Out of respect for the OP I think now would be a good time to reacquaint ourselves with the topic of the thread, which appears to be what she can do about a negative physical & mental self-image.

I believe the point has been made that she could attempt to change her definition of what healthy and attractive is.

Hey Chimaera,
I am sorry that you are feeling the way you are feeling :-( Here is a big cyber hug for you ((((Chimaera))))

I know how you are feeling. I have felt that way ever since I was...hmmm 12-13. There hasn't been a day go by where I didn't think about my weight. I actually want to try to count someday how many times I think about my weight/body just to see how badly I am obsessed with it.

I am 31 (today by the way! OMG I am getting old!) and as I have gotten older I have gained more weight. I started gaining weight about 7 years ago, and it has steadily gone up since. Now I am not really that over weight, but enough now that I really, really hate it.

I have tried different diets etc. I never have the will power and I am sugar addict. I have problems with my blood sugar levels too...so I have to eat more then others sometimes because of it. (I now eat smaller meals throughout the day).

Recently I started to really focus on the mental side of it. I have realized for a long time that my problem is more about my psycholgical state in regards to weight then the weight itself. So often we say to oursevles "if I could only lose 10lbs (or whatever) I would be happy". We become so focused on the goal, we loose touch with the process.

I have been listening to an audio book by Geneen Roth called "Bite by Bite". In it she talks about a story from Jack Kornfield ( a Buddhist Teacher) where there is a picture of a family on camels in the desert and there is a caption of one of the children saying to the father "are we there yet?" and the father says "we are never going to be there we're nomads!" The story is important because it shows how focused we are on the goal...that we forget the journey. So one thing to do is to forget about the goal. Forget about what you want your weight to be and start looking at your relationship to food.

Also stop comparing yourself to others. When we do this we always look at the thin gorgeous girls and think it sucks that we don't look like them. If you are going to compare yourself to someone, maybe compare yourself to a person who is in a wheel chair, or who has a disease like cancer or something. It makes us realize what a gift our bodies really are.

I felt physically like garbage so much in my life. I have bad allergies and catch every cold that comes around. I get headaches, I am am tired a lot etc. I looked back at my old journals and saw how many times I was sick and how many times I wrote about hating my body. I thought..hmm maybe my body was sick so much because my subconscious was telling it how much I hated it. Maybe all that self-loathing made my body say "fine...F*#k you I am going to make you feel like you want me to feel".

I am still working on it all. My goal now is to eat what my body wants. Not what my mind wants. I want to give my body things to make it feel good. I am focusing on giving back to it, not hating it. I know it sounds corny...but it is what I need to do. And it seems to be working so far. I still have a long way to go (in my journey to not be obsessed and hating my body) but I am optimistic about the trip. I am focused on the journey not the end result.

Hope this helps...it's just my story and what I have been doing to overcome it all.
Hope you are feeling better!
Misfit

Wow, thank you so much for your reply.It is so psychological, it is undeniable. I am hating myself all the time. My biggest problem, I would have to say, is this sense of intellectual inferiority. Like it takes me twice as long to come up with answers, or I will beat myself up about why i can´t carry conversations for very long or why am i so inconsistent in my emotions. And then i think it spills in to my eating, or the eating blots it out for a while (am i taking that straight out of a compulsive overeating textbook?.

Tonight, for example, I just had the most beautiful meal (healthy and full of vegetables) and have just destroyed it all by eating a frozen yoghurt, 2 breakfast cereal bars and a light chocolate bar that i never really wanted in the first place (see, i trick myself in to it while I´m eating it with low calorie snacks but end up eating more). Not only this, but i just had an argument with a grumpy argentinian man who wanted to charge me for time on the internet when the computer didn´t work (i dont usually do this, I just smile prettily and plead gringo ignorance or pay up)!

Wow, thank you for your words. When will it end for us? I´m sorry i want to engage with what you said more but am having trouble thinking straight (i have days where i feel completely alone on this trip and out of control) and today is one of them... Hopefully somebody else has also read this `post and appreciated your words too.

I have cut back from 6 tablets a day one year ago, to only 1 tablet a day because i hated being dependent, but am really scared I´ve lost some intelligence along the way, or quick wittedness or common sense....

Thank you Misfit, i feel this way too...

While I agree that maintaining a good self-image and feeling comfortable in your skin no matter what you look like is very important, I also don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to improve yourself.

All of those people eating the fatty, sugary and nutritionally devoid foods and still staying skinny? They most likely aren't healthy either. I think that just about anybody could benefit from an improvement in his or her diet and getting out to exercise more. The numbers on the scale or how you may look in tight clothing are not what is important - it's how you feel physically, and how your body responds to its current state that you should be watching. If you're healthy - your BP is good, cholesterol is good, waist:hip ratio is good, body fat % is within normal ranges, then it doesn't matter. If you're not, well then you are right in thinking that you should try to fix it.

We only get one go-around on this sphere, after all. We gotta make it good while we're still here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is "don't obsess over it, but if you don't like it, change it!"

It sounds like you're overly concerned with what you eat and disregarding other areas of health & self improvement. If you're trying to control your weight strictly through what your eat (diet), you'll feel guilty about everything you eat.

I emphasize with you, used to be 205lbs, but then got myself on a diet (well.. just cut the junk food out of the picture, I was underage then, so alcohol consumption wans't a problem :s) and also went to the gym. Just going the gym makes me feel good, and then when I do slip up, and everybody does, I just tell myself that its okay to eat a giant cheese&beef burrito with 2 whole avacodos because I went to the gym!

You don't have to workout at a gym to use this defense, try to get a bit of exercise everyday (walking, jogging, crunches, etc...). You'll feel better about yourself in no time, lose weight, get toned, and can eat/metabolize more food!

So yea... don't get caught up on your weight, what you're eating, etc... just be healthy & exercise and you'll feel and look magical.

edit: just posting link to a tab i had open.
http://fantasyfeeder.com/cms/infusions/ff_photo_album/ff_photo_pic.php?content_id=20074&rowstart=1&gender=0
don't ask.

I got a question...
.....how much do you weigh?

I ask because I wonder if you're really that heavy, or if it's in your mind.

..I'm comfortable at 155.

my height, says I should weigh 120.

........at 135, I look like I've been in a concentration camp.
when i was a meth addict, 130 was as low as I ever went....and it did'nt suit me.

I'm used to my curves.
....my inner image does'nt match my outter image below 155....or over 165.

I need to loose 20 lbs.
but, I just try not to gain anymore weight, while I attempt to give a shyt.

Hey,
Suzannex I weigh about 79 kg (175 pounds) and am 175 cm tall. I am over my ideal weight (the top end of my recommended weight is 76 for my height) I think. I would like to be about 74. The lowest I have been is 68, which I never felt was very skinny until I look at photos and remember people´s comments. I have also cut back on my medication to 1 per day in the last year (from 6 or more for the last 10 years) and my weight has been creeping up... I am also trying to deal with this new, less medicated self.

So yes, i realise much of it is in my head, but I cannot deal with it alone. I am realising, away from my everyday life (being in South America), i need to see a psychologist. But now I am so far from home its too difficult- english speaking therapists in Argentina anyone?

I noticed we are dealing with two different types of measurements here - here (http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_common.htm) is a handy dandy device I have discovered that is wonderful when discussing units of measurements with some one who uses metric

From the post above me


Suzannex I weigh about 79 kg (175 pounds) and am 175 cm tall{5 foot 7inches (http://www.onlineconversion.com/length_common.htm)}. I am over my ideal weight (the top end of my recommended weight is 76 {167.5 pounds}for my height) I think. I would like to be about 74.{ 163.1 pounds} The lowest I have been is 68,{149.9 pounds } which I never felt was very skinny until I look at photos and remember people´s comments. I have also cut back on my medication to 1 per day in the last year (from 6 or more for the last 10 years) and my weight has been creeping up... I am also trying to deal with this new, less medicated self.



I got a question...
.....how much do you weigh?

I ask because I wonder if you're really that heavy, or if it's in your mind.

..I'm comfortable at 155.{70.3 kg}

my height, says I should weigh 120.{54.4kg}

........at 135,{61.2kg} I look like I've been in a concentration camp.
when i was a meth addict, 130 {58.9kg}was as low as I ever went....and it did'nt suit me.

I'm used to my curves.
....my inner image does'nt match my outter image below 155{70.3kg}....or over 165.{74.8kg}

I need to loose 20 lbs.{9.0kg}
but, I just try not to gain anymore weight, while I attempt to give a shyt.

Stuff in red conversions added by me

So yes, i realise much of it is in my head, but I cannot deal with it alone. I am realising, away from my everyday life (being in South America),


Could it be you are in a region where people are naturally small in sature???

I mean I am 5 foot 6 inches {167.6 cm} and I weight 125 {56.6 kg} I am considered small boned but when I am around a lot of people from Japan or Asia I feel like an amazon. I am the smallest person in my family generally speaking here in the US I am average sized but compared to people from some ethnic back grounds such as Japanese I am large - maybe that is the problem and why it has gotten worse sense you have been in south America -

Just a thought

Hey... too all the people that are concerned about there weight. you are watching too much TV! and too many naughty Mags! lol!

The media brain washes people into thinking that being all skin and bones is perfect..... well dont let them brain wash you into thinking that!!

Im really skinny and boney.... and I hate it! :eek:

I get the most severe hunger pains ever! And no matter what I do.... I dont put any meat on at all!

I would rather weigh 30stone over what I weigh at the moment. :)

Dont beat down on yourself! Everybody looks great in there own way!!!