Do you have a bad body image? I 've always fought weight and even when I was relatively thin (only 10-15 lbs overweight) I would think that I was too fat. If I could have enjoyed it a bit more and looked at the glass 3/4 full instead of 1/4 empty!! Well now it's a different story after BOB (birth of baby) I went from stocky to flabby kind of fat. This is something new and I don't like it one bit. I finally got up the nerve to look at myself in the mirror. I look like one of those primative fertility idols. My head looks like a normal woman stuck on some kind of out-of-whack body. Not a pretty picture. I knew it was bad, but not that bad. Geez makes me darn glad to wear clothes! At least a bra can help lift those massive puppies up into some semblance of shape. Does anyone else suffer this? I know losing weight will help but gee, I'm afraid my shape is gone forever.


a pretty depressed fleadog ( I should have never looked in the mirror!)

Yep, I have one too. I am fighting it, but it still creeps up on me.
In our WOL we need to fight all kinds of battles in order to become heathier, and for you and I (and others) this is one of the hurdles we must cross. We are beautiful people, each and every one of us!

I've also found that I am much more critical of myself than others are - but that is normal isn't it?

People come in all shapes and sizes, if we were all the same it would be immeasurably boring!

Who ever said massive puppies were a bad thing

Women are REALLY self conscious about this. If you went on match.com you would really be surprised at the amount of attention you would receive. Attractive women come in all shapes and sizes.............just like real men want them

I was feeling pretty bad about myself a few months ago, and my fiancee made the following statement to me:

"No real man would choose to have a hot dog when he could have a big, juicy steak."

I don't think I've ever loved him so much.

It's now a running joke--and every time I start comparing myself to some skinny little chick, I just think of her as a "hot dog".

I hear ya on the body image after childbirth. I couldn't believe what I saw in the mirror after the birth of baby #1. I was completely and utterly horrified! I was overweight before...but after childbirth I was distorted!

Good news. My sister is over 40 ... she's had 2 kids. She shot up in weight with both. Lost the weight. And I saw her last week in a bikini at the pool and her body is HOT. No more flab, no more distorted, jumbled mess. I couldn't believe it. She looked better than a lot of the younger women there.

Here's the bad news. I've never seen ANYONE...not even an ATHLETE, work out harder and with more intensity than she does!!! She wakes up at 4:30 in the morning. You read it right...4:30! She works out for about an hour and a half! And she works HARD! She does the stair master at about the highest level you can go. She sweats and sweats too. She then goes running for cool down. She hasn't had any surgery. But...she doesn't look distorted or fat anymore either!

I guess the bottom line is...with hard work...it CAN be done!

Hope that helps. She's very inspiring to me...but I doubt I'll get up at 4:30 and work that hard.

I think it is important to focus more on the positive in us, than the negative. I have been doing visualisation the last couple of days, and it has helped. Even with my grueling exercise ( which may not be grueling to some). I am attempting to hike up hill. One day I will be fit enough to get to the top of that mountain. Today while I was waiting for my d/h and dog ( they go much further up than I) I sat on a rock and pictured myself, how I want to look, climbing to the top with a picinic basket, and a wine to toast that I had finally made it.

When I dwell on what is in front of me in the mirror, it is harmful to my ego. And that, I believe is self-defeating. We must think about how we will look in order to succeed

just my 2 cents.

Dito Anita! Dito!