How I lost 100 pounds admitting I don't like being overweight and don't feel HAES: before and after weight loss

 Hi friends, I know I promised another installment on how I lost 100 pounds figuring out what's eating me and rethinking comfort food. But as I was choosing before and after photos for the article, I realized that a big source of comfort, beyond was staring me in the face. Marking progress toward overcoming obesity and getting to a healthy weight, is essential for our March to Weight Loss challenge, and also, healing low self esteem, anxiety, depression and shame. 

Here's a collection of before weight loss photos when I was way overweight.

These pictures date to around 2008-2010, when I was spiraling into obesity. 

As uncomfortable as it is, I need to look at these before and after photos, to see my weight loss progress. But also to notice how awkward and unhappy I looked. I was smiling outwardly but inwardly I was miserable. 

What really shocked me was how much I looked like a step family member with morbid obesity whom I wasn't even related to. The resemblance was commented on by people who didn't know we were not related. I'm not going to lie, that made me kind of sick. That family member passed at 64, of morbid obesity. HAES says we're supposed to feel beautiful and healthy at every size but I certainly did not. And she certainly wasn't healthy at every size.
 

Should I dislike how I look overweight? Isn't that just Alanon stinkin thinkin? I don't think so. HAES can promote beautiful obesity all they want but that isn't going to make me feel it. Did I hate myself before weight loss? Well, to be fair, I've always had low self esteem at normal weight in childhood, overweight before puberty, normal weight in teen years, underweight in college and then normal weight even after six pregnancies. Getting overweight and then morbidly obese didn't help. I felt shame but also anger for letting myself get so big. I did NOT feel Healthy at Every Size. 

Part of how I lost 100 pounds, without gastric bypass, was put that anger to work at calorie restricting on a 1200 calorie diet. After weight loss, even though I never hit my goal weight of 124 pounds, I felt so much stronger and happier and more beautiful. I know that goes against PC thinking that says we should like ourselves whatever we weight. I didn't. And I can't lie, pretend I did or fake feelings I don't have. 

So yes, of the before and after photos, I prefer the after weight loss. And marking progress with before and after photos was, and still is, a large motivator to how I lost 100 pounds. 

Thanks for reading my friends! If you want to lose weight, why not join me in this month's March to Weight Loss challenge? 

#howIlost100pounds