Self esteem

[Fogged Up]

I have self esteem problems that stem from me being overweight (I am only about 15-20 pounds overweight but it is enough to destroy my confidence). I am so self conscious about myself that I hate leaving the house or doing anything where people might see me and judge my appearance.

I also have had comments made by people about how "goofy" I look and that combined with my insecurities are really causing me problems. I've basically become a complete headcase, and it's stopped me from functioning at all in real life. It seems like whenever I start feeling self-confident, someone makes a negative comment about me (either about how I look or my personality - usually about how I'm quiet or shy) that just totally deflates me.

I feel like I can't get any respect in this world unless I am completely fit and suave about everything. I think it's because at one point I WAS like that. It felt really good. Then I broke my leg and had to have surgery and gained all the weight. I haven't been the same since. I'm working on losing the weight, but I don't want to keep putting my life on hold until it's all gone. It's stopped me from having friendships and I'm missing out on a lot of cool things. Do you guys have any suggestions on what I should do?

 

[StockTrader]

It's not about the comments per se that people say to you, its how you interpret them. Some would call Ross Jeffries "goofy" looking, I've seen him in person. He's not a GQ model. Yet he's getting laid.

15-20 pounds, that's very little in the grand scheme of things. My advice:

Find others who are a little overweight and keep their success in mind every single day. Remind yourself that looks aren't as important as most AFC's would have you believe.

People are 15-20 pounds underweight and still having success.

Focus on your successes in life, no matter how small. Whether talking to a girl online, or doing anything productive. Your life is a direct reflection on whatever you focus on.

 

[MysteryWoman]

Join a gym, get a stylish hair cut and dress trendy. You confidence will increase dramatically, and girls will start to take notice of you. This will improve your game. Don't dwell on it, take action.

 

[Anson]

I know what you're going through, man! I used to be seriously over-weight, and after losing it people suddenly started to be my friends lol... and often these shallow *******s are the same people who claim that "looks don't matter". And it really does put your confidence down - you feel that you miss sooo much good stuff because of your overweight. And unfortunately, you DO. At least I did.

But I found an interresting thing when I started living a so-called healthy lifestyle. I was seriously overweight, and unhappy with everything - but after I started excercising in the gym, running, meeting more with friends (suddenly they started to want to meet me) and eating better food (i.e. less hamburgers, french fries and pizzas, and more salad and potatoes (boiled, NOT fried potatoes) and stuff), I became... well, happier, to put it in one word. And slowly I also dropped more than 30 pounds of weight. But it took me 6 months to drop that.

Here is an interresting thing about weight-dropping that I have noticed (and I know a lot of weight-droppers who agree with me): If you put your weight down really quick by having a super-effective-mega-eat-lettus-only-diet, your weight will go down in 2 weeks - and you will gain it all back in one week! That will put you in a vicious circle which might make you even more unhappy than before. The thing is to simply start living a healthy lifestyle and let your weight drop completely. Now I know how hard it is to change your ways of living, but if you succeed, it's worth it.

The problem of "super-diets" is that after the diet, you return to your normal bad habits - and the diet ends up being useless. You need to change your ways of living completely if you want to become permanently "healthy". That includes, among others, a lot of excercising. I prefer running myself, you can chooce a form of sports that you like that will get you sweaty. And you might not like it at first - when I was overweight I didn't like running at all - but you can learn to like it. Now I love running.

And remember also that losing weight alone won't raise your confidence to the roof. It will not make you a super-DJ. But it is a start on your long journey, and I strongly recommend you take this advice and start working on living healthier. Now I'm not saying that you should stop eating pizzas and stuff COMPLETELY (I know that it can be hard ) but try limiting rubbish-food eating to one or two times a month at most. Same goes for sweets and chips.

Good luck to you!

EDIT: Also notice that mysterywoman gives good advice too: try wearing something new, something you haven't really worn before but something that is still cool and trendy. And get a cool hair cut or dye your hair or something, that will make you feel... well, fresh in a funny way. And if you decide to go to a gym, make sure that it isn't the only form of excercise you do. I found that gym alone didn't really drop my weight much (altough it propably did turn some of my fat into muscle). But combined with running, for example, you'll get a killer body out of that mass of fat

 

[netman]

Fogged up, keep your head up. I went through the same thing, and Anson just gave some great advice. I stopped going out almost altogether when I ballooned. I know I'm good looking and I used to always get looks, phone numbers, etc, everytime I'd go out before I gained the weight, but after I gained the weight I saw less looks, less dates, etc. And what's so funny, is that with the excessive weight and all, in January I hooked up with a major hottie who is now my g/f, which proves that there's still hope even if you are overweight. I even have a post about her: http://www.sosuave.com/vBulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32038).

Anyhow, we have a great relatiionship, but I still didn't feel good about myself, and my insecurities were getting the best of me (and still are sometimes but I'm working on it), so I bought a treadmill, changed the way I ate (like Anson said, it's best to change your total eating habits as opposed to relying on a fast weight loss diet), started lifting weights again, and in 2 months I already lost about 25 pounds and I feel and look GREAT javascript:smilie('')
big grin. I'm getting the looks from women I used to get, and more and more girls flirt with me here and there. I know for sure that if I was single, I would be having tons of fun on the dating scene flaunting my DJ skills thanks to this site, but I'm in a LTR with a hottie that treats me like a king, so I almost feel lilke I'm caught up with my life.

Sit down and write down a plan of action. Join a gym, changes the way you eat, do something!!! But write down your plan and stick to it. Trust me, you'll be a better person for it. Good luck!!!

 

[Fogged Up]

Hey guys, thanks a TON for your replies. They've given me a lot of motivation to stick to my guns on the weight loss program and succeed!