I am now a normal BMI and have had a lot of success with my band. Wearing a size 4/6 and getting smaller by the day.

People keep telling me that I am thin enough and should not lose anymore weight but when I look in the mirror I still see fat areas.

Rationally, I know that I am no longer heavy and have changed my whole lifestyle dramatically. Exercising religiously for an hour a day by going to hot yoga 6-7 days a week. Often doubling up and later in the evening going for a 5K run. I track my calories and can count on two hands the amount of times that I have had a positive balance of calories in over out since I started this journey.

Very soon, I will have to start eating more and begin to maintain but I am struggling with that. I often think I am eating too much when I actually am not. My appetite is just not really there.

Anyways, I wondered if anyone else had ever had this problem. I know it is in my mind but don't know how to get past it. Maybe I am just really afraid of going back to where I started.

Suggestions from anyone who has been here would be much appreciated. Thanks.

I've really struggled with this to the point where I took myself off to counseling.

I unfortunately got rectal cancer some years father being banded and during treatment got extremely thin. Now ive always been a perfectionist and at 45 I expect nothing less than to look like a 20 year old. I was soooo thin and thought I looked great and I'd not take kindly to being urged to gain a bit my doctors. I was also using food and exercise as a control, running obsessively in the heat with an ileostomy, during chemo and just ten days after major surgery. It occupied my every thought and I was so miserable trying not to gain (my BMi was 18). Eventually as health returned I did gain and I was franic. That's when I knew I needed one help.

I've never shared how bad I was even with my hubby. I hid it well. As sick people do.

I still struggle. My BMi us 21 and I think I'm enormous. But I do know happiness diesnt lie down that road and I also got quite a fright over the health implications - my bone density and kidneys are somewhat damaged.

It really is better to learn to accept yourself in that healthy BMi 20 to 25 territory.

Now I actually count calores - to make sure I get 1800. And I have forced myself to run less and o strength training instead, hich just about makes me hyperventilate with anxiety. Running an hour a day is my security blanket.

Thank you for being so open and sharing that. I guess that I can feel myself going down that road as I get anxious and stressed when I cannot get the exercise in. I plan my schedule a month in advance to make sure I fit it in as I am a single mom with 2 kids and work full time it can be a juggling act. There is the odd time when something comes up with the kids and I just cannot get to class or run. Eating enough on those days really is hard mentally.

Maybe I need to go and talk to someone about it more in depth as my whole life I have struggled with my body image and how I have perceived myself physically.

I lost 100+ pounds about 15 years ago. I fell in love with running, and with a distance of 5 miles around our 'block' that is what I did everyday no matter what. Well, except when I was training for marthons. I was down to 117, and in tiny clothes. I stopped having my period, developed all kinds of health issues, allergies, and finally fractured my foot. I look back and see pictures of someone happy... but way too thin. When I had to stop running because of my foot the weight started back on. Fast forward to now. My lb doc told me his goal for me is 145! A far cry from 117, but when we talked we agreed on 135. I definately had an eating disorder back then and will have to guard against it as I get down there. You sound kind of like me. I think that if I had a more realistic goal I could have maintained it, but the only way I could have stayed at 117 was to run it off. While fun it was not good, or healthy. I remember thinking (honestly) that I would rather die than gain my weight back, seriously. Scary place. I think if I, or my family, see that happening to me again I will force myself to see someone who specialises in anorexia, because, honestly, that is where I was. I do know that even now I see my body (at times) as bigger now than it was almost 40 pounds heavier. We all are battling our own food/weight issues or we wouldn't be on this journey. Hopefully I've grown a little wiser with age. Maybe my story will provide you with some additional insight.

I went in for a fill on Friday.... My BMI is 25 and the Dr said I could be done. I said...WHAT? You told me 150 was my # ... I was hoping for 160 and I am 168 now. He said... I am not saying not to lose any more. You will do that if you just concentrate on keeping it off... and if you lose 1-2 lbs a month so be it.

I am so committed I went into a panic. I cannot relax until I meet my personal goal. But it made me I am in a 6/8 top and 10 bottom. I look amazing compared to 23 months ago. But I really want to hit this number for myself... He was just warning me not be obsessed and unrealistic. I am 52 years old. I have saggy skin and a few pockets of fat or skin or whatever it is several places on my body. I am not going to look like I am 20. I have to remember that. And since I was fat at 20... its a good thing.

The scary thing is that I learned a lesson about what maintaining an unrealistic weight is like - and its not happy, easy or healthy - I know that I am in a better place now but every single day I still think about dieting hard to get back there.

So instead of eating a sensible, weight maintenance diet - which need not be devoid of any pleasures - I follow a cycle of undereating and compensatory eating - I hesitate to say overeating because I am still pretty thin and not gaining and my band keeps overeating in check, but its a binge purge cycle in all other characteristics.

Recently I've been sooooooooo good at eating sanely and enough every day and my mood levels out remarkably when I do.

I dont want to frighten people that an eating disorder lies at the end of every weight loss journey - in some sense, I ahve always been a disordered eater (I think most of us are) but it took really life changing illness and the loss of control that cancer brings upon you to push me over the brink into that anorexic type behaviour. It wont happen to everyone.