As I get close to goal, 6 pounds, I am finding myself being hypercritical of my poor old body. 98 pounds ago, I'd have just been happy to be below 200, then at 190, I would have just been happy to be in the 80s. Now I am close I am being hypercritical of each and every flaw.

My head knows I will never be perfect. I am not striving for perfection, but I don't want to be like this. This beautiful body has gone through a lot to get here and I am hoping that when I get to goal and perhaps have a TT, that I will be happy enough to let it go.

Am I alone here?

Are you self-hypercritical? (and is that a word?)

Plastic surgery is rarely a solution to body image problems.

Perhaps you might benefit from seeing someone you can talk to about this?

HA! I was thinking about this today. I woke up from sleeping on my side. You know how when you lay on your back and your boobs end up under your armpits? Well, for me when I lay on my side my gut looks like someone poured pancake batter on the bed from stomach skin. If I am laying on my left side my right hip bone is sticking out. My gut is poured onto the bed. It's freakish. It's all skin. Quite sexy too, if I do say so myself! HA!

There is a huge mirror facing the shower. As I get out of the shower I actually cover my eyes so I don't catch my reflection in the mirror.

OMG plastic surgery cannot get here fast enough!

Chickie, I am not talking about fixing all my flaws with PS, I'll be happy wtih a TT.

I am talking about picking just not being satisfied enough with where I am weight wise more than anything.

There is a pocket of fat here and another pocket there. I guess there is a wide gap between the top of the BMI and the bottom BMI. I'll get to my top and then have a look from there.

Wasa, word on the skin.

Still, I am 1000% happy with where I am today.

What can I say. I read your post, shrugged my shoulders and though "You ain't gonna be any happier with the other bits after a TT than you are now"

I was just trying to be helpful. If you *do* indeed have body image issues, a good solution is going to be therapy.

Plastic surgery is rarely a solution to body image problems.

Perhaps you might benefit from seeing someone you can talk to about this?

I agree 100%, Infact I believe PS WON'T fix any head issues over a persons body image. But I believe just as strongly that the band didn't "fix" the head issues that contributed to my getting severly obese either.

What the band did for me was make it possible for me to work on my head issues more successfully than I ever had in the past. That has also been my opinion of Plastic Surgery. NOT that it will fix my head issues, but that it will help in some small way make it easier for me to find my own inner strength to overcome those negative inner voices.

I admire those women (and men) who don't hear (or heed) the voices, I just am not one of them. And yes, 6-1/2 weeks out from PS the voices are still here but they are only whispering in comparison to the shouting I heard before. It reminds me of a commercial I see on TV here in the US for the band with a woman comparing her hunger pre-band to the roar of a lion and that post band to the Yeowl of a large tabby cat.

Paulux, you are not alone. I look in the mirror at 220 down from 320 and still feel fat. I really want to lose another 35 lbs but it is tough. Plastic surgery will be calling my name for sure. Good luck.

I am so interested in this topic. I don't have any dreams of grandeur about how I will look 100 lbs from today. I am 44, and have been overweight the majority of my life. I was thinking I would like to have a TT and boob-lift. Even then, I know I will not be smoking hot or probably even someone who looks okay in a bathing suit. I know I will want the skin removed because I don't want flappy skin when I am trying to play tennis or go bike riding.

There is one element of the self-image thing I know about myself. I am a woman and I can pick almost anything apart. I scrutinize everything (mostly mentally) so closely about everyone, but especially myself. I know I am difficult to live with because of this, but I think a lot of women are acutely aware of not only how they look but also how everyone else looks, does, acts, says, etc........ My poor daughter and husband...

Anyway, a 55 year old woman I work with got a boob job just because she wanted to feel better about herself. She went to her friends doctor, and said, you did my friends boobs and they are pretty, I want you to do that to me. He said, I can only make them bigger, I can't guarantee that I can make them pretty because they look the way they look... I guess the morale of the story is, in our instance, our bodies will be smaller but not necessarily pretty because they look like they look... Thankfully we are all beautiful within and that will outshine our flappy skin and/or saggy boobs...

I also think that some of what I am experiencing is that I am almost at goal. I have focused hard on losing this weight , essentially it has been my 'job' this past year. Perhaps I am wondering 'what next?'

I am not plannig a list of plastic surgeries. Just a TT. I am just starting to feel what I felt as a teacher in the summer time. What now? When you work so hard, then your done, .......then what.....

Perhaps I will become a gym rat, or learn to run, or take a painting class, or, or, or....

I don't think I will find maintenance difficult, so I guess, I need to put my energies into something else.

I also think that some of what I am experiencing is that I am almost at goal. I have focused hard on losing this weight , essentially it has been my 'job' this past year. Perhaps I am wondering 'what next?'

I am not plannig a list of plastic surgeries. Just a TT. I am just starting to feel what I felt as a teacher in the summer time. What now? When you work so hard, then your done, .......then what.....

Perhaps I will become a gym rat, or learn to run, or take a painting class, or, or, or....

I don't think I will find maintenance difficult, so I guess, I need to put my energies into something else.

I was very careful to not put my whole being into losing weight. And even then. It's kinda like a mountain top experence. You get to the top, look around and say to yourself "Now what?"

Now what? I have to get on with my life. I have to make my life the best it can be. Find new challenges, make new friends, discover things about yourself you never knew... It's all out there. I found what I was looking for. I was, and am very lucky in that regard...

Life is waiting for you, you just have to find your direction.

I really waver on this because in many ways I think about PS - at 40 - what is the point?

For example, I have been to see someone about a breast lift, I may indeed go ahead with it. I'd like to, and it would make me feel good. But one of my main concerns is that the tops of my breasts have awful stretchmarks, from puberty. Now that my skin is aging, when I put a bra on and it pushes them up, that skin just puddles in the most disgusting manner. I can bare my chest, but I have to choose a full coverage bra, no demi cup or push up hides the stretchies, the right bikini top does. The surgeon said to me the only way to even partially fix it was with an implant, to fill out the skin. I already have D bordering on DD breasts, I dont want an implant and I'm 40. We all know that implants require replacement a few times in your lifetime, what am I going to do at 60, get another new set of big bouncy plastic tits? I dont think so, they'll have to come out and then I'll have boobs 100 times worse than if I'd just left them alone. Sometimes plastic surgery can create more problems than it solves.

A tummy tuck is not quite the same of course, and i could probably have one of those too, I'd have an awesome stomach if I did as I dont have much excess skin there now. But meh, my thighs are like cottage cheese - courtesy of aging and genetics, and there is NOTHING that can be done about cellulite at this time, even lipo doesnt fix it and will probably leave behind even looser skin. So...... how important is that perfect stomach when my thighs are not in great shape and will ONLY get worse at a faster and faster rate as I get older?

To me, I look great clothed, I dont look any worse than anyone else in a bathing suit and although I have my fantasies about $25,000 worth of PS and looking perfect, I really do believe in learning to live with yourself as you are.

That said, I dont have an apron or any really obvious *problem*, I'm talking about taking an OK body and trying to make it perfect, not about fixing really serious skin problems left by weight loss. For me, that would be a no brainer, but when you've not got that one obvious problem, its kind of like once you start, where do you stop?

I'm really not even sure about the boobs, same thing. Who really cares? Can anyone tell they're saggy anyway? They're still going to drop regardless, is it worth it?

Usually when I read these types of topics, my feelings line up exactly with those before me. This time, I find myself coming out a bit different.

I think PS helps IMMENSELY with body image. Now maybe this is because I lost 200+ lbs and am 35 years old. The improvement I got from my TT and BL was so dramatic that I felt like a new person. Now I'll never be a bikini model, but I will wear a bikini. Haha. What I mean is, as long as your expectations are reasonable, it is very possible that your body image will dramatically improve with PS. Mine did and continues to (25 days to my last PS -- woohoo!)

That said, I do identify with those before me who stress that (1) head issues are best addressed in therapy (I've gone weekly during this journey and consider it as important as the band to my recovery), and (2) my body will never be "perfect" not only because I used to be 350+ but because I'm a woman and we just never see ourselves that way.

I totally agree with JulieNYC! I am 34 years old and although I am at goal and I am thinner than I have ever been in my life, I didn't feel that good about my body. I was certainly happy to be thinner than ever, but I am still so young for all of my skin to be sagging. I want to look my age! I had a brachioplasty first. A year later I had a lower body lift and a breast augmentation with a lift. I know that I am still the same person, but when I look at myself in the mirror I feel so good! I still have things I don't like. I would like to have a thigh lift someday and then I will be done with plastic surgery, but I still love my body! I never thought it was possible for me to look like this. It does make me a bit sad, that I couldn't love myself this much when I was fat, but I am so thankful for my whole transformation! I think that it is also somewhat healthy that I can atleast recognize that I should love my body no matter what it looks like. I am not oblivious to that. I do think that there are people who will never be happy andthey will always be looking for another plastic surgery. Yes, those people have problems! However, I think plastic surgery can be a great tool to help you with your transformation and if it makes you feel better about yourself then great! I think it helped me with my self confidence. I never thought I would go to the gym and feel that good about myself when I watched myself in the mirrors!

I think so too, the only reason I'm dubious for myself is that I suspect that I'm actually as happy with my body now as I could possibly be but that I'm really really really fearful of aging, I know its going to start to happen faster as I get older and I think that when I think of PS I'm really thinking of a way not to get old. Does that make sense? Like I dont need it now to make me feel better about what I am, but that I dont want to get ANY older and that it may buy me a few extra years - I dont think that's so healthy a reason for having it.

Because the only thing worse than looking really old would be trying to NOT look old and just looking like some idiot geriatric Barbie doll with plastic lips, plastic tits, no facial expressions, lol.

If I were 28, I would DEFINITELY be lining up at the surgeon's office for a bit of fine tuning. I think I'm grounded enough to be doing it for the right reasons, I just dont know that its particularly important at my age when I'm pretty happy and comfortable with myself anyway and that everything really IS going to head south anyway. I cant look great naked for ever, nobody can, and I think for me, PS woudlnt change the way I look clothed much at all.

i know how you feel. at almost 250, i thought if I was just under 200 I would be happy. If I was a size 14 i'd never complain again.

Now i'm a 12 and under 200, and i nit pick on every area of my body! my tummy does this, my stupid thighs look like this. I feel just as big as i did at my highest!

Knowing myself, at 150, it will not be enough, i'll be mad about something on my body and obsess about it. currently it's my stomach. After a TT (someday), i know it will be my butt and thighs. My friend is scared for me that I'll become obsessed. Little does she know that I already am! I just got done trying on everything in my closet, to see if it got any bigger on me an how the stomach looked ect.

I'm bad.

i don't know how to fix this problem of not being happy with my body other than getting it to look a certain way.

I try to keep in mind that my goal is not a means to an end. Its the start of another goal. Like chickie put so well. I will find another aspect of myself to better. Set new goals, and achieve them as well. Maybe they won't even be fat related.

Im am now several pounds under my orginal total weight goal. Seriously I never thought Id be this thin. So I want to go further. Pushed the goal back

Even though I havent beeen this thin since 6th grade, I still look in the mirror and think ugh..look how fat you are. Im not fat..I need to lose like 3 lbs before my BMI says Im healthy. but i see myself in the mirro ugh. I too worry if I will ever be able to love my body, or if all the years of self loathing has bcomes a habit. I look at myself in the mirror and tell myself, :egh, not bad for what you are working with!" Im a size 10... I worry I might need to go see a shrink for help with this..I dont want to obsess with being skinny either. I want to get down to a size I am comfortable with that is healthy and live my life, without being attached to a scale!..why does that seem too much to ask?!