315lbs to 215; BMI 55.3 to 38.1. Still a decent way to go but I honestly can’t believe I’ve come this far. Sometimes the body dysmorphia is really hard and I’ve spent a lot of today feeling very weepy, but looking at these photos side by side is staggering.
I’m not morbidly obese any more!!!!!! It’s taken over three years and some bloody hard work but I’m finally here. I’ve gone from 22st 7lbs/315lbs/143kg (BMI 55) to 16st 1lb/225lbs/102kg (BMI 39.9). I still have about 55lbs to go, but today I don’t care.
I’m so grateful to the community on this sub for helping to keep me motivated and, more importantly, free of shame. I’m a short woman and most conversations about weight loss if you’re under 5’4 are something in the region of “I’ve crept up to 140lbs, the heaviest I’ve ever been. How can I get back to 115?” Those women deserve help too but I’m so happy I found somewhere that gets how difficult it is to set out and stay on this journey.
I think I’ve experienced every emotion possible on this journey- I’ve been frustrated by how slow I’ve been, dealt with brain-breaking body dysmorphia, and convinced myself that there was no point in trying. Losing a life-changing amount of weight only to still be REALLY fat is hard- I know that’s something everyone in this sub has experienced or will experience. Today though I’m just trying to celebrate myself and remember the poor tired woman who decided to overcome her depression and self-hatred to put her health first. I can’t believe how different my life is now. In case you’re interested/are on a similar path to me, I’ve been compiling a list of NSVs/life improvements:
I HAVE REGULAR PERIODS AGAIN
I have a recognisable menstrual cycle and experience distinct follicular and luteal phases
I CAN WALK WITHOUT PAIN FOR HOURS! I AM NO LONGER PHYSICALLY DISABLED BY MY WEIGHT!
I no longer experience chronic lower back pain
I no longer panic at the thought of walking, especially with other people
I can fly without a seatbelt extender
I can sit in a plane seat, bus seat, car seat, cinema/theatre seat without being in constant discomfort
I don’t panic at the sight of chairs with arms
I don’t panic at the sight of stairs
I find joy in exercise, not fear
I don’t hate my body anymore
I don’t hate myself anymore
Thank you again to everybody who makes this sub such a great community.
I’m getting married in three months and plan to change my surname legally while keeping my unmarried name as a professional alias. I have several reasons for doing so but chief among them is that my unmarried name is unusual compared to my fiancé’s surname; I am most certainly the only person in my field with my name, but this wouldn’t be the case if I used my married name professionally.
Now that we’re getting close to the wedding I decided to contact my department’s HR rep to let her know of my plans and ask for advice on how to go about changing my name legally but keeping my unmarried name on teams, outlook etc. She informed me that this is not possible and that if you change your name legally, you MUST change it EVERYWHERE in our internal systems. There is no way to have a professional alias separate to your legal surname (though a different first name is allowed).
This is a change that’s happened since the company I work for was acquired by a large American corporation; looking back, I noticed that after we switched to their HR system, lots of names of women I work with changed overnight (when we were an independent company, our systems allowed for preferred surnames). It turns out this issue affects many people at the company I work for, primarily women- I know of five personally, including myself AND the HR representative I spoke to! She also told me that our HR team have tried escalating this issue to the owning company’s corporate teams and it’s gone nowhere.
This feels to me to be fundamentally wrong. It’s important to me to keep this aspect of my identity after I get married and it feels invasive to have my ability to name myself as I wish to taken away. I’m intending to seek legal advice on this but in the meantime, is this really something they can do? TIA.
EDIT: Please stop trying to dissuade me from changing my name! I appreciate where you’re coming from but I’ve made up my mind and I WANT to change my name when I get married. Our names sound terrible double-barrelled too. I probably didn’t make it clear enough in the post but I really do want to change my name for lots of reasons ranging from legal to sentimental. I ALSO want to retain a link to the surname I’ve grown up with and get the benefit of an unusual surname for work. It turns out that in the UK I am perfectly entitled to use both as and when I want to.
EDIT 2: This seems to be an IT/software issue rather than a policy; if so, it may be an issue for the entire mega-corp that owns the company I work for and not something I can fix, but I need to find out more.