You tell 'em, Flo!

Happiness is not defined by weight. It is defined by your circumstances. I have been thin and unhappy and I have been fat and unhappy. I have been thin and happy and fat and happy. My health problems started before the weight gain that was caused by their treatment. I took on my dad's philosophy after my heart attack this year. Shit happens - roll with it!

Take it from someone who lost a huge amount of weight as a teenager and then gained it back in my mid-20s (after a suicide attempt)...losing weight will not solve all your problems.

Yes, you weight may be a huge source of your unhappiness, but, in all likelihood, those feelings will still be there when you're thin. I know that when I was I still felt like a fat person inside. I still felt guilty about eating. I was that girl who could not eat around other people unless they were as well...even if I was hungry because I figured everyone would judge me for being hungry when they weren't, couldn't order fries or dessert on a date because I thought the guy would think I was a pig, couldn't order dessert in any sort of group unless everyone else did.

Changing an unhealthy relationship with food and with your own body takes more than just losing weight, and failing to address the deeper issues can actually put you at risk of gaining the weight back...it's what happened to me.

Happiness like all emotions is in the hands of the beholder. I mean I want to be far happier than "most people" but I will use that descriptive anyway. Most people fluctuate - and can feel relatively better some days and relatively worse on others. So in that sense fat people can certainly be happy. Soooo I lost my first 5 pounds after spending probably two years with an extra 12 pounds - and it felt great. Easier to tie shoes, feeling thin lying on my back in bed as I notice my stomach is flat etc.. etc..
But staying happy from any one condition is not going to work unless I change my thinking and focus on the positive things I appreciate. Can this be done fat? Sure. Can it be done if you got in a car accident and lost your legs? hmmm I suppose. But our bodies and how we feel inside them is a big part of how we feel and makes access to positive thoughts easier.

Well, I associate health with happiness, and weight low with health, so yeah, there's a correlation.

And it also makes me happy to look good, and to be able to do physical activities like hiking and skiing, and to be able to keep up with everyone else when hiking.

I wasn't miserable being overweight. But I was constantly aware of the limitations it put on me for activity, and for looking good, and now, in middle age, the health implications were worrying,.

So I am much happier on the way down.

Yes is the simple answer.
But there is always a But.

I would say that most of my life from 15 onward has been that of someone suffering from body dysmorphia. I have been fat, I have been thin, I have healthy, I have been unhealthy, I've been an alcoholic, I've been bulimic. But there was only a brief period of my life when I was not actively changing my body.

When I got to maintenance wait here I took my eye of the ball and started to think about other things, I was training a lot and obsessing over competitions, I used this as an excuse to not think about diet or weight. Yes I did not drift to far, but I drifted.

I don't associate being "not overweight" as being happy. But it plays a part when you do get others commenting, positively.

I am now unlikely to be happy and overweight, but that is only me, and is not true for all.

Hit the nail on the head there, teaser.

And got me wrapped up in watching a couple of interviews with the soft-spoken Mr. Nelson.

We only have each day. Some days, no matter how we look or feel physically, will be good days, if we let them. Some, again, no matter how we look or feel physically, will be bad days.

Life isn't meant to be one long party. But if we, as the saying goes, expect sun but carry an umbrella, we can live a good life, after all.

I wouldn't exactly say I'd ever taken pride in my weight the way I was, but I was still certainly capable of being happy for other various reasons, in spite of being fat.

I will say however that it's a lot easier for me to achieve a resting emotional state of general contentment, having lost what I now have.

While I am not exactly happy with my body image... I don't obsess on it.

I am a very happy person with a wonderful husband, children and grand children.
I have a decent job and can afford to eat and live comfortably.

BC, that's what matters, isn't it? There has been trauma in my life, and exactly none of it has been due to my long term weight issues. I didn't love being overweight, or obese. But neither of them were the boss of my happiness, because I didn't let them be.

The people we love are what matters. And if we don't have anyone we love, we need to go out and find them. It's not necessary that they be family, but we can make them be family, by how we treat them.

That, I think, is the crux of true happiness, no matter what we look or even feel like: getting out of our own way enough to put someone else's needs ahead of ours.

NOT someone else's desires. I have had acquaintance with too many people who are more than happy to let you believe that their whims should be my command. But the NEEDS of others, for safety, care, food and shelter, when we can allow ourselves to make them the most important, we forget that we aren't wearing the size clothes that we wish we were.

Mickisue Thanks for that!

I believe so strongly in happiness that I will allow nothing to ruin it for me. Myself or another. i got no time for that ship!!!!

WOW! Very well said Mickisue!!!

I think people can be as happy as their situation and mindset will allow. I've known many people who lost weight, or modified their bodies in some way, and they found that they still weren't happy. If we have to rely on the external to determine the level of happiness we're allowed to feel, then it will be difficult to feel happy for long.

Quality of life and quality of that happiness, on the other hand, is a bit different. We can only be so happy if we can't do what our bodies were made to do.. Move and express ourselves physically and dynamically in this world.

I'm obese, I've almost always been obese, but I've come to realize these things to be true and that's why I am changing. At my lowest weight, I was 160 around 16-17 years old. I worked my butt off, joined weight watchers.. and then at 160lbs my father accused me of being on drugs despite all the work he saw me put into losing.. I had no family support.. yadda yadda.. gained the weight back. I can blame everyone else until the cows come home, but the reality is that I let other people get in the way of my success, my self-image, my self confidence. (and the diet wasn't sustainable, but you know what I mean.)

This has always been an issue for me- letting other people psych me out. But I see that now, I've come to terms with it, and I know how to avoid it now.

I say all of that to say this: weight loss is a long, complicated, humbling journey of self-discovery for some of us and it takes 100% self-honesty to make it. and that requirement alone is enough to deter people from embarking on it. So people try to be as happy as they can in their current state, and a lot of those folks won't ever see the better happiness that lies beyond their comfort zone. Like the Chinese story of the Frog in the Well.. people don't know what they don't know, they have to find out for themselves.

Some of us? I'd venture to say ALL of us.

Best wishes for the new you!