I was gonna hop on this thread last night, but instead played Pokemon (Fuck you Pokemon thread) and now it feels like I'm late to the party. I'll give it a try anyway.
For most of my life I've been overweight, somewhere between the ages of 5-7 it started, this continued until I was 18 in 2006 which was also when I was at my heaviest at 114kg ( 250 pounds?). Around the end of '06 I decided I'd had had enough and wanted a change, so I changed my eating habits and started some minimal exercise with working out 20 mins a day, skip forward a year I'd lost 50kg (110 pounds), now weighing 64kg ( 140 pounds). That was end of last year and I've managed to gain a few kg so I'm currently between 66kg-67kg, which isn't too bad compared to what I have been in the past, right now I'm going to the gym for an hour four times a week trying to keep my weight down. Something I've come to realize is that no matter how much I weigh and change my body shape I'm pretty much never going to be happy with my body/self image since the main problem is that I have really low self esteem and I find it hard to feel good about myself, no matter how much I look good.
What others have said about it being easier having someone who loves you no matter what is completely true. During the year I lost all my weight I had, and still have, an amazing girlfriend who said she found me attractive either way, which really does help a fuck load. Before her I had the total of two girls tell me I was attractive and even then I didn't believe them just because I was that down on myself. Having someone telling you constantly how good you look lessens my crazy, but I doubt I'll ever be 100% pleased with myself.
As a kid I was bullied, and then add the low self esteem, I've become pretty socially retarded. I've always had friends and I find it really easy to make them too. The friends I have now are pretty much the greatest guys who I've known for a long time, but the thing with me is that I tend to distance myself from people, for some reason. I really hate this aspect of myself since I do it all the time.
Apperance wise I think I'm doing pretty well for myself. Since I was overweight for most of my teenage years I had long hair, to try and detract from my fatness. My hair's curly and when it gets long it goes from curly to fuckshit insane frizzy and goes out rather than down, so I looked like a right twat. It was only November last year that I had my first haircut in 5 years. Infact I had a haircut today and got it really short, I think I look rather good. Also, I have a beard. Which I attribute to my dad having a beard, Sam Beam having a beard, a number of fantasy characters having beards and a good way of hiding a fat face. Now I just like having it because I think it makes me look 10x better than I would without it. I got it trimmed today too, so it's not as long and scraggly looking. All in all, right now I look and feel good. I'm having one of my good days.