My clouded vision....

In my Weight Watchers meeting, the other day, we were asked to think about making vision boards.  Basically, what we envisioned the future to look like, hitting our goals.  So, naturally, being against writing down goals, I skipped the next meeting so that I wouldn't have to build a vision board.  I probably shouldn't have skipped the meeting, but, I was at a loss.

I'm not sure what I want to happen.  I'm not sure I can envision hitting my weight loss goal.  I can't foresee what I will look like (really - that much different than today?).  I've been thinking about this, and letting it play in my mind.  Some of the things that I've come up with are:

1. Less tummy rolls when I sit.  I can wear a fitted shirt, but I see the rolls in pictures, in store windows.  I feel the uncomfortableness when I sit and have to pull the waist of my jeans up and over my rolls, at least so some of them can be hidden.  I see the belly in the jeans when I look down when I'm reading.  If I make it to my weight loss goals, will that be gone?  Or just smaller?

2. I overeat.  A lot.  Especially when I'm at home all week, with a small child that is not sleeping at night and is going through Tylenol/Advil withdrawal.  When things are happening beyond my control.  When the food is just nearby.  When I sit on the couch to read.  My body says it's full, but my mind sees this as a challenge.  How much can we eat?  So, if I hit my weight loss goals, does this mean that I will have learned how to stop over eating?  Will I stop craving chips?  Will I stop thinking about food as much as men think about sex?

3.  Then, there are the after effects of eating too much.  If I hit my weight loss goal, and I overeat, will I still feel the shame of overeating?  Will I ever get over the shame I feel for the way I eat?  Or the shame I feel for the way I look?  I'm not perfect, why do I feel like I have to look perfect?  Why do I look on my daughter with shame, like the way that she looks is a reflection of my poor parenting?  Do other mother's feel the same shame?  When your kids ask you to eat pretzels, or popcorn, ice cream, doughnuts, do you immediately tell them no?  Do you emphasize that these are treats and shouldn't be eaten all the time?  Do you let yourself have treats - without shame?

4. I hear people talking about how you won't be happy when your skinny, if you're not happy now.  Weight loss won't make you happy.  But, will it make me more confident?  I've lost 80 lbs, and I feel no more confident now than I did before.  If anything, I feel less confident.  Maybe because I'm closer to my goal now, so that when I see that I'm not there yet (store windows, mirrors, pictures), it's more of a blow to my self-image than it was before I got to where I am now.  Will I just find something else to obsess about?  Gray hairs? Wrinkles? 

I guess I'm still working through what I would put in my vision board. It looks like I have some questions to answer.  Maybe in finding these answers, I can find my vision.