Just what is the Challenge?

I got to thinking about this Summer Shape Up Challenge and felt lost as to how to approach it.  Just what is the challenge?  It couldn't be as simple as just looking better in a bathing suit by Labor Day.  That just doesn't motivate me, it's too ambiguous and it's not really a challenge.  I know that if I take each day and eat correctly and exercise and avoid treats that as the days and weeks and months pass I will continue to loose weight. As the banner reads this is a "foolproof" way to loose weight.

My challenge it appears is coming in the form of a the psychological changes that need to occur with loosing weight. 

A chubby child, I was being told to diet the first time when I was taking ballet classes at the age of 9 or 10.  Interestingly the diet was pretty much what we eat now on SBD.  I was a size 14 throughout HS, then a 16 in college, 18 when I was married and then up to 20 and 22 until recently.  I have always been  a large woman.

I have always used weight as an insulation between me and the world around me. Especially in my relationships with men.  Fat allowed me to be asexual, approachable, one of the guys, by being frumpy and big and funny and no competition to anyone's wife or girlfriend. 

All that protection is coming off now -- and you can see from my pictures, I am not looking frumpy anymore -- but now I am getting noticed as a woman.  An entirely new experience for me really.  Almost makes me want to run back to being big. 

So now I know what my Challenge is that I will face. this summer.  Getting to know me and accept myself as an in shape, height/weight proportional, attractive, sexy, female person and NOT allowing myself to sabotage myself back to the false safety of obesity.

Note;  I am less than 7 pounds from moving from the level of Obesity to the level of Overweight.  I've lost 33 pounds in the past 3+ months