Seriously, I hear so much about people who were skinny once, well...I cant remember being thin. Maybe as a child! And I dont remember what that was like, so.

Some things that scare me:
They say the longer you were fat, the worse your skin's health is. (I am COVERED in stretchmarks! Literally. Seems only my face, hands, feet and lower right leg -yeah, just the right- were spared) and loose skin looks even worse after than those who gained after being thin for so long.

I have NO idea what my body shape is under this. I feel my bones, but I don't know if I am an hour glass figure (my mother is) or something else. All I have been for so long is an apple. How can you tell at 291 pounds?

Are my breasts actual mammary tissue at this size or mostly regular body fat? No clue. What might happen when I lose weight? Couple of marbles in a sack or a C/D cup?

I have had wide, flat feet for as long as I can remember as well. Upon weight loss do/will they go down any or are ugly feet not weight related?

Skin conditions like Eczema, dandruff. Some say these are weight related, but I just don't know. Anybody got a clue for a lifelong fatty?

My advice is don't stress. Do what you gotta do and see what happens. I am at my lowest adult weight and probably around the weight I was in 6th grade. Yes I was near/over 200 lbs in elementary school.

I was an obese child and an overweight adolescent. Then I gained weight again and became an obese adult. I have no idea what I'll look like when I lose more weight, and honestly I can't even imagine myself smaller than I am now. The idea is completely alien.

Good advice, I guess that's really all I can do.

The Bunneh:

I hear that completely. I kind of get anxious when thinking about weight loss or how I will and wont look. I just don't know what to expect and I hear the sudden surge of attention and change in personality either in yourself or people you know can be scary. This stuff is no easy pickins, is it?

I know how you feel. I've been overweight most of my life. No clue what I'm going to look like at my healthy weight. I've been over 200 for at least 10 years now so yeah... =P

I was always chubby. I have never experienced being "fat," but I had also never experienced being thin. I was always the biggest girl, and I just felt relatively huge. I'm pretty sure I had always been in the middle of the overweight range.

I don't think I've seen a normal weight. I was a chubby kid. Not grotesquely obese, but chubby. I remember being 10 years old and stealing my mom's Dexatrim, because I wanted to lose weight (I DO NOT recommend that. )

Actually, I take that back - I started playing basketball in high school, and I was on the high end of the normal range on BMI charts after dropping about 25 pounds (and I still thought I was huge). But as an adult, I have not seen a normal weight. I have no idea what's under the 50 pounds I need to lose.

And I do agree about being overweight and having skin issues - I have KP, and I've heard that it's hereditary and not related to weight - but I swear it tends to "flare up" more when I've been eating crap.

I thought I was pretty normal in middle school and high school, but even then I was still medically overweight or obese for all of that. I looked good, it was mostly my body type (not eating habits), but I have certainly never seen myself skinny or even normal (by medical definitions). I went from the awkward, chunky phase in elementary school to overly curvy puberty phase in sixth grade, and then pretty much full adult proportions by 14 years old, and a muscular, voluptuous set of adult proportions, at that. I've never had an average sized body, though once upon a time it was attractive and close enough!

This is going to sound weird, but, I was a normal weight my whole life until my twenties. Here's the thing though: I had no idea I was normal and I thought I was the fattest person on the planet. I really thought I was fat, I had absolutely no idea that I wasn't and then I started gaining weight lots of weight until now. I literally became what I thought I was. I have terrible stretch marks all over my body too. I'm trying not to worry about what my skin will look like when I get my weight down. Also I've been doing a lot of research on food and learning what to eat and how to eat since I was never taught. My parents were morbidly obese and kids at school would tease me all the time and tell me I looked just like them, even though I didn't and couldn't because I was adopted.

The last time I remember being a "normal" weight was prob 4th grade. So, 10 years old or so? After we moved in 5th grade, I felt like I had zero friends and ate to comfort myself. It just continued all through my adult years till something clicked when I was about 28? I knew I had to make a change. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

And I'm still not a "normal" weight, and it may take me a while to finally get there ( been stuck for about a year ) but I'm determined to get to a healthy weight.

Lauren,
I could have wrote that word for word.

I always thought I was fat. The only weight I remember was 122 pounds when I graduated, but I remember being a size 9 when I was in 10th grade when all my friends were 0's and 2's. So when I compared myself to them, I was fat. I think I believed that I was fat.....so I might as well be really fat. So I never really cared what I did to myself. I am full of stretchmarks on my belly, but that was due to having twins. I do have questions though, just like you do, about what i will look like. And I guess I just have to wait and see. I know for a fact, it can't be as bad as it is right now. I would rather have loose skin, then have skin filled with fat.

I think the last time I was a "normal" weight I was probably a year old? Maybe two. After that it was chubber city and on into overweight and finally obese as a child.

Like you I often wonder what is under all these layers. I wonder what my face really looks like without all the weight. I worry that I might actually be completely ugly under all this fat. UGH!! I guess only time will tell.

I was never really a normal weight either. around 1st-2cnd grade I started getting chubby, and also taller! I was fatter and taller than the other girls and most of the boys. Then in 4th grade my mom put me on a diet... Slim Fast TV dinners, and yea...even Dexatrim (bad, I know) and had me do exercise videos after school.

sad thing is... I'm doing the exact same things I did back when I was kid to lose weight..different diets, pills and workouts hoping I find something that will work and make me thin.

I was obese since early childhood (age 3-4) and didn't lose the weight until my late 20's. Although you'll never mistake me for having virgin skin, I look much better now than I ever thought I would, and the more I work on my fitness, the more my body's appearance improves. I wore a bikini to the beach last year...

You'll never know how you look until you get there, and even then (just as now), the best thing you can do is just take good care of yourself.

It's so nice to know that I'm not the only one!