When I weighed 278 pounds, I NEVER saw "morbidly obese" in the mirror. I saw fat... I saw myself at about the weight I am now, not 278! When I saw pictures I was appalled. I still am when I see pics at my top weight because I do not ever remember seeing that in the mirror.
However now that I have lost some weight (50ish pounds), I see my pictures and say wow, I look so good! I look at my "after" pictures on my blog and then I look in the mirror and DIE. In the mirror, NOW, I see 278 pounds!! I look in the mirror, then at those after pictures, and I cannot process how they are the same. I often think if I met someone from online, who had seen my blog after pics, they would gasp in horror at how fat I really am.
Yes I know exactly what you mean ~ but now I am having the opposite problem. I look enormous in the mirror but several times I've had to be in pictures for work or some volunteer stuff I do, and I appear to be a lot smaller in pictures than I am in the mirror. But everyone else is the right size in the picture. So apparently I'm smaller than I look to myself...it's weird.
HI,
I know what you mean. I feel smaller than I look in the mirror. When I lost a lot of weight previously, I looked in the mirror and saw myself as much larger than I actually was. I wonder if this is some offshoot of body dysmorphic disorder?...
Someone once told me that if I stuck my chin forward for pictures, my double chin would disappear. Now no one notices my double chin because they are trying to figure what is wrong with my neck becuse my head is stuck out like a stork!
I have the same problem.
I'm always shocked at how I look in pictures or God forbid videos.
It's a twist on Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) .
It's common in people with eating disorders.
Bulimics and anorexics think they're fat and the obese don't see how big they really are.
What I found interesting is when I weighed 288 I knew I was fat but didn't realize how big I actually was.
When I weighed 165 I wasn't happy with my appearance & I thought I looked "fat".
It's crazy
It goes to prove that we see what we want to see
Someone once told me that if I stuck my chin forward for pictures, my double chin would disappear. Now no one notices my double chin because they are trying to figure what is wrong with my neck becuse my head is stuck out like a stork!
When I weighed 165 I wasn't happy with my appearance & I thought I looked "fat".
Oh exactly! I can look at photos of myself at 180, which isn't anywhere near thin, but I carried that weight very, very well and had a knockout hourglass figure. Honestly I was getting hit on almost every day (often in very bizarre circumstances, like on the subway or in line at the library). At the time I couldn't figure out why all these men were hitting on me ~ I thought that I must have been putting out some weird vibe and it made me really uncomfortable. Now I can look at those pictures and see why.
I think I look better in a mirror, because I've learned to face the mirror in the most flattering position. In fact, a video of me looking into a mirror would probably be pretty funny because I do a lot of head turning and moving. I never thought of it as trying to find the most flattering pose, just examining myself (not too much different than a chimp with a mirror I suppose).
While I think I look best (or least bad) in the mirror, I think posed photos of me look nearly as good as the mirror. Candid shots are the worst, because there's no one trying to make sure you're captured in the best light. Even at my highest weight, I loved getting pictures of me taken. I don't know why, it's just fun being the center of attention, or trying to document a moment in your life. I think because I love getting my photo taken, in the ones I see coming, I may not always look good, but I always look happy (and that makes up for a lot). I HATE complete surprise shots, not only am I likely to be caught in an unflattering position, I'll have that deer-in-the-headlights expression. And worst of all is being caught just about to take a bite or chewing. Even if it's salad or a carrot stick I'm obviously eating, in the photo, the shock and horror on my face makes me look like I know that I've been caught in the commission of a crime.
I think that there is some kind of distortion that goes on when looking in a mirror. I remember even when I was younger, seeing a picture of myself and thinking well that doesn't look like me. I think it has something to do with the closeness of a mirror or the fact that a mirror can make anyone look different depending on the angle or shape of the mirror. Like a funhouse mirror but less dramatic.
I've been totally trying to figure this out, because I look NOTHING like my picture, when I look in the mirror! Everyone who sees my picture and then meets me in person, too, says that pictures do me no justice. So I've given this a lot of thought.
One theory I have: a picture is a flat image--2 dimensions. A person--or an image in a mirror--is 3 dimensional. You can see the movement, you can see the play of emotions on the face, you get everything you don't have in a picture. I think that's a large part of why pictures shock us so much. There's no life in them.
THANKS THIGHS!!!
HYSTERICAL!
