I know we talk about this often, but it really is so strange and I have so many mixed feelings about it. My feelings are all wrapped up with numbers and sizes and comparisons and how I see myself.

I feel like I should be happy with myself, and I say all the time that I am. But to be honest, I say that because I feel like I should be. Comparing myself to myself I should be thrilled with how far I have come. But I have not yet fulfilled what I set out to do and sometimes I feel like I physically can not. I'm stuck at the moment, or at least really, really slow. I don't feel myself changing at all anymore.

There are days I see myself and think, yes, this is what I wanted. But then I remember that I am not even a healthy weight yet. And I think I look like I am!! But I'm not. Therefore I'm still fat. And sizes? Please! What the heck size am I? It depends on the store, and yes, I get that. But according to my weight, I should not be wearing small sizes yet. Have you ever checked out a panty hose box? At 5'4" anything over 145 pounds is a QUEEN!! Now in reality, queen is too big. I end up with elephant ankles. But I can't bring myself to buy the size I KNOW is right because my weight doesn't match the box. I'm not normal. See?

I had to go shopping last night to find an outfit for a family event this weekend and I have no clothes. This should be fun, right? It was so frustrating. Everything I found looked like cheap crap. Some of it was just plain expensive crap. LOL! I do not trust myself with clothes at all. I have NO style and have relied on hand-me-downs for such a long time because I just didn't care. Now I care and I don't know what's current. So I wandered around a couple department stores, pressed for time. In three different department stores I finally found what I was looking for. I needed the empire waist, the flair at the hip, the cut down the sides that flatters the figures. And do you know where I was standing? In the women's section! I wanted those clothes. What? I was so thrilled to be out of there and now I want back in!

So back into the trenches I sulked. I finally found a long plaid skirt I've been wanting anyway, except I wanted one that sits just under the knee. This one is ankle length, the old me. I found a cute sweater too. I knew the skirt would be too small, but into the dressing room I went. It was a size 8, and it was too big. Enter old bad head space! No, this skirt is marked wrong. This is not a size 8. I still wear a size 10. There's no way I wear an 8 let alone a size smaller, a 6. Nope. I didn't even give it a moment's thought. I bought the too big skirt because that's the right number.

I also bought boots! My only happy purchase. They hurt my feet, something I'm totally against, but they're so darn cute! Tall boots with a plaid skirt! Yep, that's the look I wanted.

But I do not like this head space. It's the same place I was when I was tiny in college. How is it we can look back and see our disordered thinking but we can't see it while we're in it? Worse, obviously I DO see it, so what's that about???

You are most definitely not alone in this kind of thinking. My therapist calls it my "head tape" - it needs to be re-recorded to get rid of the same thing that's been playing over and over for years. Too big, too small, too tall, too short, etc. It turned out that my weight was what I was focusing on to avoid having to deal with what's really bothering me (my relationship with my parents.) Anyway, my method has been to just actively "lie" to myself (lol!) meaning I keep repeating positive comments to myself even if it feels like I'm lying. It's like smiling when you're in pain to trick your body into thinking it's doing something fun. You lost 78 pounds - that's like dropping a 5th grader! You should really give yourself a heap of credit for working so hard!

For what it's worth, I bought stockings the other day, and I'm considered a Size C, which I believe in that brand is a Queen. I almost didn't buy them because of it, but then I said, oh **** with it! I AM THE QUEEN!

Sometimes you just can't find exactly what you want. But that plaid skirt, get it shortened to just the right length. Let those boots kick and be seen!

I always wear a smaller size panty hose than the package says.

My head isn't quite caught up with my body yet. I volunteered at a big community event a few weekends back and got a shirt - a women's medium polo shirt. I looked at this shirt and thought "NO WAY" that it would fit. But it did fit. Actually, quite well.

I'm constantly putting on shirts and sweaters from lasting winter, thinking they must still fit, only to find look in the mirror and realize I have to change before leaving the house. It's a good thing, but still sort of weird - because I'll look at the item before putting it on, think "yeah, that'll fit" . . . and I am really wrong.

I'm right there with you. Also, I've noticed that pants that 8 months ago I would have been like "they are so tiny, they're like a doll's pants!" now seem HUGE to me. The same pants. It's like I think the pants grew, not that I shrunk.

I started going to a therapist to get over this body image stuff because I want to be done with it. I worked too hard to get here and to have no light at the end of the tunnel where I don't think I'm a cow and hate my body is not acceptable.

I also am really bad at accepting the good but really good at accepting the bad. For example, a person I know keeps mixing up me and another woman. The other woman looks nothing like me and weighs about 100 pounds more than me (about where I started). The person mixing us up never knew me when I was heavy, so i feel like I must still look like a fat person if I'm getting mixed up with this girl. I have no problem accepting that I'm still looking as heavy as this girl, but I can't believe that anyone would think I'm skinny.

I totally get it...it still shocks me to walk in a store and buy a shirt that is a medium instead of an extra-large. I am at a size that I have never been before...when I go shopping I grab three different sizes of the same item to take into the fitting room. A size 6 (a size below my size), a size 8 (my current size), and a size 10 (my previouse size). I still can not believe that I am out of the double digits in clothing sizes.

Just buy what fits regardless of the size number and be proud of the weight you lost.

I wish I could just buy what fits. I really wish I could. That's my whole problem. I can tell other people that...but I can't be ok with it myself.

I define myself by that number. I think I use it as my guide to reality because the mirror doesn't do it for me. My weight doesn't even do it for me. I am embarrassed by the number on the scale which is insane considering where I have been. And I tell other people we don't wear our weight on our forehead. But I still have the ugly mental talk.

I like the idea of telling myself "lies". I can do that! Or at least I can try.

I don't know whether this will help you, but some department stores have in-store shopping assistants who know the stock and will help you choose outfits - at no extra cost. A good one will look at you, size you up and choose styles that are flattering for your particular body type.

The reason this might help is because the shopping assistant would be a neutral party, free of all of the (very real and understandable) mental blocks you have about choosing clothes for yourself. Perhaps the view of an impartial expert saying "this style looks great on you" will help you adapt your mental model of yourself from the shape you were to the shape you are.

you go girl



I get "stuck" in those sizes too.. it just really wears down my self esteem to think "Wow, I'm really THAT big?!" Even when we put our starting weights in for the bikini challenge, I noticed I'm the biggest one there. I know it's not about our starting weights, it's about how far we get and how much we progress.. numbers drive me nuts =/ You and I both need to stop focusing on numbers and labels and just focus on our health I'm with ya girlie!

Even designers can't agree on what a size 8 or size 10 is, so if their arbitrary numbers vary so much, how can we consider those numbers defining factors in our lives?

At my biggest, I used to think, "OMG, I am a size 26!" At my smallest, I remember thinking, "I wear a size 6, mostly." It's interesting to see that crucial difference: my large size defined me, my small size was simply what I wore (except for when I didn't because I was a 4 to a 10, depending on the designer).

Oh, and as for pantyhose, forget it. If red-carpet stars no longer wear it, I don't either! Tights I'll do, especially with boots, but actual pantyhose? Nope. Bare legs are happy legs!

Oh believe me, I totally understand what you are saying. I'm sorry you are feeling this way, but I definitely get it.

Before I got morbidly obese, I used to hover between a 14 and a 16. I've never worn less than a 12 in my entire life, even when I weighed 145 lbs, which is the lowest weight I've ever maintained in my adult life.

So now, I lose 105 lbs and my body stalls out right at the exact point I used to live in... I'm the one flipping through the racks trying to find the looser 14s.

So, part of me feels really fantastic and knows that I'm very fit and look attractive and that obviously my body "likes" to be this weight. And part of me just despairs that I still barely fit a 14.

This really brings up a question. Is there really such a thing as body type, or is every woman who is 5'7" a good candidate to weigh 135? Is there such a thing as "body type" or are heavier people just fatter? I just wonder, because I've seen plenty of people on this site who are around my height slim down to 130 or 135, but I can't even imagine weighing that little. I don't think I'm "built" like that.

It is SUCH a hard thing! I would give anything just to wear a ten, so that I would know that there were always two more sizes on the rack bigger than the one I needed.

This is a great idea. I had the help of a great saleswoman awhile back, and she had me trying on stuff that I wouldn't have even looked at on the rack. One of the tops she brought me is now a favorite piece that I wear to work, and it looks really, really good on me!

I think there is definitely something to be said for build, and that's what makes me crazy. I think I SHOULD be able to be tiny. I'm convinced I have a tiny frame. I wear a AAA narrow shoe on one foot and a AAAA on the other! I wear a size 4 ring. I wrap my fingers around my wrist. There are parts of me that are tiny. But I have huge boobs and thighs.

Also...I think I'm just ready to buy some clothes already.

Size is really just a number. Shouldn't how you feel, and look in something be more important that what size you fit into? Isn't getting to your goal or close to it a huge achievement? I'd certainly say so, hun! You are doing so well!

I do know what you mean though. Everyone has a different body shape. I also have big boobs and thighs, and no bum or hips..Thank my genes. My clothes are starting to become really loose, and I have not tried any clothes on yet. I'm waiting to get a bit smaller because I'm afraid i won't go down much in sizes. I'll be buy a few new things in a few weeks time just to gauge how I'm doing. Why does that feel like the scariest thing in the world? I guess from what others said on here, that it takes more weight loss to go down in sizes if you are in plus sizes. Before I lost any weight I was in a size 18. It'll be interesting to see if I am in a 16 yet.

Don't be so hard on yourself.

It's so weird to hear peeps get so attached to a number on a tag on the back of a shirt?! SO many different manufacturers, standards, etc., no two things are exactly the same size across different brands, right? Who cares what the tag says? if it FITS it fits! Maybe because I sew, I don't know, but all I care about is that the garment comfortable fits the biggest part of me, anything else I can tailor down. What i hate to see is (even young thin cutie girls) squeezed into too tight clothing, it gives them a muffin top they don't have and is so unflattering!

I say throw out the tag as soon as you purchase, get stuff that FITS!