I'm with you Chunky thigh.. (love the name, btw!) I've been heavy for sooo long. It's weird.. sometimes I'm the opposite. I can't imagine myself thin - b/c I think that what I am is normal. Now that is sick.
Excellent thread! I think what I see most common in all the links is that we all have a hard time with our body image. I myself have difficulty thinking what I will look like thin, so to speak. Even after I had lost a lot of weight in previous diets, I still was shocked when I could go into a store and buy "normal" size clothing. For me, at least right now, I am focusing on the day to day. I visualize what I will I do if temptation comes my way, and how I can successfully handle it. Once I get closer to goal, than I can start visualizing other things.
I was thin once. So to help me visualize what I'll look like, I just look back at old pictures. Of course, my 32 year old body will never look like my 17 year old body, but it really helps.
And I visualize doing stuff with my kids that is just difficult to do now, like running around, wrestling, hiking, etc.
I agree with Howie -- I've lost over 100 pounds, and while still far from "thin," I can barely picture myself as I look now, even when I'm looking in the mirror (for some reason, I see it more easily in pictures, though). I think for many of us who have been obese for a long time, it might not even be possible to visualize ourselves thin -- I had no idea what I would look like after I'd lost even a little bit of weight.
On the other hand, I REALLY like the visualization technique mousie brought up, and I think I do that a little bit, too. For me, it usually involves going to the gym. This morning, for instance, I woke up with the alarm clock and was dismayed to hear that it was still raining outside -- basically another cold, windy, disgusting day. So I lay there for a minute and tried to picture myself getting dressed... putting on my shoes... grabbing my umbrella... and kicking a** at the gym with an upper-body weight training session. For some reason, visualizing this made it seem possible, and I dragged my sorry butt out of bed and made it there.
Just one quick reminder that since everyone is so different, you just need to find what works for you. It's always amazing to me that despite the many success stories on 3FC, no two people have lost weight exactly the same way!
I was never able to visualise myself as being thin, because I never had been. I still can't, to be honest. There are times when I look in the mirror and the sight blows me away, and other times when I still see a fat person looking back, with rolls of fat round the middle. Don't tell me they're not there, I'll admit they're smaller, but they're still there.
I think this is good though. Because no matter how much weight I've lost, the fact is that I am still overweight, even if I'm less overweight than I was. Allowing myself to realise that I can be here, at 172 and still think I'm fat reminds me that I don't want to go back up to 260 before I realise I need to knuckle back down again!
It's getting easier though. I pick up clothes when I'm shopping that I'd used to dream of getting into, I look at them and I realise without trying them on that they're too big. That's progress. I'm also getting slightly more of an idea of what I might look like when I hit goal, even if I haven't decided what that goal weight is yet (the basic plan is just to keep on going until I hit it, assuming I'll know it when I see it!)
I don't think not being able to visualise yourself as thin is a bar to success. After all, if you're hung up on a particular image of perfection you might be disappointed if you don't get there, or if it takes longer than you hoped. But if you celebrate each bit of shrinkage as and when it happens, and enjoy the process the whole thing will be a lot easier, without being obsessed by one picture in your head. It does take time, but at the end of the day it's just one good decision after another, one day after another, and if you have something you can focus on from time to time, maybe your wrist or your fingers are a little thinner, or you've gone down 1 dress size, it helps you put to the back of your mind the fact that you've not gone down 6 dress sizes yet!
So to help me visualize what I'll look like, I just look back at old pictures. Of course, my 32 year old body will never look like my 17 year old body, but it really helps.
