During the time I was rapidly losing weight, I felt really thin. I have a picture of myself out and about in a pair of size 18 jeans and I felt TINY.... It had been close to 20 years since I had fit in an 18 and I felt terrific about myself.
But since August, when my weight loss has stalled, I've started to feel completely fat again. In fact, sometimes I pull my fat pants out and I honestly and truly believe that the size 24s are going to fit...
I still want to lose about twenty to twenty-five more pounds, but I have a feeling that I will always feel fat.
This weekend a bunch of people told me I looked thin and I was overjoyed. I check myself out in mirrors sometimes and think I look great and feel my jawbone and ribs with my fingers throughout the day. All my clothes are too big and I have 2-3 items total that fit properly.
It all goes to **** whenever I see a candid photo of me with my mouth open or something though. I see unflattering pictures and think I have made no progress at all. And at least once a day I'll grab the flab around my middle and daydream about cutting it off with a knife. Like saef mentioned, I feel like sh!t whenever someone more toned, slim or whatever is around. I worry that nothing will ever be "good enough" and that I will give in and gain it back.
I'm starting to struggle with this too - interesting to find this post and helpful too to know I'm not alone! I am far from goal but I'm the smallest I've been as an adult; all the way down from almost 300 pounds at one point. I've been obese, well, forever. And now I'm not, I'm merely overweight. But this morning, I put on my jeans, and my shirt, and looked in the mirror at the person who is 60 pounds lighter than the one looking back 5 months ago, and thought, "jeez you're so fat". WTH??
I wasn't this hard on myself at 233 pounds...why now am I being so unkind? I worry about an obsession with weight loss...that when I get to my goal of 145 and then my ideal goal of around 135, I won't be happy and still see myself this way. Maybe it's a good thing that I start thinking about this now while I'm still a ways away!
This is exactly how I feel. I have been very down lately. It seems the more I lose, the more I see I have to lose! I think losing weight is an obsessional thing, you have to focus to achieve, therefore your'e forced to think about your size. I don't think there are any magic answers, just lots of questions and some real mental fortitude needed
If there is it hasn't happened for me yet. I felt fat at 145 pounds and I feel fat at 115. Sometimes, paradoxically, I feel fatter now than before I started losing weight.
Sometimes I feel like I'm living in Bizarro World. I hold up a pair of jeans and think "These are so tiny, I must be thin if these fit me." Then after I put the jeans on I look in the mirror and see a fat girl.
Over the years I've gained and lost...gained and lost and YES, I've felt just as fat as before I lost the weight. AND this was while wearing a size 6!!!!
I think I've figured this out. I think alot of woman lose the weight with diet, cardio and minimal weights, if any. What you end up with is just a smaller you. If you were 300 lbs with a gut, now your 150 lbs with a gut...Then you focus on the fat pockets (while secretly wish you could just get a carving knife and cut off those pockets..lol) and feel like you've achieved no success!
If you want to see a complete transformation...a truly NEW YOU, I think its a MUST to work out with weights...and I don't mean the "pink" kind...I mean LIFT HEAVY! That's the only way you will reshape your body. This is just my opinion though
Last edited by joyfulloser; 11-27-2010 at 08:52 PM.
Thank you ladies and gents! You have all helped me a lot. I have had a really bad week and spent a couple days eating more calories than I should but thankfully I didn't purge like I usually do. I am trying to keep the comments you all made and realize that a few days of slip ups are not the end of the world and I can continue to control my weight while still slipping up.
I had an issue with this over the weekend. After feeling pretty tiny (for me, at least) lately, I saw an old acquaintance who is just naturally tiny and I felt like a big ox moving around her. It didn't help that she brought her camera and the only pic of me that she took was of me standing at the stove (unshowered ) frying bacon. Combined with all of the Thanksgiving eating I did during the holiday weekend, this situation did not make me feel good at all.
I'm actually starting to dread the newness of my weight loss wearing off and just feeling ugly again.....fat or not.
I know i have never been that large but i did weigh more than i do now in fifth grade. I was on the yo-yo dieting for a while... then I read "Why French Women Don't Get Fat". It is a great book with an equal amount of feeling and emotion as info. It's not another stone cold diet book. It makes every accomplishment feel effortless and fun. A good book on the ways of living, many of us are unaware of the role our culture takes in are life. The author says French women don't like gyms... i pretended not to see that bit. For some reason the book raises your confidence and enjoyment of... Everything, including foooood! Yes it's not a sin to love food. Includes recipes and tips (quality French foods). You will get to the point where you don't feel fat, just keep going! If you've been yo-yo-ing or having trouble staying on a plan or just interested i recommend this no plan great way to diet! Just keep thinking of the end result.
Honey, it's all in your head... Really, you look AMAZING! I think we get so used to being overweight, fat, shopping for plus sizes and viewing ourselves a certain way, it's hard to break that view of ourselves. I went from 240 down to 150 at my lowest and even though I felt "better" about myself, I was not as happy as I pictured in my mind when I reached 150 lbs. I still saw the fat stomach, the think thighs & the double chins. I don't think I've reached a happy place myself. It always helps me to look at old photos and see how far I've come. Try it, it will really show you the progress you've made & may give you a new outlook on yourself.
What you end up with is just a smaller you. If you were 300 lbs with a gut, now your 150 lbs with a gut...
OMG, soooo true! I feel exactly the same way! I had a gut at 240 and still had one at 140. What the HECK is up with that anyways! Can a girl get a six pack after all that hard work?!
Hey, I'm going for it. I reached my goal weight, but have this thick pad of fat right over my stomach. If I dig in there, I can feel the 6-pack. I'm sure it's there, and I've committed myself to losing just 10 more pounds to uncover it. If the 10 pounds doesn't do it, well, then, I'm throwing in the towel.
I stopped feeling fat and started feeling truly happy with myself when I realized I didn't have to weigh a certain amount to be happy. Until then, I couldn't accept my body. It was all about the goal. I wanted to weigh 145 pounds, I wanted to be a size 8, or maybe even 6. When the first of January came this year, suddenly I realized that although I told myself I would feel happier at a size 8, the truth was that once I was a size 8, I would then think I'd feel happier at a size 6, and that it wasn't my body that needed adjusting, it was my mind. So I decided to stop losing weight and be happy with myself for who I was. There is no magic weight, honey. You can learn to love yourself at 279 or 179, but if you don't do that, you'll never be satisfied. Just realizing that weighing less won't make you any happier, accepting yourself will.
) frying bacon.
Combined with all of the Thanksgiving eating I did during the holiday weekend, this situation did not make me feel good at all.
OMG, soooo true! I feel exactly the same way! I had a gut at 240 and still had one at 140. What the HECK is up with that anyways! Can a girl get a six pack after all that hard work?!
