I was thinking that some of you may have had this problem or heard of it and could offer me some advice.
I had hubby take this photo of me yesterday and I REALLY like the photo, but I have a question.
How come, if I looked at this body with a different face, I would say "Wow, that person looks quite slim". But I don't see myself as anywhere NEAR 'slim'. I still see lots of flabby bits and everything spreads when I sit down etc. I am still wearing a size 14 (US 10/12 I think) pants, although my top is one or two sizes smaller.
I am wondering whether I still subconsciously have the idea that I HAVE to reach my original goal weight to be 'slim', whereas I thought I had come to grips with where I was at weight-wise and I was feeling pretty good about things.
I am a 'little' worried about this mind set, because I have heard that people who become anorexic have no true vision of what they look like and I don't want to have any problems like that. I truly don't think I will become anorexic, because I LOVE food and am eating really well, in good proportions, being overviewed regularly by a dietitian. I just am not really comfortable with the fact that I don't 'see' myself as this picture shows me. Someone told me yesterday that she would have said I was a size 10 or 12, and I thought that she was mad!
Could I possibly just be 'adapting' to the new me still and I need to give it a little more time. I know that I am only just getting used to the new face (cheekbones, single chin and all), so perhaps it will take longer to get used to the new body.
I sometimes thing that we associate thin with supermodel beauty. If we feel we haven't reached that curvaceous beauty, we aren't really thin but flawed. When others see us, they see the whole package. When we see us, we see the details. We are all flawed. Even the airbrushed beauties. I think it takes time to get used to the new whole package. Having said that, I didn't think I was thin when I actually was. Supermodel beauty complex rearing its ugly head. That's my theory anyway.
I don't have any advice but I do know that you are not alone. I have a sister whose body I have always envied. I was reviewing a video of my twin's birthday party and saw (what I thought) was a shot of her from the back. In that split second I thought to myself, "Will I EVER be THAT thin?" Low a behold the person in the video turned around and it was ME. Guess what? All of a sudden I was thinking to myself how fat my thighs looked and debating why I couldn't have a more defined waist. How screwy is that? The bottom line is that most of us are just too critical of ourselves. Being aware that the view you have of yourself is somewhat skewed puts you ahead in the game.
My goodness, your pics are amazing and you are so beautiful!!! It may take a bit of getting used to but my gosh look at what you have accomplished and you look wonderful..I only hope I can see results like you have had. Congratulations!! Feel great in your skin.
Hi Zelma,
Wow you look fantastic. You have posted exactly how I have been thinking. I now wear a sizes 10-12 and realistically I know it is a normal size but when I look in the mirror I see someone who still looks fat to me. Everyone tells me that I look great but I don't see it yet.
Yes I do believe it takes some adjusting to. I have been at my goal weight for almost 2 months. I sometimes feel like I should lose a bit more weight but I have decided to stop losing because I reached the goal I set for myself. Also I'm in the middle of the weight range at the doctor's office. Now I'm trying to get into the mindset that I look okay.
When I go into stores I still reach for the bigger sizes. The clothes in 10-12 look to small. It still surprises me that I can fit into them.
My stomach still spreads, esp. when I sit but I know it is mostly the extra skin. I have done tons of crunches but they haven't helped much. I have done weights for othe rparts of my body and they have responded fairly well but not my stomach. Something I have to accept that my body will always have not so good areas but when I think back to what I use to weigh everything looked bad lol.
We need to learn to listen to everyone and start to believe we do look great. It will take tine though. You do look so pretty and look super.
I have very similar feelings. In my head, I am still "the fat girl." When I look in the mirror naked, I still see big thighs and a big tummy (the things I especially did not like when I weighed 200 lbs). In stores, I reach for the 10s first. They are always too big and I have to get an 8 or sometimes a 6. I don't know why I just can't BELIEVE and start with the 8s. When I pull on jeans, I expect them to be too tight, uncomfortable, not button.
It is a great picture of you, you are lovely and definitely a thin person.. I would also dearly love for you to come to my house and arrange my bookshelves to your state of tidy perfection!
ZedAus, you look awesome! Congratulations on your amazing weight loss!
You are definitely not alone in how you are feeling, though! I still see all the little imperfections in my body and sometimes have to kick myself to see that I am no longer the heavy person that I used to be. I still shy away from cameras for fear that the pounds will suddenly morph back!
Since you have all these great photos, whenever you start to feel bad about how you look, start to feel like you're still heavy, take out a photograph of yourself from before and one of you from today. Look at those photos and tell yourself: "I've accomplished an amazing thing and I look darn good!"
Once again, you look beautiful, and you are an amazing woman whose journey is truly an inspiration!
The jeans I'm wearing today say 9 on the label. And yet I'm still feeling fat this weekend. I know logically I'm not, but I still feel it. Sometimes I feel thin, sometimes I feel fat. I wish I could bottle that thin feeling and take a sip every time I feel down, but I can't.
Although I don't have a great deal of saggy skin as such, I do know that my stomach and thighs are a lot more "wobbly" than my sister's. She is shorter than me, heavier than me and (clothed) looks bigger than me. But I know that I don't have the tone that I imagine she has. OK, so I've never seen her absolutely naked, but I see her in a bikini quite a bit because of her job (scuba diving instructor, for those of you with dirty minds!), and I know she looks far better in a bikini than I do. Or far better than I think I do.
I think a lot of it comes from the fact that while I'm obviously smaller than I used to be, I'm the same shape in some areas and my proportions haven't changed. So my stomach still looks huge in comparison to my boobs for example (which would be because I'm now an A cup rather than because my stomach is the same size as when it looked bigger than a D cup).
Sometimes when I see myself in a mirror I have to stand there for a while to try to reinforce the fact in my brain that it really is me, and not an illusion, because believe me, when I look down I still sometimes focus on the fat that's still there rather than realising how much of it has gone.
Zelma,
You look wonderful and are perfectly normal. A thread like this gets started about once a month here, because we all feel this way. Some of us seem to move on at some point, others of us (me, for one) feel like we'll live forever with a body that we don't recognize. Some days I feel fat, but the clothes that I fit into look small. Other times, I pull my jeans out of the washer and they look as HUGE to me now as they did when I was 60 pounds heavier (I'm very short so that makes a big size difference.)
I'm not sure that I'll ever lose the fat lady in the mirror. Last summer I was 20 pounds below my original goal and now everyone is telling me I was too thin. I never felt too thin- if anything, I still would have liked to have lost a bit more fat. Not scale weight, because I don't want to lose muscle, but fat. My original goal was too high and I'm comfortably inbetween right now. Logically I know that I'm not fat, but I feel it.
Sorry this was "all about me", but you aren't alone. I've been at or below goal for 4 1/2 years now. I reach for the right size clothes, but obviously I don't really "see" what is in front of me.
Thanks for posting this question, I can't wait to see everyones reply. I wear a 12 and still feel very overweight and still don't like pictures of myself.
When I saw your picture...if you were a person I was seeing at the mall, etc, I would automatically feel very jealous of you because you're one of the skinny chicks. And I agree, you ARE very beautiful!!
OK, so why can't I see it?
Congratulations on your amazing weight loss!
