I think the phantom fat syndrome is fairly universal among us. I know I won't ever fully adjust to my body but the good thing about this is... I don't want to.
I LIKE it when I think oooohhh I think I am too fat for something only to be blown away by the item fitting, or being able to do the physical thing that I thought I couldn't.
It dazzles me and I want to it to go on! I don't want to get so used to being smaller that it becomes humdrum!
Imagine being one of the folks who don't get the opportunity to be CONSTANTLY surprised in a good way. How boring!
But yes, the article is more concerned with potentially serious self-image problems among men and women. I still see phantom fat too and get irrationally peeved over it.
Buuuut... there is a silver lining in that cloud. In the form of random moments of wonder and gratitude. May it never die!
OMG me me me! I feel fatter now than I did at my fattest!! It is all so very weird and strange. I did forward the article to my mom cause she thinks I am crazy!
Like Ian, I have changed internally and hope it is for the better. I like me better so maybe that is enough........
[QUOTE=IanG;4850139]I just went plain crazy. It takes time for the brain to adjust.
In the craziness I got rid of a lot of the old me. New clothes, new hair, new glasses, new outlook on life, trying new things, trying to make friends...
I've lost a few of the things I used to like about my old self along the way but gained other things I never had.
But old Ian is gone now.
The catch is that when I started this journey I just thought I would end up a thinner me. That did not happen. Me has changed as well. Hopefully for the better.
My main hope is that this change does not affect my marriage. I'm not the same guy my wife married, for better or worse.[/QUOTE]
Last time I lost 65 lbs I became visible to men again, and at almost 35 I felt like I could handle it. Then an old crush used me, then shunned me like I never existed, and I was heartbroken. All the weight came back on again.
It definitely is a fat coat of safety for me. Being invisible stops most sexual harassment and fear of rape, which is a big plus. Last time I lost weight I became quite vain with all the clothes, makeup and selfies. This time I swear I will continue to dress the same, so I don't feel so unearthed, and so bad things won't happen to me.
Another weird thing was thinking I was still 100kg in the mirror when I was 74 kg. I felt more fat at 74 than at 100. Now it's the reverse, my eyes only go to the attractive/ thin parts of me, and I think "I'm not so bad", only in photos I will disgust myself....
oy vey! i could write a book. This first hit me when i walked up to a glass door - having lost nearly 200 pounds at that point, and saw a woman reach out to open it. I had no idea who she was, and how she got to the door before i did! And every time I reached out for the door handle, so did she!! believe me - it took me several minutes to figure this out! Thank goodness no one else was around.
and then being able to navigate a smaller space - someone had parked a cart in the middle of the hallway, and i wouldn't have been able to squeeze by at 500+ pounds, but I went through it - easily, without turning sideways - i was so shocked i did it several more times.
and then the mornings I couldn't get dressed because I KNEW that those smaller pants WOULD NOT GO OVER MY KNEES.
I still wear clothes that don't exactly fit - i hate the feeling of something actually clinging to my body. On some level, I know that if i can get the pants off and on without unzipping them, they're too big. Yet, that's what I prefer.
Right now I have on a shirt that's a size 30, and i'm actually in the 20-22 range [i will never be a size 10 again - that's OK]. I wore a shirt that fit yesterday, and wasn't comfortable. it looked fine, but i was unhappy.
It's a head game. and head games take time - and some effort - to get past, or at least to change the rules in your head.
I think there were a couple of issues in the article but the idea of not being able to see the weight loss in the mirror is a real one. It's several components - one, when I lose weight I look the same, just smaller and it happens gradually so I don't really see it. I just look in the mirror and see the same parts I hated when I was bigger. I think I can tell the difference more in the areas that were never a "problem" because those look better - ie, I have collar bones and my feet are smaller and my wrist looks tiny. But the parts I don't like still are there in the same proportion as they were. It's a mind game. Then there's the fact that the scale is weird - I can weight a particular weight and fit into some things and then weight that same amount again and they don't fit. So if it looks the same in the mirror and the scale isn't reliable, then all I have are my eyes?
Another issue is that of getting to your weight goal and still not being happy with your body. Well, like I said above, your smaller body (at least mine) is probably similar to the fatter one but more it boils down to this - We expect weight loss to be a magic pill to solve our body image problem and it's not. When I reach my goal weight, I'll love my body. But it doesn't work that way. I'm still working through this one but the key is to go ahead and love yourself now because if you don't, losing weight won't change that. I've read posts about "thinking I was fat when I was thin" and I was the same way - Being happy with your body isn't about what you weight - it's mental work, not physical or nutritional work. Why wait to feel good about yourself?
Last, the other thing that stood out to me was the issue of identity. I see it in the posts above, too. I think a lot of us feel this way, but speaking for me, losing weight meant a change in who I perceived myself to be. I find myself still holding onto the "fat girl" identity. I go in stores and don't feel like the clothes there are for me. They are for others who are thin. When I put them on and they fit, it is head spinning. I search frantically in the mirror for signs of the parts of my body I familiarly don't like and it is oddly comforting because I know that woman. This other one.....ehhhh.....like Ian said - it's a mind game and you find yourself really questioning who you are in every aspect and not just your weight. You challenge perceptions you had of yourself and go on a self discovery journey.
Yeah, to me "phantom fat" is the term for the lag between physical weight loss and the mental health work we need to do.
How boring!
