I already responded to this post but I have been thinking about it all day. A lot of introspection going on.

At my recent lowest of 131, I felt fat. But when I was 50 pounds heavier, I didn't feel "that fat". Now in hindsight I see pictures of myself from the 180+ era and I wonder how on earth I was able to lie to myself like that! I am completely embarressed that I was clearly obese but didn't see myself like that then as I do now. So now, at around 137, I tell myself everyday that I am fat because I'm afraid of lying to myself again. I wonder if that makes any sense at all to anyone?? It's so hard to explain.

On a good day I see myself just slightly north of thin. On a bad days I see myself as big as a house - I am down around 40lbs from my heaviest, wear normal size clothes, but the fat still sits in the same places (thighs and stomach). Body image is a *****.

This is me EXACTLY. I weigh when I feel thin...and am. i don't weigh
when I feel chubby, b/c i a usually bloated or having a "up" day. I feel thin or fat just depending on clothes, mood, etc. But mostly I feel very good now.

There are a lot of interesting responses. I must say I am jealous of those that live on the "thin" side of the question. It is quite a burden to always think I'm so fat. If I have to squeeze by someone at the movies, sit next to someone in a car, walk past (or heaven forbid run past anyone) while outside. I try to go to emptier areas to run because I feel like a side show act in motion. I won't run in neighborhoods because I'm afraid it invites people to yel things about a fat girl running at me while they drive by.

I feel like when I sit down everything just spreads out and looks repulsive. I hate people seeing me shop because I feel like they are feeling sorry for the fat girl looking for clothes to cover her fat. I feel jiggle and intrusive on other people's space. I'm afraid I could be a size 0 and never feel thin, normal, not fat.
I'd love for one day to feel thin. Even if the numbers on the scale said differently. I just feel like great, I'm a normal weight and size, but I still feel huge. All that work and I feel the same and look the same to myself.

Fat. Always fat. I've been overweight my entire life and it's difficult to shake that ingrained thought. Even at my highest weight I saw myself as much larger than I actually was. Now that I've dropped about 60 pounds, when I look in the mirror I still 'see' myself looking just the same as I always have. I know I've lost weight because my clothes are getting too big but visually I still look exactly the same. I suspect this will be an ongoing issue for me.

Thin. Although this is somewhat if a misnomer. At my highest weight I always thought of myself as much smaller than I was. It wasn't until recently when I saw an old photo of myself that I could really see HOW large I had let myself get.

That being said, I've never thought of myself as thin per se. I have a large build, have always been very athletic so when I get down to a good body weight I look fit and trim but never thin.

Right now? I think of myself as almost there. I can see how far I've come pretty easily looking in the mirror but I can still see the parts that need work so I'm not ready to stop either. Realistically, I'm pretty happy where I'm at and if someone said tomorrow you could either stop today and get a million bucks or continue losing and not get the money, well, I'd probably take the money! But not counting that off-the-wall scenario, I plan on continuing.

I will say that that's fairly important to me to get an accurate sense of my body. I take a lot of measurements, take progress pictures, really try to look at myself in the mirror etc. Not looking at the evidence got me to where I was at the beginning. So now I'm pretty determined to continue to look at this measurements and get this body image stuck in my heads so there's no chance that I return to the old one.

I think I'm always going to think that I'm somewhat fat because I grew up as quite an overweight child and I just think of myself that way. I still thought I was fat when I was 5'8, 137 pounds with a 27 inch waist. The weird thing is I feel smaller now at 156 than I did then but I think that's mainly to do with the fact I'm a little older and more confident.

I think I always will think I'm "big" even if I get really thin (but I don't want that anyway) just because of my height. I prefer graceful, elegant and willowy though - I shall call myself those when I'm thinner again rather than just concentrating on how I hate being tall.

Everyday, every single day, I look at my jeans before I put them on and think there is no way they are going to fit me. I hold them up against myself and gawp at the size of the waistband. I completely convince myself that they'll stop at my knees and refuse to pull up. But they fit, just like they did yesterday and the day before and the day before that, but my mind still thinks I'm 256. Maybe it's a good thing it takes so long to lose weight, gives the mind a chance to sync up with the body.

I have been fat my whole life. I still think that I am fat. Not really in a self-esteem sort of way - that's getting better - but in a practical way.

Just like Susie, I pick up a pair of jeans and they look so small to me that I know they aren't going to fit and yet they are getting loose. I think I need more room to open my car door at the mall to squeeze out of my car and I don't. There are spaces I am sure I can't fit through and I do easily.

The other day I read something about an activity and it said that you must weigh less then 225 lbs. and my automatic thought was "Well, that rules me out!" and it took several seconds before I realized that I weigh much less then that now.

Not sure if this will last forever or it will just take a while for my brain to catch up...

This has been an interesting thread, thank you all.

My answer is similar to some others - I never thought I was "thin", but I had trouble acknowledging how fat I was, too. I always told myself that I "carried it well" or "didn't look as heavy as I was."

I had a kind of "Venus of Willendorf" figure and certain women always found it very attractive - I remember one lover exclaimed "magnificent!" the first time she saw me naked and believe me, a word like that sticks in your head and makes it very easy to pretend that you carry your weight very well.

At any rate, magnificence notwithstanding, my mental image of myself is more like my forum avatar than Venus of Willendorf, and after years of bumping into things and losing my strength and stamina (I had always taken pride in being strong like ox but started to find myself more and more a lump of flesh on the couch) I finally had to acknowledge that my physical self and my mental one had diverged way more than was really going to be okay.

I would say the way I look now is more in line with how I think of myself - still not "thin" - I will never be delicate or willowy - but muscular and not particularly corpulent. So while I never thought of myself as thin, for a long time I didn't really grok how fat I was, either.

I don't see myself as fat or thin right now as I'm not. I definitely don't feel fat when I'm dressed. I feel a bit fat when I'm naked and I see my droopy stomach and bat wings. My husband thinks I'm about perfect and thinks 165 will be perfect. I'm not sure.

The scale right now is saying I'm between 24-32 percent body fat (24% if I am on my feet all day - 32 percent when I'm mostly a couch potato) Seems to be about 30-31. I would love to get consisently at 24-25 percent. When I get there, no matter the actual weight on the scale, I'll feel fit and healthy. I'm not stuck on a number as I am not a waif. I'm not built like one and never will look tiny and petite.

I'm still fat in my head. Well, I suppose I'm still fat in my body, too, technically (5 feet tall and 155 pounds is still overweight, so...yeah.) But I've found that, even though I've lost almost 50 pounds at this point, I'm still convinced I'm bigger than I am.

Case in point: A relative gave me a sweater last week that was too small for her. I looked at the tag (it was a medium) and said, "Are you kidding? There's no way this will ever fit me!" (I started out in a 2XL in a shirt, and the last shirt I bought was still an XL...granted, that was almost three months ago). Tried the sweater on and, lo and behold...it fit perfectly. I guess I'm just still not able to realize that, yes, I am smaller now.

I think being "fat in the head" (LOL) is common among people who have lost weight, especially if you've been heavy all your life.

Ooh this has been interesting to read. In my own head, I'm neither fat nor thin. I'm just average. When I look at the scale and see numbers in the 230's, it's shocking. I just feel like there's NO WAY I weigh that much, but I do. It's weird, I feel exactly the same as I did at 170 pounds. Maybe because I gained 70 pounds in a very short timeframe (like 10 months) so my mind never caught up with my body? I don't know. I just feel like I'm not as heavy as the scale says I am!

Exactly! I joined Facebook and realized ... uh oh ... I'm obese!

I always see myself as fat. Logically, I know that other people do not see me the way I "see" myself when I look in the mirror. Logically, I know that I am not overweight but that is not the same thing as not seeing myself as fat. My uncle passed away last month and I saw folks that I haven't seen in 10 years (30 years in a couple of instances) and they were all shocked at my weight. I had several ask, "Don't you think you are thin enough?" My stock answer is always the same, "No such creature."

Having said that, I didn't realize how big I was until I lost weight and looked back at pictures of myself at my heaviest (208). A few years ago, I managed to briefly get down to 124.5 and just kept thinking, "If I could just get to 118, life would be so perfect." I look back at that sadly now, even though I am about 132-134 and probably in a slightly smaller size that I was then.

I think that, in my case, exercise is the key to my mental picture of myself. Having lost over 80 pounds 9 years ago but not exercising, I ruined my metabolism and became "skinny fat." Now I am playing catch-up in that regard. I know that when I go to the gym or do my Turbo Jam DVDs, I feel "smaller"--does that make any sense to anyone? It may just be yet another instance of my disordered thinking.