I was wondering if anyone else has been experiencing the same thing. Now that I’ve lost what I consider a lot of weight when I look in the mirror or at pictures of myself I have to do a double take because I don’t look like how I picture myself in my mind. It seems weird but I still picture myself at 300 pounds. I was just wondering if I was alone in this?

I STILL see myself at my biggest when I look in the mirror and it has been a while since I took off the majority of the weight (see my story here).

It's strange getting used to it, but just know that you are so much healthier and that you are definitely not alone in this situation. You have done so well, so congrats!

You are not alone. I still oversize myself with clothes when I shop, and also I still see myself in the mirror as how I was before at times. I guess it takes time..but then again it's been about 4 years for me almost. I have good days and bad days. I hope when I lose the rest that all of that will go away, and when I look at pictures or look at myself in the mirror I can feel proud, and remind myself that I never want to be like this again.

Ohh yes, I am a major victim of distorted body image. It's terrible... I worked so hard to lose all the weight, and just kept telling myself that once I lost the weight, I would be perfect, I would have no more worries about my body image. And then, when I hit my original goal, (which I later lowered because I was unhappy with the results), I looked in the mirror and STILL thought, "Fat. Fat fat fat fat fat fat fat."

At first, I just decided that I wasn't skinny enough, that I had to keep losing. A few things have altered this frame of mind for me. The first: I was out shopping with my mom and saw an overweight woman wearing shorts, and I looked at my figure in a store mirror, (I was also wearing shorts), and tried to figure out if I was skinnier than her (I know, this is a really sick practice, but I still do it). My mom caught me doing it, and I asked her, "do you think I look better than her?" because I really couldn't tell. My mom just gaped at me. "I would estimate that that woman weighs 300 pounds," she told me. At the time that I asked, I probably weighed 135, and I'm 5'5".

The point is, what I saw in the mirror was drastically different from the reality. I have come to the conclusion that weight loss is not just a physical transformation... it's a mental one as well. Your brain and your self-confidence has to catch up with your body to register how much you have lost before you can really know how good you look.

Another thing that made this a reality for me was seeing picture's from my best friend's 18th birthday party... I wore a classic "little black dress," and I just remember standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom the night of the party, wearing the dress with heels and my hair done, and thinking I looked fat. When I later saw pictures, I was astounded... I looked gorgeous. In fact, I looked REALLY skinny. This almost scares me, because it leads me to believe that I have absolutely no control over my weight loss if I can't even really SEE myself, you know?

Ditto. Welcome to my life. I struggle with this negativity and I am reeeeaaallly trying to work on it because it is not a healthy state of mind. Because, I still see myself as having so much more to go to be thin and that can kind of trample my success thus far.

I took a Interpersonal Communications class in college where we talked about this. Your mind has a very hard time coping with changes and to make up for it it's like it fights to stay the same: like a protective buffer. It works both ways really. When you lose weight it takes time to adjust and you see the same body you had 50 pounds heavier. In the same sense, you see thinner people gaing weight who don't realize it. They continue to wear the same clothes because they still see themselves as thinner.. until they literally can't fit in their clothes or they see a picture that makes them aware of the gain. Don't underestimate how hugea role your perception of yourself plays in your life.

In my own life, I had previously lost a lot of weight before gaining it back and then some. At the time I still saw the same body. It wasn't until gaining it back and looking at pictures that I really saw the loss. I agree, it is more of a mental thing. This time I am taking pictures and measurements of my body to watch the progression.

I look at pictures of the old me and think *wow! was I really that big! I didn't feel that big!* because at the time I saw myself as heavy, yes, but not as heavy as I can see the old me really was. It is so wierd how my favorite pictures of myself, where I thought I looked "thin" and pretty I look at now and I am like *yuck! I look awful.....that is really what I thought looked so great?!?*

I am totally on board with this train of thought. I didn't realize I was as heavy as I was. I knew I was a little over weight, but saw myself as the same amount of overweight as I was in college, despite the fact I was wearing pants 4 sizes bigger than I was when I started college. What really woke me up was taking my "before" picture. I was in standard work out clothes of shorts and a shelf-cup tank and when I look at myself in that picture I see that I am really ROUND! I keep that photo posted so I can see it everyday to remind myself what I'm working so hard to get rid of. I'm hoping I get to take a new photo this weekend, because I've limited myself to taking photos at the 20 lb marks (I don't want to get discouraged w/ too many photos that might not show progress). Also, for me, having people I don't see on a daily basis know about my weight loss plan has worked great because they are really encouraging when we talk and astounded when they see me after a couple weeks.

Keep up the good work!

I'm the other direction - my weight crept on so that I have this real tendency to not see it. My mental image of me is still 150 lbs - like I was when I graduated high school four years ago. That's the only reason I let it get this bad, was because I just didn't *see* it.

I can understand what you mean completely. I still look at myself in the mirror and think "Wow, I'm freaking huge." In reality, while I still have a gut, it's nowhere near as big as it used to be, but I have trouble wrapping around that fact. (Kae, thank you so much for the quick mental lesson.. that really does explain a lot!). Even though most of my clothing no longer fit me correctly and the numbers have gone down, I do not see a change.

I take pictures every 10 pounds. And I post the latest one next to my "before" picture, so that I can see exactly how different I look. It helps.. a bit.

I have the reverse like Nikaia - seeing the former, not-so-chubby me even when I was in the 180s! ~ but how I am now matches up to the way I used to look, so no complaints here for now

You know I never saw myself as that big until I actually seem my weight on a scale then all the sudden it dawned on me that I was huge.

Kae that really does explain a lot.

Thanks everyone for sharing your stores it makes me feel a lot better.

The way my head starting catching up with my body was when I tried clothes on at the store amd I mean the form fitting clothes

It's sort of weird for me. When I was at my heaviest, I didn't think I was all that heavy. I thought I still looked ok. And then sometimes I would see pictures and be surprised but would try to justify them away.

Now I'm at the lowest I've been since I was probably 14, and I don't see myself as any different when I look in the mirror than I was when I was "obese" (BMI) at 175. I still think I look the same...kind of cute, nothing too special. I notice the same rolls that I've always had. But sometimes when I see pictures, I can see the difference.

So I had it both ways: when I was bigger, I couldn't perceive that, and now that I'm smaller, I can't see that in the mirror either.

I had made a post about this a while back b/c I sincerely thought I was going crazy. It seemed like the more weight I lost the worse my self image became. I would get fixated on a patch of cellulite or the roll of fat at my abdomen and would get so depressed. It didn't matter that I was four sizes smaller than I was before I began this weight loss journey. I took so much comfort in my fat that I convinced myself that I didn't look that bad when I was at my heaviest. Now I am so much more critical of my mirror image. I'm slowly coming to accept that what I've done in my losing the weight is so much healthier for me and I'm bound to look better now... especially in a side by side pic of me today and me one year ago. For now, I'm more concerned with toning up instead of obsessing about the number going down on the scales.