Hi,
This is the first time I've asked a question here, although I've been lurking/reading a lot and you all seem like such a great group of people.
I'm having what seems to be a real problem and I'm wondering if anyone is experiencing anything similar. I lost about 40 pounds over the past several months. I was never very overweight, just on the higher end, but felt "big" and wore a size 12 jeans.
I began losing weight when I switched to a vegan diet (personal choice...I know it's extreme, but it's right for me). When I started losing weight I got hooked on it and began working out regularly. At this point, I'm pretty much addicted to my workouts and try to get an hour in almost every day.
Now I'm down to between 126-128 at 5'6" tall. Everyone is telling me that I look too skinny and that I need to stop losing. I'm no longer trying and am hoping my body is going to settle into this weight. I feel good, full of energy, and I don't deprive myself of food...I eat what I want, but the foods I eat are pretty much low-calorie.
My problem is that I still don't see myself as "thin". I'm down to a size 4 jeans that are beginning to get loose. I have one pair in a size 2 that fit. The odd thing is that...and I know this is probably warped thinking...when I look at a pair of jeans that I wear now, they don't look small to me. Size 4's used to look tiny, but now that I wear them, they don't. I still look big to myself when I look in the mirror. And when my boyfriend visited (lives across the country), he was so shocked by my size that he continually felt the need to pick me up (he's a nut!)...but my head kept saying "No, I'm too heavy...you can't pick me up!"

Tell me something that will help me get my head on straight! I don't want to be unhealthy and I know I need to work on being happy/satisfied with myself. I'm way too old to mess with any sort of eating disorder mentality! Does anyone else have this same problem?

Thanks!

It takes a while to get used to your new size. I still find myself doing a double take when I pass by a mirror or window and see my reflection. I found that taking pictures of myself helped me slowly adjust to reality.

Your post made me laugh - I do the same thing when DH tries to pick me up - old habits are hard to break.

Keep positive affirmations going - daily. Every time you start to think that you are still "big", correct yourself. It will get easier as time goes on.

Yep, this happens to me too. If I catch my reflection in a mirror or a plate of glass at the mall or something, before I know it is me, I always think the person looks really slim; however, if I stare at myself in a mirror, sometimes I just don't feel thin. It sounds like we are about the same "size" -- I am mostly in Size 4, some Size 2 things fit. However, as time is passing, I am getting better at seeing what is really in the mirror, and the comments from people help with this.

I also laughed about your comment regarding being picked up. My husband picked me up last night and I was telling him "Stop! You are going to hurt your back!" I just automatically fell back into not wanting him to try to pick me up or not sitting on his lap because I felt like I weighed too much.

What I did to prevent me from going overboard was set a bottom "red line" that I would not cross based on my body fat percentage because it is WAY too easy for me to fall into the "if I just lost a few more pounds my tummy, thighs, whatever, would be perfect" kind of thinking. I am currently sitting a pound or so over my red line, and have been upping my calories to stay there. It is, however, a balancing act.

At your height, your weight is still perfectly healthy...but, yes, definitely thin enough by any measure.

Good luck!

Sorry to jump in not quite being a maintainer but I can relate to this very much so. My sister and I were just discussing it. She has lost weight and has a few pounds to go but is so much more level headed than I am. She is so positive about her weight loss and sees herself as a thinner version of herself and is very pleased with that. Me on the other hand, I've managed to go from a size 10 to a 4 but I'm having a hard time adjusting. If you had told me in January I would be a size 4 before the year was over, I would have been thrilled but now it doesn't look that thin even though none of my old clothes fit. Its the strangest thing, I've never really felt this was but then again I've never been this size before so I'm giving myself time to get used to it.

I still don't really see myself as 'skinny'. I'm 5'5." (my doctor's office won't give me that last little half an inch!) and this morning I weighed 119.5. I've been up and down the last couple of weeks from 117 to 121.5. I'm with you on the jeans - my 4s are loose, I tried on 2s the other day that almost fit. I look at the 4s when I have them on and think that they look huge sometimes. Odd how our perception changes... I still look down and seem tummy - particularly when I lean over or am doing yoga - and I think about losing more weight to get rid of it. I am most definitely at the lowest weight point for my height and build, rationally I know that I can't go lower. Friends and family mostly tell me I look great, but don't go smaller.

I will tell you that it has gotten easier to accept the size I am now over the last three months. I added strength training back into my workout routine and have lost an inch of my tummy fat while maintaining the same weight range. I'm getting used to me. I don't see myself as skinny, but I'm hoping I will soon. I make a conscious effort to consume enough calories every day. I've noticed that one short day quickly turns into two turns into three turns into a pound down on the scale turns into "I wonder if I could lose more"...

I'm working on muscle definition right now and hope that will help me feel better and keep me from going over the edge into too skinny. it also gives me a goal to work towards, and I like having goals.

I took Schumeany's suggestion actually, of a 'redline' - mine is 117. I got a little below that when I was sick a few weeks ago and worked to get back above it.

Good luck!

i sort of see myself as "thin," but i mostly see myself as "fit." i have really usable muscles now that i didn't have before. i lifted a table over my head at work today to move it to another room, and my boss was like, "uhh, are you okay with that?" i guess i look small, which is weird. someone last week referred to me as "petite," and my boss told me today that i'm "little." what??

I am not as small as you, but NO I don't see myself as thin. I am hoping I will feel "thin" by the time I reach goal.

I didn't until I got a flash of myself in a door window and realized that was me! Now I regularly spin around in front of the mirror in my size 4 jeans It helps to remind myself how much I love the way I look and feel, way more than I would enjoy that plate of cookies in the breakroom!

I think a lot of this depends on when the mental snapshot we have of ourselves was taken. Mine seems to have been taken when I was a lot thinner, so everytime I see myself in the mirror, I think "Gads I'm fat". I am still fat, so it's not a totally unreasonable thing to say, but I thought I would have been happier with my body by now. I'm not a maintainer yet, but I have lost a noticeable amount of weight. I was a size 18, and now am getting too thin for my size 14 clothes. I *know* I am thinner, I can feel how my body has changed and reshaped, but I don't see it in the mirror. I just see a fat person.

I have a very close friend who was anorexic (she's healthy at the moment), and we have discussed this a fair bit. Losing a lot of weight can trigger anorexia, but if you eat a reasonable amount of calories, do not exercise obsessively (an hour a day is not obsessive), and are within the normal weight range for your height, you are ok.

It may take awhile for your mental image of yourself to reset, and in the meantime, as long as you are listening to the feedback you get from people you trust (medical personnel, family, close friends), you should be ok. Congrats on your loss by the way!

BP

Sdnyc-- I am the same weight and jean size as you and yup-- those 4s are looking pretty "big." Its sooo weird because I was a size 24-26 only a little less than 3.5 years ago and now--- aiy it is just so strange how a size 4 could look "big" to me!!
I think I am slowly adjusting to seeing myself as others perceive me but still-- some days I feel like I have such a "fat face" and just the other day my doctor took one look at me and asked if I had lost weight because my face was "much more angular" and that I looked like I was "wasting away." Crazy talk if you ask me because I am only 5'4" so I am not uber-thin or anything!!!

But, just goes to show how differently we perceive our own bodies most of the time!

I totally know what you mean! In high school I lost 30 lbs and went from a Junior size 9 to a size 3 and I still didn't feel thin. I was in a play at school where this guy had to pick me up and carry me. I told my drama teacher that he would prob. not be able to pick me up and she laughed and said what are you talking about, you are tiny! It is soo hard to get over that self image and see yourself as thin!

When I was close to goal weight I shopped for jeans and chose size 10. I had to go back twice to Costco to finally get size 6 but that is loose and I am a size 4. My mind could not wrap around my smaller size.

I had my birthday a few days ago and the photos of me were startling. I had some weird thoughts pop up like "Boy she needs to put some meat on her bones!" I had a friend stop my weight loss in its tracks in 2007 by saying she liked my face better when I was plump. I was determined to lose to goal this time and I didn't see this pal until I was at goal. The face thing is going to be a hard adjustment.

As for attention, some men do give good feedback. Women generally say I am too thin.

But I would rather have these to deal with than being at 240 wondering if I was going to die in my sleep from a heart attack!