I'm not quite sure how to word this as to get my thoughts out clearly, but I'll give it a whirl...

I'm now two months shy of 3 years maintaining my weight loss and though it took me some time to realize that I am no longer a fat person, I DO realize that now. The clothing was a big help to me. I'd see the small clothes and they were fitting me and well yeah. I know I'm substantially smaller than I used to be. And yes, I am not fat and I guess I'll even concede that I'm - small.

But my face - that's the thing. Again, I realize that it is substantially smaller than it used to be. But I am CERTAIN that I still have a *full* face. I'm certain of it. Now it's not something that gets talked about often, certainly never by me, but I mean, it's not something people talk about or mention. I hear lots of things, oh your butt is so small, you're so tiny, look at those wrists, your waist is so narrow, where'd your hips go??? yada, yada, yada.. and I used to think "are they talking about me?" but again I DO see that - now.

But it's the face. Every now and then I will mention it to my children - like when I put my hair up and I'll comment on how full it looks and they'll say no it doesn't. Things like that. Again it doesn't come up very often. I keep it to myself. It just is what it is.

But on Saturday I was at a friends house. I told her I was having a hard time finding earrings for my daughters wedding. I told her I don't want anything too big, that the earring shouldn't be the first thing people notice when they look at me. Anyway, she goes on to tell me that she was recently at a wedding and her friend, the mother of the bride, was wearing enormous earrings and you looked at her and that's all you noticed. She continues and says that on top of it, the friend has such a tiny face and pauses and says, "yeah, just like you". And I'm telling you I just like kinda stopped in my tracks. Someone, a woman, a very good friend of mine, one who I respect and admire and go to for advice, mentioned that I have a *tiny* face. Not that I have a *normal* face, not a small face, but a TINY face. ME, who is CERTAIN that it's still quite large. It blew me away. I didn't say a word. Didn't dispute it. Kinda blanked out for a second or two, stopped hearing what she said. I came back to and we just continued on.

Now I promise you, I'm not fishing for compliments, but I just don't get it. I promise you I DON'T SEE THAT I HAVE A THIN, SMALL, REGULAR SIZED FACE.. Why is this? Has anybody else experienced this with their face in particular or perhaps any other body part?

It's bugging me.

Just "FACE" it RR, I'm sure you look Maaahvelous! For myself, I always hear your face looks sooooo thin- but I certainly don't see it, 'specially when I retain water from sodium/sugar it seems to go straight to my face for some reason, like my face is a sponge! So I get ya somewhat.. Strange how we perceive ourselves and it is different as others see us 4-sho!

"Face" the fact, your rockin it regardless!

Srangely I'm the opposite - I know I have a small face and worry about looking 'haggard' and having 'turkey neck'. I think my shoulders, neck and face are out of proportion particularly with my behind which is still substantial. I think my face is what stops me from chosing a lower goal than I have, I really don't want to look skeletal.

Kitty

Hello... I am also part of the "fat face" club... Right now I am ok with my face though... but I do think I have big cheeks and whenever I gain weight I feel like my face is one of the first places to show...
When I am overweight you can tell it just by looking a picture of my face.
Sometimes you will see face pics of over weighted people where you think they are thin because their faces look skinny.
I have a rounded face and I really hate it whenever I gain weight because it looks like a full moon with double chin.
I think the format of our face have something to do with it. Those people with thin face I mentioned above usually have a squared or long face.

Robin, what is your shape or your weight distribution? I'm bottom-heavy or pear-shaped, and my face & upper body thin out much earlier than my butt, hips and thighs. I've said before that my body follows Catherine Deneuve's saying about, "After 40, you have to choose between your face or your *ss." By the time my butt is trim, my face gets kind of gaunt & beaky. My face is one of the first places to show my weight loss. (In fact, I am dealing with a tendony neck & eye hollows & eye circles right now, while still lamenting the damnable persistence of upper thigh fat.) So, like Kitty, I may be your opposite. (We can't be sisters in this one, Chick, though we are in many other ways. ;-)

I definitely have a full-ish face. I don't have one of those sunken in, gaunt faces. Which is why when my friend described my face as *tiny* it blew me away.

I don't know, I just see - full. Round. Big.

Oddly enough, I hold all of my fat in my CALVES. I know, it's crazy. I think that being the case is why at 120 something pounds (and only 5 feet tall), I APPEAR to be smaller than I weigh and why I'm able to wear size 4's. If my calf fat were distributed though out my body - that wouldn't be the case.

My chest, shoulder area are quite bone-y - but somehow my face escaped that. Although my face definitely took a beating with the weight loss. I've got those parenthesis lines which many former morbidly obese people have on the sides of their mouth. My cheek bones DO stand out, they are noticeable. But the surrounding area - my cheeks still look puffy to me. Oh. I. Just. Don't. Know.

Whatever.

I guess what prompted me to start this thread, is that I'm just wondering if it's because - IT'S MY FACE - that I'm being blinded, not reading myself correctly (since other people seem to think I don't have a large face ) and if anyone else felt this way.

Oh. Whatever. I guess I shall never know.

rockin - I TOTALLY understand. i am about a year into maintenance and took a picture for mothers day and was SHOCKED that I have a tiny neck...

for me, usually, it is the butt... i have ALWAYS felt that I have a huge butt (well, at 320lbs I am sure i did! ha ha ha)... it is behind me so not 'in my face' like a face is... (sorry, didnt mean that to be so corney!)... sooo, my point! my trainer, who is 112lbs and about an inch shorter than me said that, from behind, we are nearly the same width! i nearly fell over!!!! she is soooo cute, soooo petit!!! blew me away!!!!

I still see 'fat kim' a lot when i look in a mirror. i have noticed that photos are just starting to show me the 'real me' and i am slowly starting to realise just what i've accomplished and how my body looks... i have been heavy for over 20 year so it is going to take more than a year to have my perceptions of myself match up !

do you have any digital software to allow you to take a photo from your heaviest and put it against a photo of you now? and then pull up your "dream face" (celebrity or ??) and see how you are more like that photo ?

Hi! Not quite calling it maintenance yet, but, uh, I have been thinking about just this topic all day, so good timing.

I think I get what you're saying, because I experience this, too. I spent so many years with a big face that I think and act as if it still is, even though I've been told over and over again that my face is really very thin now. I think of my face as round, and it's not. I am, in fact, very angular, with very prominent cheekbones -- which I had a makeup saleswoman COMMENT on TODAY, when she was helping me pick out some tinted moisturizer -- and I just sat there, looking in the mirror, wondering who the heck she was talking about. I can see my bones all over, wrists, shoulders, collarbones, breastbone, ribcage, hips, knees, ankles, etc. Were it not for a few lingering trouble spots I think 5 or 10 more pounds would improve a lot (and that's exactly where they've been coming off recently, so I'm hopeful I'm right) I would be DONE, regardless of the whole BMI thing, but my face still strikes me as big. Not as big -- even I can tell my double chin has been history for a long time now, but I expect my cheeks to be still pretty plump and that's how I see them.

I did recall reading something somewhere about how the brain recognizes faces. Unless I'm just totally misremembering this, it was something about how our brain hangs onto an image of a face we know well, so the eyes just kind of scan the outline and the memory fills in the details. If you're anything like I was, for most of the time you spent obese, your face was probably the only thing you spent much time looking at in a mirror. I know I avoided looking at my body at all costs, but I had to look at my face in the mirror order to do stuff like style my hair, put in my contacts, tweeze my eyebrows, put on make-up, etc. So I saw it all the time, and unlike with my body, my brain has a pretty strong image of my face locked up in it, so my eyes now grab the outlines, i.e., the cheekbones, the brow bone, etc., and my brain just fills in the fat cheeks, because as far as my brain is concerned, that's what my face looks like, because, you know, it DID for a good 20 years.

I could be totally wrong about that, and as I said, remembering incorrectly (and probably explaining incompetently ) but it does seem kind of plausible.

Robin - I don't see my face as tiny either. I tend to see round cheeks, full forehead, large full chin. Other people don't see it, and sometimes if I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror from an odd angle I can almost see what they see.

In my case I think it is just like Catherine said above me - I fill in the details I remember when I look at my face in the mirror. I can clearly see the differences everywhere else now, but my face looks round to me. Particularly on days where I'm retaining more water. I think it is absolutely because it is my face - I can't get the various comments all of my life out of my head. "You have such a round chubby face, you shouldn't wear your hair long." Or "Your face just can't carry big earrings, it gives you mickey mouse ears." Or my favorite "women with big round faces should have short hair and wear long thin earrings to draw the eye down and away from the fat" from my aunt who thought she was helping.

I could probably look at your face and totally tell you how skinny it looked.

I've heard about this theory before. I think it was on this forum. The bold part of your post definitely applied/applies to me.

I'm the opposite, my face is very angular. One of the reasons I often dont see weight gain and why other people think I am a lot smaller than I am is because my face stays thin. My sister, who is well over 200 lbs, looks skinny in head only shots.

I do get that there are people with the opposite issue - their face is the first thing to get thin and once they start losing weight, it gets *too* thin, although who's to say what too thin for a face, or any other part is. I am clearly not in that category - or am I???? No, really, really, I'm not.

Catherine, I think you touched upon something and as usual have brought up a very good point. I definitely think, like I mentioned in the title of this thread - that I'm feeling what I'm feeling, because - it's my FACE.

I'm telling you, pictures and all, I just can't get a good read on it. So be it.

Almost 3 years at goal, and I am not getting a clear picture of my face. It's really not all that important. I'm just glad that I've had some where that I could voice it. Because if I mentioned it to any one here at home, they'd think I'd gone loco, well, more loco than usual, that is.

Thanks for the input ladies.