I am trying to set up an image in my head of what to expect from my goal weight so I am not disappointed. I will finally be shot of the bumpy tummy from my surgery, but I am a large-framed person and much as I'd love to feel thin one day I don't think it will be like that. I have big arms, I've always had big arms. I've put on a few photos which hopefully meet the upload limits and everything. The first one is my fattest fat photo from a few years ago, the weight piled on after I met my husband and started eating like him. Much of that weight is gone now, but what is interesting is when I look at all of the other photos apart from the last one I felt fat in all of those pictures too, especially the one in the striped uniform because all the other girls could move their arms in theirs and mine gaped at the bust and caught at the back every time I moved, and I have that tummy roll too.

The final photo is really intersting because it's the only picture I have from when I was very skinny. Normally when you look at a picture of an anorexic person you think OMG that person is really skinny, but I don't look at that and think I look dreadful, I just look like any of those other skinny girls out there, I just look slim, not terrifyingly skinny. Just for reference in that skinny picture I weigh 98lbs, so obviously that's unhealthy. Maybe I am looking very harshly on all these photos? The biggest irony is the only photo I didn't feel that fat is the massive one!! Not sure how big I am in the fat photo, the others I am probably 155-165.

I'm trying to set a goal I can be happy with, would be interested in pictures of other people with a larger body frame, especially someone who is large but short. I'm not sure what to make of all this, I don't want to have a mental image of getting skinny when I'm only ever going to be a more healthy, lean big person. Not entirely sure if I can find the question here, but just pondering these photos, really.

Well, if youve been 98 pounds then i think you already have a good idea what you will look like at goal....
im sorry, but if you can get to 98 pounds at 5'5" then you most definitely do NOT have a big frame...in fact, probably a very small frame.

I have a large frame. At 5'4" and 135 pounds i wear a size 2-4.

Yes, but at 98lbs I was dying. Anyone can get to 98 lbs if they are anorexic. I got all the way to 98lbs and still don't think I look skinny! I guess everyone has a different idea what they mean by skinny, I was skin and bone, but with clothes on I never got into that UK8 or 10 that I associate with being thin.

Well, in that picture you are in baggy clothes and have something blocking part of your body. I don't think that's probably an honest reflection of how you look at 98lbs.

Yeah, that's probably true, thanks. I feel like because I have big shoulders I'll never be the size I am looking for, and need to try to figure out what I am aiming at, as I don't want to have an unrealistic goal in mind. I might try to get a bigger hairstyle cos I have a very small head (age 4-6 hat size) which to me accentuates my bigger shoulders. I feel all out of proportion, short legs, long body, short arms.... I am only 5'5 but wear a "tall" in vests and T-shirts because everything else rolls up above my belly button, I wear a "short" in pants and a "petite" in jackets otherwise the body of the jacket and the sleeve length is too long. I might custom make some clothes once I am happy with my size, and certainly after my surgery I will be a much more normal shape - you can't see it in the pictures but I have a very strange stomach cos of the scars I have, and my natural waistline is over 2 inches above my navel.

Raw fabric is so expensive here compared to ready-made clothes, it's annoying that I can buy a jacket for £20 but it's £10 a metre for fabric to make one with! I'd ask my mum to bring back several yards of fabric from her travels in India, but she'd bring something with a revolting giant brown and orange swirly pattern in a super-cheap weave that is entirely inappropriate for making jackets out of! It will be my present to myself when I finish to make some stuff that fits perfectly, and it's a motivation to stay at my goal!