Something I've thought alot about is self image. I rarely let anyone take a full body picture and up until this diet rarely weighed myself, instead going by how I felt and my clothes fit. Just prior to starting this diet I saw a picture of me and was "shocked" at how I looked. I was way heavier looking then I thought.
Its interesting now that I'm losing weight how confused I still am as to how I look, I see other women and can't determine if we are similar in size or not. I admit I often see myself as thinner then I am.
Is this something the rest of you have experienced?
How are you adjusting to the rapid weight loss and how you see yourself?

I experience this all the time. I look at my self in the mirror and think holy I'm 10 pounds lighter then I actually am then when I step on the scale, so I ignore the scale because what I see is different. Then there are days I think I'm back up to 180 when I'm still the same weight I was when I felt thin. It's all about your mind and how it can play tricks on you. I think I look good on the camera now and have no problem with the weight I'm at to take pictures then when I was up 10 pounds before. I say if one day you wake up and you think you look amazing go with it and don't worry about thinking, you think you are "thinner" then you really are.

(I'm not doing Ideal Protein but this popped up in the latest post section and was interesting to me.)

I feel like when I was young, I had a sense of my size. I thought I was fat, but I revised that opinion. I was big and stocky though. And I think I went through life comparing myself to other woman, and had a pretty good sense of where I fit in. Bigger than this one, smaller than that. (I wish I wasn't size conscious, but I am.) Once I got to a certain size, however, I had no idea. I still do this. I'm at the grocery store and wonder, Is that how big my butt is? Do I look like that? I just don't know anymore. I had a friend a couple years ago, and I was pretty sure I wasn't as big as her, but just didn't quite know. Turns out she out-weighed me by 100 lbs!

Wow a 100 pound difference, amazing that it can be hard for us to tell a difference like that. Body shapes are all so different too, and clothing sizes. I know I have somewhat of a muscular frame, especially after working out with a trainer for months but I find I weigh almost 20 pounds more then used to wearing the same size clothes...if that makes any sense.

I have the same problem. I don't feel skinny, but I feel curvy. Sometimes when I see photos, I think "that is not me"! Stepping on scales is a reality check,as are photos. If I saw myself my actual weight, I probably would have done something sooner!

when i was heavier, i always thought i was smaller than i actually was. now that i am at a normal weight, i tend to think i am much larger than i actually am. because the weight comes off so quickly on IP, you mind has a really hard time adjusting to your rapidly changing body. at 163 i feel like i'm still 235. i have a hard time seeing the utterly amazing progress that i have made and tend to only see the bad areas that still need improvement. the other day i tried on size 6 jeans, but i felt like i was wearing a 14. it's tough, but i hear that you mid will catch up to your body at some point. hang in there!!!

I agree 100% with laura.

When I was heavier I too thought I was smaller. I would look in the mirror and see someone who was a size 14, not a 18-20. When I saw pictures of myself I just told myself that the camera adds weight.

Now that I am losing weight I am the opposite. I will see a picture and think holy cow I look great! but in the mirror I actually look bigger than how I thought I looked when I was 50lbs heavier!

The mind is a powerful thing! Too bad it can play tricks.

I agree with both Laura and Sandra, I too when I was bigger thought I was a lot smaller, now I look in the mirror and I see a different face, but to me my body looks the same. I am forcing myself to have someone take progress pictures of me. I look at people now and wonder how much do they weigh and did I look like that. I still look at the progress pictures and see my rolls and my chest being way too big but I know it will take a while for my mind to catch up with my body. I know I am now wearing 14s and 12s but still feel like I am wearing 20 and 18s. I think we are always so much more hard on ourselves when we are trying to improve ourselves. I think this is a very common thing and it was a great topic to bring up. Thank you.

This a very interesting topic to me. As a teenager, and young woman I always thought I was fat, which was totally unrealistic. I look back at yearbooks and pictures and think "oh to look like that again". However I know that thinking came from my childhood and partly from the way I was raised. My mom was always on a diet, always restricting food, probably more for herself than for us kids. My sis and I have had many a discussion about how we would sneak oreos, or my favorite, peanut butter on a spoon. If we were caught we were reprimanded and we remember being told the number of calories we had consumed by eating those 3 cookies, or that spoonful of peanut butter. I even have a memory of drinking hershey's syrup out of the can and my mom catching and making me finish the can (it was a litttle one.... but still a lot). Consequently we both had a lot of warped perceptions about eating and body image. Interestingly we have both fought our weight although I was way more out of control than she ever was. I find myself doing a lot of thinking about how that has affected me as an adult. I have been a food sneaker even til this point in my life, even though it is my food in my house. Sad stuff but part of what I am working to think through and come to terms with now.

I hope as I lose this weight, I am able to appreciate my body for what it is and with my love of working out, build a healthy new one to last me the rest of my days.

Isn't life strange??

I too can only see what I haven't lost and still feel as large as I did before I started. Its a shock to me when I put on some clothes and they fit, its like my mind hasn't caught up like Laura said. Then I'll be running down the stairs and feel the difference in how my body feels as I move down them, or how much easier it is to walk up them haha.
Crawfishmonica...I can relate to how your felt growing up and that you thought you were heavy, I'm so suprised to look at old pictures and see I looked great! My mother pushed diets on my sister and I too and I also think it was her own issue and not ours. I am also guilty of eating secretively. Hiding from my own shame I suppose more then anything. NO More though...Its about finding ways to deal with things that don't involve food

When i was bigger I was kidding myself to HOW big
& now im losing im just confused.
With the Mirror im see im fatter than i am, But then in pics im DISGUSTED im still that big
Other People def see me as thiinner than i am......Which is confusing for me.

I really like www.mybodygallery.com, You can put in your height and weight info and it shows pictures of real women who are the same as you! Its interesting to see someone the same weight as you, but they appear so slim or maybe they appear to be larger. Some people carry weight really well and its nice to see that.

I will chime in here.

When I was 246 and my height....I avoided pictures and the scale...how nice...I could live right where I wanted....DENIAL!

this is weird to see this thread because my daughter and I had a huge conversation about this today. I always thought I wasn't too big...but come on....when you weigh over 200 pounds....you are not small by any means.

My daughter got to 300 pounds and she still feels like she did at 175. She was disappointed that not many people noticed her loss at around 250, but she is only 5'3".....she really needs to get below 200 for it to be noticed and that can be so discouraging.

I really didn't get a ton of compliments until around 190...(there were some before that and plenty), but they really came in at around 190 and now.


So I how do I feel now at a better weight....big! End of story.

I have been taking a ton of pictures of myself just so I can start to catch up with the change. My self-image is very distorted. (my cousin recommended the picture idea).

It is weird because in my mirrors at home....I don't feel too different, but if I catch my image in a public mirror....I won't even know it is me.

Wow ladies we have a life-tme of re-training our minds ahead of us.

But remember we are all worth it.

All this makes me think I need to start taking progress pictures. How often did you all take the progress pictures?

Take them as often as possible