I've been writing and reading about feeling obsessed with your new body at its lower weight.
In November/December I experienced a minor whoosh of weight loss, and suddenly looked thinner, even though I have been slowly losing weight for the past year. However, this was a time when I went down a size in clothing and everything in my closet was baggy.
I went Goodwill shopping and makeup shopping and started spending lots of time on my appearance. I felt great even though I wasn't at my goal weight yet. I felt thinner for the first time in a long time. My hard work was paying off!
However, now 1 or 2 months later, my new thin is now my old fat. Now that I am used to my "new" weight, I am ready to go down more and the scale won't cooperate! One year ago I would have been thrilled to be at my current weight, but now I feel fat again!
Do you guys ever feel this way - first thin when you achieve a mini-goal, and then fat when you plateau at that new weight?
I feel that way all the time on this journey! It's a natural process of adjusting to new weights, when you're not at your goal. I get excited to reach a milestone, wrap my brain around my new body and how it looks and feels, and then decide its not where I want to be and that it's time to continue down the scale more.
It can be a perfectly healthy behavior, or an incredibly destructive behavior, depending on where you're at and what is motivating it. If you have a fair bit of weight to lose and are not obsessing or skewing your body image, it is motivating and part of the adjustment of a lower weight. But if you're at a healthy weight and still discontent or it is evolving into hating your body and unhealthy modifications to it (dysmorphia and related obsessive behaviors), there's a problem.
I've experienced the former, healthy behavior. I'm guarding myself carefully against ever experiencing the latter set of issues. It's not a road I am going to travel if I can help it - because the journey is STILL more about health than appearance, for me.
Yes! This has definitely been a problem for me lately. When I was heavier I never really thought of myself as fat, but now that I've lost 75 lbs when I look in the mirror I see my fat like never before! What is up with that???
Even though I am smaller I feel fatter. I don't understand it. The mind is a tricky thing. So lately I've been trying not to look at myself in the mirror. I just keep telling myself that my clothes are getting looser so I must be getting smaller.
I'm focusing on NSV's like doing C25K, learning new weight lifting routines, educating myself on nutrition and all the while making slow progress with my weight loss. This whole "new fat" situation will hopefully be resolved with further weight loss.
YES!!!!! At 127 I still feel as though I look heavy! I think this is constantly going to be a struggle. I know that obviously I look thinner than I did at 200 pounds but mentally I still see myself as needing improvement. I think this comes from years of low self esteem.
I know how you feel! I go through that too! I drop a size and I feel fabulous, and then eventually it fades. And I feel like a heifer again. I suppose if that didn't happen, we'd have a harder time proceeding on to our next goal. That darned scale, though.... I've been stuck here for about 6 weeks, not being able to acheive the 160s for more than a day. Aggrivating. Now that the holidays are over, we should get somewhere!
I just hope that when I reach my final goal, I don't get that fat feeling.
Yep all the time! At 170 I thought I would be thrilled being in the 130's, not that I am actually here I still am not fond of what I see. I think part of the problem is that maybe I expected/prayed/hoped that most of my weight would come off in my stomach, muffin top and thigh's. However, we all know that this is usually not the case and it was a silly expectation. I was thrilled seeing 135 on the scale but I am still not thrilled with the body it's left me, time to keep on working it
Oh yes, this is just how I feel. When people tell me I look thin, I have to stop myself from saying - you haven't seen me naked! I'm a BLOB! It's like now I can see the fat whereas, at my highest weight, I couldn't.
My biggest fear is that feeling like this will make me give up, which is what happened the last time I was at this weight (more than 10 years ago). I started thinking that I was always going to look fat so why bother? Bad thinking, go away!
Right beforee the holidays hit, I hit 171.2. I was looking pretty darn good and fit.
Well, in December I only exerecised a handful of times and from December 15th to January 3rd I gained 14.6 pounds. I was at 185.6. My gut looked huge. I had a muffin top and I feel like I look purely awful. However, when I got to 185 in october, I thought I looked great! Now I don't?
My New Fat
