When did you realize you were getting smaller?
 

I've been on a pretty regimented eating plan for the past 7 weeks. I've been sticking mostly to plan (with a little 3-day hiccup last week!) and have lost 17lbs. Since I'm only 5'4" and started out at 176#, I would have thought that 10lbs would look pretty noticable. It didn't. At all.

And, then I woke up on Monday and looked at myself in the mirror and realized that at 16lbs lost, I finally looked smaller. *Noticably* smaller. But it was almost like it happened overnight. I ate *a lot* last week -- pasta for dinner three nights in a row, two pieces of cheesecake, an Oreo dessert thing) -- but was otherwise eating well and exercising a lot. (We were skiing for the week at a BIG mountain in Maine. I also went to the gym twice while we were away.

Do you think maybe the binge helped? I'm not looking for a reason to binge eat again - LOL, but wondering if maybe my diet needed shaking up or I needed a break. Because right after that, I literally started looking a lot smaller. Other people noticed, too.

Weird. Anyone have this experience?

I think it took me about 25 pounds before I thought I looked smaller in the mirror. When I shopped for the first time after I had lost weight I fit into a 12. I knew what I was doing was definitely working then.

Congratulations on your loss.

Wow...let me think back. I started at 196 and was wearing a size 16 misses. I think when i first realized i looked skinnier was when i had lost about 30 pounds. I didn't take pictures until i had already lost 20 pounds. I put on my 2 peice bikini i had bought to wear in the privacy of my own 2 acres of land out in the country to try to tan my white fat...and the first thing i noticed were that my shoulders were not as fat. I actually had a little definition there. Then i looked at my waist line and noticed it was slimmer. True...i was wearing a size 12 pants...but still...that was the first time i really "noticed" I "looked" skinny. Pictures do wonders for showing you how your body is changing. And if you are like me, and have a way of printing out your own pictures...no one ever has to see those bikini pics but you. I keep mine hidden away in my weightloss journal book. Now i pull them out to see how far i "HAD" gotten and how close i was to my goal and how far i have to go again since i put back on 20 pounds. Summer is coming and i'd like to get back to where i was last summer.

Mirrors aren't usually as helpful for me as they are for you. Some days & from some angles, I still can't see it.

What usually happens is my jeans get loose in the waist. That's how I know. The jeans slide down on my hips & my underwear starts poking up at the top, like an early 90s rapper. And I get the diaper effect in the butt, with the major sagging going on. That's the beginning.

Over time, I start to actually see changes in my body, but the first thing is the waistline changing.

I agree, pictures do wonders. I have taken them weekly since day one and in EACH there is no denying that I am getting smaller. Some weeks it's little changes but my body IS changing. I also take monthly measurements to prove to myself that I am getting smaller.

As for looking in the mirror I still don't see it. Over the last 5 years I have lost the same 20-30 lbs. so many times I have a really warped sense of self. Clothes aren't much help either as I having everything from size 6 - 20 and currently depending on the maker I wear a 10-16.

For me having the pictures has been a huge motivator to stay on plan. I see where I have been and how each week of healthy eating and exercise is paying off. I have decided that IF I were to go off plan I will continue to take weekly pictures with the hope of seeing where I am headed and turning things around.

saef, there are days I look in the mirror and feel the same..I just don't "see" it...I keep one pair of size 16 Jeans that used to be tight on me for a reminder...I put them on from time to time to kind of "reward" myself...they fall to my ankles now...

I've lost 17lbs since my re-start and I can't see anything yet. However, my shirt buttons that were strained when I was standing and popped if I sat down, are now fine, and I'm hunting out the size smaller that I grew out of on the way up here.....

wondering too
 

219/204.6/150

I have lost almost 15 pounds in a little over a month and still don't see that I am thinner. My pants are a little looser on the thighs but that's it.:(

It's really hard for me to notice in the mirror. I'll first notice because my belt gets loser, then I need to take it in a notch. Then I'll notice as my pants get looser and I need to go down a size.

My parents came for a visit a couple months ago and that was about the 30 lb mark, they could tell a difference.

My DH went to sea when I had lost ~15 lbs, nothing noticeable yet. When he got back (I was down 45 lbs then), he didn't know how much I had lost and when a group of us got to go out and meet the boat coming in, he didn't even recognize me coming down the ladder. That was great!

Now I can notice the difference when I look in the mirror. I can't really say when it started, but at some point in the last 1-2 months I started liking what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

My clothes started feeling looser at 20 pounds, but it wasn't until I lost the first 40 before I saw a visual difference (and 50 before anyone else noticed a thing).

About 20 lbs. Other people noticed and commented before I could see anything, though.

hmmm I have lost a total of 45 lbs now and I pretty much still look the same but then I again I have 145lbs to lose so I accept that I may have to lose 50 or 60 lbs before it is noticible.

Not one person has said I looked smaller except for my WW buddy and my sister and both know I am dieting. No one has come up to me yet and said "are you losing weight?" LOL! I am waiting for the day!

I look in the mirror and I get depressed because I look the same. But my clothes feel a tiny bit looser but then again they were ALL tight on me when I started.

I think I am losing all over very slowly at the same time so unfortunately my shape is not changing! LOL! I was kinda hoping my stomach would go down first!

My weight's evenly distributed over my body :( so it took me a lot longer than most people here to see any changes in my body so I looked "smaller." But when I finally did see myself as "smaller" in the mirror, it was a sweet moment! :)

Clothes dont really help me... i mean.. even if i lose weight.. ill still wear the same size. i just dont understand it. im 5'11 and my pants never get smaller. the ones i own are baggy, i go shopping for new ones... its the same size. is there really such a thing as big boned? if there is, thats probably me. lol it sucks:(