Congrats iDream! You did it!

Lori, I completely understand about feeling kind of freakish right now. I'm having freakish moments everyday. It usually involves other peoples reactions to me and my current size. I too have lowered my goal weight a couple of times. I don't know if it's my unsatisfaction with the way I look at a certain/goal weight. Or if I want to see how low I can go. Is a lower weight maintainable? Can I still drink a beer and eat chocolate at a lower weight? For right now, I am continuing what has worked for me in the past--calorie counting, lots of exercise, water and rest. I am telling myself for now that my body will decide my final goal weight. I feel great physically but am still rather confused about how I really look to the outside world. Sometimes I feel positively tiny and other times huge. I still have a fear that I will wake up and be 248 lbs again...

Really? years later it still doesn't feel normal to be at goal weight? Honestly, that is a bit discouraging. I know this is something I have to work on forever but will it ever become second nature? :(

I'm about 15 pounds from goal (well, my first goal....not sure it's my final goal) and in a month-long stall. Or we could just say I'm practicing maintenance, LOL. I think I need this time to adjust to where I am. Some days I feel slim, other days I feel like I still weigh 245 pounds. When I pick up clothes off the rack to try on, I am not very accurate at selecting the right size--I either get stuff that's way too big or too tight. I used to be better at being able to look at something and tell if it would fit.

My best friend told me yesterday that I'm getting too thin (at 197 lbs? F cup bra?). So apparently she needs time to adjust to my new weight, too.

I don't know why this body image thing is so confusing.

I think it depends on whether you have been obese/overweight all of your life, or if you developed obesity later. I was a "normal"-sized person until my 30s, and what I had trouble realizing was that I had become obese. It crept up on me. Now that I'm closer to my "normal" adult weight, I feel more like I always did. So, being heavy was abnormal to me.

Jay

I know what you mean about the clothes. I still have my skinny clothes in my drawers. I'll grab a pair of shorts that look small and think "These won't fit but what the heck, lets try them on," to my shock.....they fit. I'm so used to looking at larger waisted pants that its shocking that I'm starting to fit into my old clothes again.
I've been MIA from my friends for a month due to my kids being either sick or bad weather. when they see me they gasp and comment on my weight. I'm not used to it because I know I've been losing but forget that these people haven't seen me in a while.
The cool thing is that these friends have decided to start a group to lose weight. One of them called to ask me questions and I gladly told her what I knew. I'm hoping I'm setting a good example.

This is a really great thread to read, thanks for starting mom4life! :)

I think that JayEll is onto something here. I've been overweight or obese for the last 25 years, pretty much my whole adult life. My current weight is not the norm for me or the norm for others' perception of me. People are shocked when they see me. And Windchime, I've been getting those comments too. I had a close friend tell me in June, about 10-12 lbs ago, that I shouldn't lose any more.

Yeah, it's strange. I'm clearly not "skinny" by any objective measure. My best friend would never say anything mean or hurtful so I know she wasn't being catty; just expressing concern. She hadn't actually noticed that I lost any weight at all until Friday, and I think it was because I was wearing a pair of pants that I hadn't worn for awhile. I appreciate her concern but I honestly don't think I look too thin at almost 200 pounds; I think I'm just not weighing what she is accustomed to me weighing.

My mom has also made noise that I shouldn't lose too much more but I am discounting that because she's my mom and that's just what moms say!

i'm roughly 16 lbs from my first goal and it seems weird to be so close. i don't know what to do with myself. :-D lol

I agree. I was also normal weight until close to 30, then was increasingly overweight and then obese for about 10 years. It took a while to "see" myself as obese and really believe it, but I got there. Then after I lost, it took a while to get used to it again. But while I've gotten used to my current size again, I'm just barely starting to identify with my "old" self again.