For those of you who are maintaining, do you like pictures of the old you? Are they easier or harder to look at than before you lost the weight? And for those in this process, like me, what do you think you're going to feel about the old pictures?
Like so many, I hate pictures of me. My in-laws have a HIDEOUS picture of me displayed at their house. It's of all of us on a cruise. The other five people in the picture are wearing black and I am wearing bright, bold red and I stick out like a ripe tomato. I have the picture too but won't display it. I think that once I lose this weight, I will proudly display the picture, because it won't be me anymore. But right now, I can't even bear to look at it, like somehow looking at it makes it real or makes it who I am.
I think it will be hard for me to LIKE the old pictures, as I don't like them now. But I've known people who've lost weight and hide away all their old fat pictures. That's 24 years of my life, I will not be hiding them away.
I DESPISE the few pictures that I have of myself. I hid from the camera so there aren't all that many, but there's more than enough of them. I cringe when I see them. They are PAINFUL. I look so sad in them. I look lost. They don't even look like me. I look at them and think - who is that woman? why has she done that to herself? why would she choose to live that way? how could she have let herself go like that? WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!?!?!?
Although I despise them, I never want to be without them. Just like I've held on to one of my skirts from back in the day. I want to always remember how painful and hard and miserable "that life" was. I want to remember it, so that I make CERTAIN to never go back there. To never return to that place.
For the record - I've turned into a camera hog. I'm impossible . But hey, I've got a lot of catching up to do.
My camera phobia grew right along with my weight, and there are not that many pictures of me for the last 10 years. I hated pictures and couldn't look directly at photos of myself. Recently I've been searching for some before pictures and I can look at them now. The pics are sort of depressing because it forces me to face the fact that I let myself get that bad, but they're also inspiring because I can see my progress. I'm not sure how I'll feel once I reach my goal, but I have a feeling the few pictures I did find will be destroyed, lol.
I am not through losing weight just yet but have lost more than 200 pounds so far to date and when I look at the older photos of me in my larger than life state it doesn't even look like me to me any more. Somewhere in there I get little shots of "I still look that way" but at 200 pounds lighter of a man I know that I don;t look the same and I know that i don't feel the same, I sort of like the old pictures because it's a reminder of how far I've come with this whole process and I just plain old like the look on peoples faces when I show them those old images
I still have 50-75 pounds to lose yet (yeah I started off at 534 pounds) and I can only imagine that the difference between now and then will be huge as well never mind the from the beginning pictures. Though I am not at that "after goal" stage just yet I don;t think I will dislike the images, they are what they are and that is a former version of me. there are a ton of pictures in my blog for anyone that cares to have a look the link is in my sig line.
Like others, I don't like my "before" pictures NOW. I think that they will remind me of being miserable when I look back at them in the future. Perhaps that will serve as a motivator for me or maybe it will just make me sad.
As I lost weight and got smaller and smaller in real life, my hips looked larger and larger in that photo. As the fat came off, I was able to see myself, really SEE myself, as I looked to everyone else. The blinders of denial came off and I realized that, in fact, I was huge in that before picture. What was I thinking??
YES!! Meg, I could have written this! I never saw myself as fat (if you can believe it, at 226 lbs). I thought of myself as "thick" but never "fat". As I lose weight, I honestly feel like I get bigger and bigger in my old pictures. I cannot BELIEVE how big I was! What's especially painful is looking at pics where I knew I was trying especially hard to not look as thick and I was HUGE! HUGE! I was in complete and total denial. I also want to cry for the girl in those pictures because if she knew what she really looked like, she'd have been horrified. Even looking back at the pictures I'd taken along my weight-loss journey, I can see that, even thought I felt smaller, I was still big. I looked better, yes, for sure but I can clearly see the extra weight on me. It's kind of mind boggling sometimes. Sometimes I sit and think, "Wow, no wonder everyone is so shocked at my loss."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Meg
Pictures are such a strange thing. Whenever I get a photo taken now, I expect to look much, much larger than I actually do. I'll upload it and stare and stare, wondering who is this person? Is this really how I look to everyone else?
This is also very true for me. I'm always amazed when I look tiny in a pictures now.
What Robin said. I'm glad I have them. They keep me on the straight-and-narrow. They also serve for shock value when people don't believe I used to weigh nearly 400 lbs (a little over a year ago, I might add). It's weird, they look like me, but they don't. When I started on this journey I believed I could do it, and with every deprivation I told myself, you're doing this in order to become the person you should have always been. Now I look back and thank the 370-lb me for sacrificing herself so that I could live. I really think of it in those terms...the old me had to die in order for the new me to live. In exchange, she gets to come along with me for the rest of this fabulous life/ride.
Do I like this picture? No. Well, my daughter looks cute, but other than that, it's just an excellent reminder of what I looked like at my highest weight (171), and that I don't want to go there again. Ever.
I have mixed feelings. (see link in my sig for pics)
On one hand, I absolutely HATE seeing them. They are depressing. They are embarrassing. Like others above, I shunned the camera. I have very few pictures that include me for much of my adult life. Lots of pictures of the rest of the family, but very few with me. I became the family photographer intentionally, just so that I would not be in the pictures.
On the other hand, they are a constant reminder of what could be. What could happen if I return to "old ways". Thus, they are invaluable as a resource on this life-long journey.
I avoided the camera like the plague for over 20 years. My mother-in-law has a hideous picture of me displayed in her living room. She cut and pasted it with a picture of my husband and kids and she pasted a picture of flowers over my stomach. I really hate seeing it every time we go there. She has dementia now so I'm seriously thinking of replacing it with something else when she's not looking
I am another one that did not realize just how bad I looked. I finally allowed some pictures of myself to be taken when we took a vacation two years ago and really seeing myself in them was one of the things that motivated the weight loss. I was in denial for many years. It still hurts to look at them, but they are starting to feel like someone else. I'm slowly starting to see myself as a normal weight person. I was guilty of destroying many pictures of myself, so there are huge holes where there is no evidence of my weight gain. I'm sure in years to come I will be really sad that I did that. At the time it was how I dealt with it. I wish I could go back in time and help that girl. It does no good to think of that though, just move forward and make the future better!
After goal, will you like your old pictures?
. But hey, I've got a lot of catching up to do. 
