i don't know if this is the same thing, but i've been overweight my whole life...three times i've lost weight to the point where i was thin...in my mind i always feel like those three times are normal and the other 99% is the exception...i also notice that when i lose a little bit of weight i tend to feel fatter than before i start losing weight

It depends on the day. Some days I feel like a million bucks and think that I look like it, too. Some days I feel extra squishy and blobby and those aren't my favorite days.

I always referred to those kinds of days as my 'fugly' days. My youngest recently exclaimed 'Mom!' when I said that. Apparently it doesn't mean 'fat and ugly' anymore. lol

I've lost almost three sizes (from a 20 to a 14- some 14's are still too tight) and when I look in the mirror I don't see anything different. I had a physical on Tuesday and when I mentioned I was still a little overweight to the dr. she said that I looked like a healthy weight (I'm still 14 lbs over a "healthy weight"). I don't "see" that. It drives my husband nuts. My goal is to be the weight/size I was before kids (158-163 and size 10-12). Maybe when I get there I will feel differently.

I feel fat in my head.

Which is funny, cause I never think I'm as fat as I look in pictures.

Darn those pictures.

this is actually an amazing thread to read! good idea.

for me,
dressed, showered, and good results on the scale, standing on my own: skinny

after yoga: big, but muscular and fit - healthy

dressed, beside other people, large- but not fat.

naked- somewhere between fat and damaged. i understand that stretch marks are beautiful, and they tell a story- but i just recently started developing the "pooch" of saggy belly skin, and it's REALLY started to bug me.

mind you- lb wise- i still weigh more then i should, but clothes size wise, i am very little, i attribute it to muscle. the only place that i can really still pick out fat is in my arms and tummy.

Fat, totally. I KNOW from looking at pictures that I look drastically different and yet, I still act like I'm 400 lbs sometimes. I go to restaurants and always try to look for the table, I get on an airplane and ask for an extender that I never need and I still buy my clothes 1-2 sizes too big.

TMI(ish) but I was kissing my, uh, special friend over the weekend on a sofa and at one point, he said "come sit on my lap". Now he's an amateur bodybuilder ('cause I had to work that into the conversation somehow, right?) but still, only about 5'10" and at most, 180-190. I told him I didn't want to crush him. He was all "I can leg press 700 lbs and besides, you're not that big" and I was like "Oh yeahhhhhh, you're NOT that much heavier than him these days..." It's mind-boggling

I'm pretty sure I'm thin in my head. I'm always surprised when I see pictures of myself, lol...like "Who's that chunker?"

I don't feel like this fat is part of me. Its just a parasite that attached itself through me because of yummy food and bad decisions.

When I was my heaviest at 255 lbs I didn't feel that fat. But boy did the pictures tell another story!

Now that I have lost 71 lbs I don't know what I look like. I had my husband take pictures of me so I could look at them. But, even with the pictures showing me much smaller...I don't really feel any different except that I know it is much easier to move around.

I hope that some day my body and my mind will be in agreement.

I just wanted to say, as the one that started this thread, that I've read every reply as they've been posted. This has been a very interesting thread. I wonder where we get our self perception from?

There are a lot of factors as far as whether I feel fat or thin. If I'm in clothes that fit closely (not tight, not baggy), I feel normal...until I look in the mirror. I tend to think that I'm a lot more compact that I actually am. I don't think of myself as HUGE alone, but then I go to work and am considerably larger than all my co-workers (not just weight but also at least a couple...or several...inches taller). I run into things because I have a no concept of where my body parts are. When I look in the mirror, I am generally disgusted by what I see...more now, after having been working out than I did before, since the blubber just hangs there now. Tried eating healthy when I first started exercising and gained 10 lbs in 2 months...kept exercising but ate whatever and have lost most of that, but basically stuck. So sick of my body...and the tricks my mind plays about it!

When I was a teen I was a lifeguard with a healthy body weight and in very good condition! For many years I always saw myself in this body as "thin"... Even after I gain some weight I still saw myself as thin... Then reality set in and I had to see the real me - very obese... FAT!

Now as I am losing weight I have days that I see myself as fat and other days as almost thin.. conflicting thoughts make me feel

Oh well.. Better to think almost thin as very obese