Are you "fat" or "thin" in your head?
 

A conversation with my husband got me wondering about self image and weight loss. I was trying on clothes I bought and I told him no matter how much weight I loss, I'll always be fat in my head. (With the exception of my dad pointing out I was too thin, referring main to my upper body I think.)
My lower half is where I've always gained. And when I look in the mirror I truly see wide, fat thighs, hips and butt . It looks the same to me now (size 8) as it did as size 18.
With that my husband said he is skinny in his head. As he was always rail thin growing up and just packed on the weight in the past 5 years (he gained 100 lbs!)
I have spent my whole life "dieting", while my husband just seems to be in denial about his weight and the health issues its causing.

Are you "fat" or "thin" in your head? Does that ever change? Does it effect out motivation to lose weight?

I am always fat in my head. Always have been. When I was 21 years old & had gained up to (gasp!) 121 pounds. I was FAT. Was I really fat? Of course not. But I was in my head.

I see pics of me at 192 lb and I think "wow, I was such a pig" ... and now, 37 lb later, I KNOW I'm still "officially" overweight, but not FAT (like I was)... and yet, I AM STILL FAT IN MY HEAD. I don't think that will ever go away. :(

I think I am a little fatter than average. But then, that's what I thought when I weighed 285 too!

I will always be fat in my head. People keep telling me I am skinny now ( which I am not!) and it really embarrasses me cos I know they just mean compared to how big I was!

I think I have a fat face - so even when I reach target weight I will still look chubby!!

I have never been "fat" in my head. I was a normal-sized young person and young adult, and I never worried about weight. Young girls and teens were not weight-obsessed when I was growing up, or if they were, I didn't know those people. My mental image didn't change as my weight went up.

So part of my challenge has been actually seeing myself as overweight/obese when I have gotten there.

Jay

It keeps flipping for me. When I was a teenager and weighed 100 - 120 pounds, I thought of myself as a beached whale. Didn't help much when I joined a gym at 16 and they told me I was overweight and had to lose pounds after my initial assessment.

In my twenties I weighed 145 - 150 and thought myself normal and continued to think of myself as normal until after about a year of being over 200. Then I noticed I would give people extra space to walk around me and stuff like I weighed 500 pounds, but I still didn't "see" a fat person in the mirror even this year when I started to lose weight.

I need to take photographs of myself to see the fatness.

Now that I am 165, I no longer give that extra space to other people and but I now notice my 'fatness' in the mirror even though I am really only 15 pounds overweight.

I'm fat in my head.
When I look in the mirror, it's not that I don't see and appreciate weight lost, I really do. Can't wait to start seeing the difference any kilo now! but even when I lose weight, I know I'm slim but my in my head I'm a fat person who's become slim. Not explaining it well.....
Partly, it's because my mother was a fat child who had a horror of me being fat but fed me fat and then was embarrassed by me being fat. I have one amazing picture of me aged 2, when I look like I'm helium filled! but I have a high school photo of me that makes me sad - I bet I'm no more than a UK14, aged 16, and already I knew I was F.A.T. and lumpy and horrid. What I wouldn't give to be that size overnight!!
I'm working on it.

I'm fat in my head due to being an apple shape. I have slim thin legs, slim arms, a tiny butt and tiny little hips, but my stomach protrudes out like I'm 5 months pregnant. My BMI is in the healthy range, but my waist circumference is in the obese category.

Parallel lives, Beach Patrol. Parallel lives. I'd give anything to be as "fat" as I was in high school at 120 pounds!

And like you GlamourGirl, I carry most of my extra weight in my hips and thighs. And because it is isolated like this it doesn't matter what is going on above my waist. I still feel and look (in my opinion) fat. :( I'm just less fat than when I was in 18's.

I've been fat/heavy/obese for such a long period of my life, I'm not sure I could see myself in any other way.

Oddly, I think of myself as thin in my head. I'm forever trying to squeeze through spaces I don't quite fit into, or brushing people unintentionally. I -know- I'm fat in an academic way, but in my head I'm thin.

I've been "fat" in the sense of over a healthy BMI since puberty though, and I've only attempted to diet a handful of times.

I will always be thin in my head which is not a good thing because it makes losing weight very difficult cos when I look in the mirror I still see a thin person too. I always think I look thinner than I actually am so I say to myself 'oh one burger/pizza/bar of chocolate won't be too bad. I'd kill to be the the size I was at 18. I gaze longingly at the ball skirt my mum made me and look shocked at the size of the waist band.

I see myself as HUGE, I don't see any difference from my high weight (about 215) to now (150) and I don't think there is a number small enough to make myself be anything but FAT. In highschool I weighed 125ish and was still HUGE (legitimately, I was a size 13). I think I need to weigh 100-110 to look 'normal'.

I'm thin in my head. I was thin for most of my life, gained about 30-40 pounds over the last 5-6 years and have trouble getting it off. I think because I am still thin in my head, and since I'm tall I can "pass" for normal sized. It's shocking when I see photos where I am large. It's also nice to realize that being fat is not the end of the world, which I always thought it was when I was thin.

But I'd like to get back down to a lower weight since it makes the activities I love to do easier.

My sentiments exactly!

I was at chiropractors office this past week, and my son was getting adjusted. I was sitting on a chair, waiting...the door had a mirror and to my horror I saw my HUGE gut. -- I usually look at myself from head down, and I don't look "that bad" when standing....the image on that mirror gave me a huge jolt....I realized I look like I have a beer gut (I hate beer ;lol )

I was TINY when young. I was 96 pounds when I got married. After I had kids, I went down to 108 pounds....even 5 years ago I was between 125-130 pounds and I looked healthy. Now at 160 pounds...not so much; but I have to get that skinny person image out of my head and realize I am big :(

I wrote up a whole thing about this on my blog because it's something I've been struggling with.

I'm fitting into freaking size twos and I still see myself as "fat." I'm going to be entering maintenance within the next few pounds so I'm hoping that being the same size for a while will change that.

I was overweight and obese since childhood, so I guess this isn't something that goes away overnight

Up until this year I seen myself as skinny even though I got up to 247! It took seeing myself in glass doors in town for my mind to alter the picture of me. And a picture of me with my mom before she passed on. I keep that picture in my room because my mom looks happy, I look happy but big, really big.
I still dream skinny. Up until I was 30 I weighed in the 130's wearing a size 8. I briefly got smaller going down to a size 4. That's how I look in my dreams, a size 4 usually. So when I wake up and see myself in the mirror I am shocked usually. Most of the time I am still in denial and think I look better that I do. I got down to 184 wearing a size 16 four years ago and thought I look awesome. Though I was still big. But I am slowly realizing that I don't look great anymore. Looking at my pants before or after I put them on helps. They are huge and I am constantly amazed that I am that big. While I seen a size 3 pair of pants at KMART and they looked so tiny that I was amazed that anyone could fit into them though I was one pant size away from them when I was younger.
Upon thinking about it I guess it would truelly depend upon the day as to rather or not I feel fat or thin. Today I feel thin, hehe:D
Hopefully in two years or less I will be the skinny gal I think I am, that would be nice. I also grew in the 11th grade to 155 before losing back to 131. My friend at the time told me I looked pregnant, which I did. The twenty pounds all went to my stomach. It took my friends comment to realize I needed to lose weight. It was almost reaching 250 to make my realize it this time. I am still big but feel big, at least not today or yesterday. The day before that I felt huge. It just depends on the day now. It is harder to get motivated to walk when I feel small. But I do it for my health and the fact that I am usually proud of myself for walking for two hours, so I do it. Like today I am going to go walking here in a minute. It is beautiful out and it is going to rain tommorrow followed by cold weather the next day.
Anyhow awesome question, really got me thinking. I hate those glass doors:o

Thin... it wasn't until I saw myself in pictures that I actually realized how big I had gotten.

Hum... I find it interesting that the people who were quite small (100 pounds size 2,3...) still consider themselves thin (myself included), and people who were a bit bigger growing up, see themselves bigger now.

I don't usually see myself as being as fat as I actually am, and I've always been like that. I never saw myself as skinny, either (except perhaps during early childhood, when I actually was). My mental image of myself tends to be of a solid, somewhat stocky, but not fat person. Part of it is probably denial, but I think a larger part is simply obliviousness to myself and my surroundings.

Thin. I don't think I was ever tiny, but part of my problem with finally deciding to lose the weight is that despite whatever a scale or mirror or picture said, I felt thin.

Even at 200 pounds I thought I looked thin. I kept telling myself the cameras were taking bad angles or the clothes didn't fit right.

It was denial, obviously, but in my head I was thin. Of course I was thin, why wouldn't I be thin?!

Part of my journey was facing that mirror and looking at myself and really LOOKING and not excusing the image as distorted for whatever reason. I look at pictures of myself when I was a lot heavier and I just don't know how my mind played those tricks on me.

I can't say either fat or thin. I've never been thin - I've been a bigger person my entire life since I was about 7 years old... but also active - I played sports all through high school - despite weighing 250 pounds - and was confident and had lots of friends. I knew I was big, but I never considered myself 'fat', if you know what I mean. I wanted to lose some weight, but just to make sports etc easier and maybe to attract more boys. ;) But even that I didn't worry about too much, at my height there weren't a lot of takers, even if I were skinny. :lol:

As an adult I've always maintained a weight of around 240 pounds. I put on this extra through having 3 children and gaining 10 for each one. It was only at my highest that I really started to feel heavy and unattractive. I know that when I get back in the range of 240, although I will still continue to lose to a healthy range, I'm going to start feeling 'normal' again.

I've been fat most of my life, but I've never been able to see myself accurately. I didn't see myself being as big as I was at 225 and I don't see myself as being smaller now that I've lost about 50 pounds. I just got my first digital camera so I used the timer to take a picture of myself the other day. I don't look thin but I feel like "normal" is within range now.

Even though I have lost significant amounts of weight twice (high school & college), I don't know anything different than being big. My brain never caught up with my body either time. I had too much trouble dealing with the attention that being thin brought me - being invisible then in the center of everything was tough.

Now, instead of thinking I am fat or thin, I am concentrating on being - right now - as I am. Talking my way through the journey plus gaining perspective by being a little older is making the transition easier - and more honest.

Dressed or alone, I'm around average (or height-weight proportionate, which is less than the US average. Naked with company, I see fat that isn't there.

I'm a little chunkey in my head, and I think I have always been. I am a little surprised at what I now see in the mirror - even a little chunkier than in my head - so I hope that, when I do lose most of the weight, my head will adjust itself. I want a positive self-image.

It has vacillated over the years, but right now thin in my head. I'll look at a pair of pants and think, "I should be able to fit into those," and I'm surprised when I don't.

I guess the up-side to that is that I'm not driven by discontent, and that has really made this weight loss attempt so much easier than past ones.

This is me, too. I know I was pretty off the charts at my highest weight, and I knew I was fat. I felt fat, definitely. But I don't think I was able to acknowledge the true extent of it. I sort of saw myself as fat but not *that* fat. Then at 173 I would often feel downright skinny. :cool: But then every once in a while I would realize that, in fact, 173 and 5'0" is still pretty extreme. At that weight I was still wearing my 3X tops and size 18 pants. I was rockin' those 3X tops, but still. And whenever it hit me how fat I really was, it would really sting because I was getting used to thinking of myself as thin, if that makes any sense...

I also in my head for awhile always thot i was thing even tho i was overweight and obese...more so when i was overweight when i was obese i knew it and tried hiding behind tshirts 2 sizes to big... when i was overweight i still tried squeezing into those aeropostal and campus crew shirts that were l and xl even tho i was in a 1x or 2x in some.... i think in my head because i was always told i do have beautiful eyes that i assumed ALL OF ME was beautiful.... now that I am at 220 and losing the weight I still see myself as not fat but more unhealthy and working on it... im still beautiful just lost my way.... :)

It varies. Some days I think I'm chubby, some days I think I'm thin.

It mostly depends on what I wear (a lot of my clothes just hang on me now and can actually make me look/feel bigger). It also depends whether I'm bloated - if I am then I feel fat - but mentally on some level I still know it's not fat but I just feel fat anyway.

If I can suck my tummy in and look side on in the mirror and am relatively happy with what I see, then it's a thin day.

DH tells me I'm too skinny now, but I always deny it. I know I"ve lost a fair amount of weight but I don't think I'm that thin.

Funny though, when I see myself in the mirror and think "I look 'thin' today" I'll go weigh myself to confirm - 99% of the time I'm correct.

I must be so obsessed with how I look I can tell within fractions of a pound if I've lost weight.

If, on the other hand I feel fat and puffy, I don't even bother to weigh - cuz I'm probably retaining water or have had a fluctuation up so I don't want to depress myself any further by confirming it. I have decided to ignore minor upward fluctuations in weight and focus purely on the downward numbers. This way I can track my losses and plateaus without beating myself up over it.

I already responded to this post but I have been thinking about it all day. A lot of introspection going on.

At my recent lowest of 131, I felt fat. But when I was 50 pounds heavier, I didn't feel "that fat". Now in hindsight I see pictures of myself from the 180+ era and I wonder how on earth I was able to lie to myself like that! I am completely embarressed that I was clearly obese but didn't see myself like that then as I do now. So now, at around 137, I tell myself everyday that I am fat because I'm afraid of lying to myself again. I wonder if that makes any sense at all to anyone?? It's so hard to explain.

Good days, bad days.
 

On a good day I see myself just slightly north of thin. On a bad days I see myself as big as a house - I am down around 40lbs from my heaviest, wear normal size clothes, but the fat still sits in the same places (thighs and stomach). Body image is a *****.

This is me EXACTLY. I weigh when I feel thin...and am. i don't weigh
when I feel chubby, b/c i a usually bloated or having a "up" day. I feel thin or fat just depending on clothes, mood, etc. But mostly I feel very good now.

There are a lot of interesting responses. I must say I am jealous of those that live on the "thin" side of the question. It is quite a burden to always think I'm so fat. If I have to squeeze by someone at the movies, sit next to someone in a car, walk past (or heaven forbid run past anyone) while outside. I try to go to emptier areas to run because I feel like a side show act in motion. I won't run in neighborhoods because I'm afraid it invites people to yel things about a fat girl running at me while they drive by.

I feel like when I sit down everything just spreads out and looks repulsive. I hate people seeing me shop because I feel like they are feeling sorry for the fat girl looking for clothes to cover her fat. I feel jiggle and intrusive on other people's space. I'm afraid I could be a size 0 and never feel thin, normal, not fat.
I'd love for one day to feel thin. Even if the numbers on the scale said differently. I just feel like great, I'm a normal weight and size, but I still feel huge. All that work and I feel the same and look the same to myself.

Fat. Always fat. I've been overweight my entire life and it's difficult to shake that ingrained thought. Even at my highest weight I saw myself as much larger than I actually was. Now that I've dropped about 60 pounds, when I look in the mirror I still 'see' myself looking just the same as I always have. I know I've lost weight because my clothes are getting too big but visually I still look exactly the same. I suspect this will be an ongoing issue for me.

Thin. Although this is somewhat if a misnomer. At my highest weight I always thought of myself as much smaller than I was. It wasn't until recently when I saw an old photo of myself that I could really see HOW large I had let myself get.

That being said, I've never thought of myself as thin per se. I have a large build, have always been very athletic so when I get down to a good body weight I look fit and trim but never thin.

Right now? I think of myself as almost there. I can see how far I've come pretty easily looking in the mirror but I can still see the parts that need work so I'm not ready to stop either. Realistically, I'm pretty happy where I'm at and if someone said tomorrow you could either stop today and get a million bucks or continue losing and not get the money, well, I'd probably take the money! :lol: But not counting that off-the-wall scenario, I plan on continuing.

I will say that that's fairly important to me to get an accurate sense of my body. I take a lot of measurements, take progress pictures, really try to look at myself in the mirror etc. Not looking at the evidence got me to where I was at the beginning. So now I'm pretty determined to continue to look at this measurements and get this body image stuck in my heads so there's no chance that I return to the old one. ;)

I think I'm always going to think that I'm somewhat fat because I grew up as quite an overweight child and I just think of myself that way. I still thought I was fat when I was 5'8, 137 pounds with a 27 inch waist. The weird thing is I feel smaller now at 156 than I did then but I think that's mainly to do with the fact I'm a little older and more confident.

I think I always will think I'm "big" even if I get really thin (but I don't want that anyway) just because of my height. I prefer graceful, elegant and willowy though - I shall call myself those when I'm thinner again rather than just concentrating on how I hate being tall. :D

Everyday, every single day, I look at my jeans before I put them on and think there is no way they are going to fit me. I hold them up against myself and gawp at the size of the waistband. I completely convince myself that they'll stop at my knees and refuse to pull up. But they fit, just like they did yesterday and the day before and the day before that, but my mind still thinks I'm 256. Maybe it's a good thing it takes so long to lose weight, gives the mind a chance to sync up with the body.

I have been fat my whole life. I still think that I am fat. Not really in a self-esteem sort of way - that's getting better - but in a practical way.

Just like Susie, I pick up a pair of jeans and they look so small to me that I know they aren't going to fit and yet they are getting loose. I think I need more room to open my car door at the mall to squeeze out of my car and I don't. There are spaces I am sure I can't fit through and I do easily.

The other day I read something about an activity and it said that you must weigh less then 225 lbs. and my automatic thought was "Well, that rules me out!" and it took several seconds before I realized that I weigh much less then that now.

Not sure if this will last forever or it will just take a while for my brain to catch up...

This has been an interesting thread, thank you all.

My answer is similar to some others - I never thought I was "thin", but I had trouble acknowledging how fat I was, too. I always told myself that I "carried it well" or "didn't look as heavy as I was."

I had a kind of "Venus of Willendorf" figure and certain women always found it very attractive - I remember one lover exclaimed "magnificent!" the first time she saw me naked and believe me, a word like that sticks in your head and makes it very easy to pretend that you carry your weight very well.

At any rate, magnificence notwithstanding, my mental image of myself is more like my forum avatar than Venus of Willendorf, and after years of bumping into things and losing my strength and stamina (I had always taken pride in being strong like ox but started to find myself more and more a lump of flesh on the couch) I finally had to acknowledge that my physical self and my mental one had diverged way more than was really going to be okay.

I would say the way I look now is more in line with how I think of myself - still not "thin" - I will never be delicate or willowy - but muscular and not particularly corpulent. So while I never thought of myself as thin, for a long time I didn't really grok how fat I was, either.