I still look fat, and I am not. (TW: dysmorphia)

[randompersonrandom]

Just so the kind-hearted folks know upfront: I don't want soothing words or pep talks. I'm okay, not struggling. The reason I'm posting this is for anyone who feels this way AND is struggling — so they know they aren't the only one.

Okay, so... I'm 5'5", and I've dropped over fifty pounds, landing at 134 (that was a week ago). For me — someone who's always carried extra weight — I was wonderfully thin, and I saw myself as wonderfully thin. My goal is 125, though I intend to be relaxed and inconsistent about those last nine.

Today the scale says 136, two pounds up. That's just how my body works; right before my cycle I get hungry, hold onto a lot of water, and then it all whooshes off once my period arrives.

Over the past two weeks, nothing meaningful has shifted with my body, exercise included. Yet this entire week, I look fat. VERY fat. As in, if someone showed me a photo from this weight and said [[Q1]], I'd respond [[Q2]] My arms, face, midsection, legs — all of it suddenly seems exactly as large as it did when I weighed fifty pounds more.

None of that is remotely accurate; I fit into size six pants. Every shirt I own is a small, and a third of them hang loose on me. The scale gives me a number, my belt has no holes left so I need to punch smaller ones — there's hard evidence that what I'm seeing isn't real. But I glance around at women I know — we're all open about weight and size since half of us use GLP-1's and the rest are just interested — and a few of them are larger than me. Every single one of them looks WAY slimmer than I do.

Emotionally I'm steady, not upset or in pain, because I dealt with AWFUL dysmorphia in my younger years (mine was [[Q3]] rather than [[Q4]], but a lie is a lie) and I've gotten very good at shrugging it off, telling myself [[Q5]] and treating it like a flaw in my vision — the same way I'd handle being color-blind — so it doesn't wreck me. Still, I believe this is the first time my eyes have fed me such an OBJECTIVE falsehood. I put it to a friend today like this: [[Q6]]

My guess is that once my period begins and I drop a few more pounds, I'll look thin again until the next fluctuation, and then I'll look fat again out of nowhere. I figured this kind of self-perception distortion would disappear once I wasn't heavy anymore, but NOPE!

 

[yrrdead]

This is the first time in my life that losing weight has produced anything like this. My wife tells me how thin I've gotten, yet in the mirror what I usually see is the same old fat me. Every so often, though, I'll walk past my reflection and it's as if I'm peering out through my own eyes at somebody else entirely.

The cognitive dissonance is wild. I'm sure my brain holds so many stored images of how I used to look that my lazy brain just keeps recycling them. There is probably fascinating research showing how to conserve energy you don't actually see "reality(whatever that means)" most of the time because its easier to just show what you've already seen with some slight updates. Especially to things that you already "know" (what you look like).

 

[Goonwise]

Since I'm male, whatever I share may not apply in your case.

Given that, it's worth checking out peptides aimed at body composition, such as ipamorelin and other gh secretagogues. KLOW was another option suggested to me, for collagen and tissue remodeling.

I haven't reached my goal weight yet, so my knowledge about several of these is limited.

Wishing you the best with your progress, and try not to stress over outside factors beyond your control.

 

[DunningKruger]

I get what you mean. As a fellow petite woman, this exact thing hit me today.

This time I snapped before and after shots going from 134 down to 120... and honestly? My appearance is...unchanged, even after dropping those pounds and 2.5 belt sizes.

My guess is that because we're shorter, our bodies distribute weight in a different way. Add to that the tendency to zero in on the areas we think are "problems," and the picture we see can get warped. Those old ways of seeing ourselves are tough to shake. And maybe we hold ourselves to lofty benchmarks too — like, athlete physique or nothing!

 

[randompersonrandom]

DunningKruger said:

I get what you mean. As a fellow petite woman, this exact thing hit me today.

This time I snapped before and after shots going from 134 down to 120... and honestly? My appearance is...unchanged, even after dropping those pounds and 2.5 belt sizes.

My guess is that because we're shorter, our bodies distribute weight in a different way. Add to that the tendency to zero in on the areas we think are "problems," and the picture we see can get warped. Those old ways of seeing ourselves are tough to shake. And maybe we hold ourselves to lofty benchmarks too — like, athlete physique or nothing!

Please, no — there's already more than enough pressure on me as it is!

 

[RefinedRabbit41]

I realize this comes across poorly but finding out other people go through this strange thing too, and that it isn't only me, honestly feels good. Across my whole weight loss journey, the total I've dropped comes to 73 lbs, yet what everyone else sees just doesn't register for me. More than once I've said to my wife that body dysmorphia has to be what this is. The rare moments my brain actually clocks how much weight is gone are when somebody points out how changed I look, or when something I bought not long ago already needs swapping out for a new size. My guess is it comes down to having been obese for as long as I can remember. Only once, briefly, did I manage to shed a huge amount of weight, and it came right back.

Going through the motions of this round of losing weight, I keep asking myself whether other people who spent their whole lives obese, or most of them, end up carrying around this picture of themselves that won't budge. And whether the only way the brain finally accepts the new version of you is to basically become a gym obsessive or shrink down to a size where you can hardly get through the day. What I feel isn't really distress over having this, it's more confusion, plus not knowing what the fix is. Almost no body confidence is something I'm aware I have, and I'm sure that plays a big part. Counting those calories and shifting heavy weights is all that's left for me to do and perhaps someday my brain will catch up...

 

[randompersonrandom]

RefinedRabbit41 said:

I realize this comes across poorly but finding out other people go through this strange thing too, and that it isn't only me, honestly feels good. Across my whole weight loss journey, the total I've dropped comes to 73 lbs, yet what everyone else sees just doesn't register for me. More than once I've said to my wife that body dysmorphia has to be what this is. The rare moments my brain actually clocks how much weight is gone are when somebody points out how changed I look, or when something I bought not long ago already needs swapping out for a new size. My guess is it comes down to having been obese for as long as I can remember. Only once, briefly, did I manage to shed a huge amount of weight, and it came right back.

Going through the motions of this round of losing weight, I keep asking myself whether other people who spent their whole lives obese, or most of them, end up carrying around this picture of themselves that won't budge. And whether the only way the brain finally accepts the new version of you is to basically become a gym obsessive or shrink down to a size where you can hardly get through the day. What I feel isn't really distress over having this, it's more confusion, plus not knowing what the fix is. Almost no body confidence is something I'm aware I have, and I'm sure that plays a big part. Counting those calories and shifting heavy weights is all that's left for me to do and perhaps someday my brain will catch up...

There's nothing bad about it. Posting it was my way of acknowledging that — my general assumption is that any feeling I have is likely shared by others to some extent. Plus,

RefinedRabbit41 said:

I realize this comes across poorly but finding out other people go through this strange thing too, and that it isn't only me, honestly feels good. Across my whole weight loss journey, the total I've dropped comes to 73 lbs, yet what everyone else sees just doesn't register for me. More than once I've said to my wife that body dysmorphia has to be what this is. The rare moments my brain actually clocks how much weight is gone are when somebody points out how changed I look, or when something I bought not long ago already needs swapping out for a new size. My guess is it comes down to having been obese for as long as I can remember. Only once, briefly, did I manage to shed a huge amount of weight, and it came right back.

Going through the motions of this round of losing weight, I keep asking myself whether other people who spent their whole lives obese, or most of them, end up carrying around this picture of themselves that won't budge. And whether the only way the brain finally accepts the new version of you is to basically become a gym obsessive or shrink down to a size where you can hardly get through the day. What I feel isn't really distress over having this, it's more confusion, plus not knowing what the fix is. Almost no body confidence is something I'm aware I have, and I'm sure that plays a big part. Counting those calories and shifting heavy weights is all that's left for me to do and perhaps someday my brain will catch up...

Which is exactly why I have no plans to "fight" what I'm perceiving. There are many places an eating disorder can come from, but one of the possible seeds is the belief "I have to be perfect." I will not, under any circumstance, give THAT seed any water. When I see myself as fat while knowing that objectively I am not, one route open to me is to shrug it off, tell myself "What I'm seeing isn't real, and right now I can't correctly perceive what IS," and completely refuse to give any weight to what my eyes are showing me. That's the route I intend to take for as long as this goes on — possibly forever.

 

[Ruckus4519]

RefinedRabbit41 said:

I realize this comes across poorly but finding out other people go through this strange thing too, and that it isn't only me, honestly feels good. Across my whole weight loss journey, the total I've dropped comes to 73 lbs, yet what everyone else sees just doesn't register for me. More than once I've said to my wife that body dysmorphia has to be what this is. The rare moments my brain actually clocks how much weight is gone are when somebody points out how changed I look, or when something I bought not long ago already needs swapping out for a new size. My guess is it comes down to having been obese for as long as I can remember. Only once, briefly, did I manage to shed a huge amount of weight, and it came right back.

Going through the motions of this round of losing weight, I keep asking myself whether other people who spent their whole lives obese, or most of them, end up carrying around this picture of themselves that won't budge. And whether the only way the brain finally accepts the new version of you is to basically become a gym obsessive or shrink down to a size where you can hardly get through the day. What I feel isn't really distress over having this, it's more confusion, plus not knowing what the fix is. Almost no body confidence is something I'm aware I have, and I'm sure that plays a big part. Counting those calories and shifting heavy weights is all that's left for me to do and perhaps someday my brain will catch up...

My guess is that the mind will ultimately catch up. Hearing about other people's journeys means a lot to me. It helps me form a picture of what lies ahead. Being viewed as large has been my reality for as long as I can remember, and the pounds kept piling on so gradually that my internal image of myself never had a chance to adjust.

If I were to do anything differently, I'd likely stand before a mirror more often, getting to know my own reflection again. I'm sure it'll feel strange and maybe even a touch vain, but from where I stand, I'll be grappling with phantom limbs of the fat variety

 

[randompersonrandom]

Ruckus4519 said:

RefinedRabbit41 said:

I realize this comes across poorly but finding out other people go through this strange thing too, and that it isn't only me, honestly feels good. Across my whole weight loss journey, the total I've dropped comes to 73 lbs, yet what everyone else sees just doesn't register for me. More than once I've said to my wife that body dysmorphia has to be what this is. The rare moments my brain actually clocks how much weight is gone are when somebody points out how changed I look, or when something I bought not long ago already needs swapping out for a new size. My guess is it comes down to having been obese for as long as I can remember. Only once, briefly, did I manage to shed a huge amount of weight, and it came right back.

Going through the motions of this round of losing weight, I keep asking myself whether other people who spent their whole lives obese, or most of them, end up carrying around this picture of themselves that won't budge. And whether the only way the brain finally accepts the new version of you is to basically become a gym obsessive or shrink down to a size where you can hardly get through the day. What I feel isn't really distress over having this, it's more confusion, plus not knowing what the fix is. Almost no body confidence is something I'm aware I have, and I'm sure that plays a big part. Counting those calories and shifting heavy weights is all that's left for me to do and perhaps someday my brain will catch up...

My guess is that the mind will ultimately catch up. Hearing about other people's journeys means a lot to me. It helps me form a picture of what lies ahead. Being viewed as large has been my reality for as long as I can remember, and the pounds kept piling on so gradually that my internal image of myself never had a chance to adjust.

If I were to do anything differently, I'd likely stand before a mirror more often, getting to know my own reflection again. I'm sure it'll feel strange and maybe even a touch vain, but from where I stand, I'll be grappling with phantom limbs of the fat variety

Damn, that comparison hits the nail on the head. I'm taking it for myself, it belongs to me now, and I won't be citing anyone.

 

[RefinedRabbit41]

randompersonrandom said:


If I look fat to myself, but know that I am objectively not, one possible option is to shrug, say "What I see is not real, and at present time, I can't accurately perceive what IS" and full on decline to attach importance to what I am seeing.

Click to expand...

That really does seem like something that could make it easier to accept what your brain is telling you. And it's a great moment to pause and reflect, asking yourself why you're chasing a healthier body through weight loss and whatever else you're doing. Because at this point, it would be hard for it to be about appearance, since what you perceive doesn't line up with what other people see. I'm glad I have a solid reason for wanting to change my body's composition and health... if I didn't, the fuel driving this whole thing would have dried up ages ago

For me, GLP-1's are simply a tool that shifts a time based slider, while the actual work behind health and physique comes from time paid in sweat and a careful look at what's going into the body. Perfection is impossible because it doesn't exist, and being content with yourself always feels just beyond reach, yet it's absolutely worth chasing

 

[RefinedRabbit41]

Ruckus4519 said:

RefinedRabbit41 said:

I realize this comes across poorly but finding out other people go through this strange thing too, and that it isn't only me, honestly feels good. Across my whole weight loss journey, the total I've dropped comes to 73 lbs, yet what everyone else sees just doesn't register for me. More than once I've said to my wife that body dysmorphia has to be what this is. The rare moments my brain actually clocks how much weight is gone are when somebody points out how changed I look, or when something I bought not long ago already needs swapping out for a new size. My guess is it comes down to having been obese for as long as I can remember. Only once, briefly, did I manage to shed a huge amount of weight, and it came right back.

Going through the motions of this round of losing weight, I keep asking myself whether other people who spent their whole lives obese, or most of them, end up carrying around this picture of themselves that won't budge. And whether the only way the brain finally accepts the new version of you is to basically become a gym obsessive or shrink down to a size where you can hardly get through the day. What I feel isn't really distress over having this, it's more confusion, plus not knowing what the fix is. Almost no body confidence is something I'm aware I have, and I'm sure that plays a big part. Counting those calories and shifting heavy weights is all that's left for me to do and perhaps someday my brain will catch up...

My guess is that the mind will ultimately catch up. Hearing about other people's journeys means a lot to me. It helps me form a picture of what lies ahead. Being viewed as large has been my reality for as long as I can remember, and the pounds kept piling on so gradually that my internal image of myself never had a chance to adjust.

If I were to do anything differently, I'd likely stand before a mirror more often, getting to know my own reflection again. I'm sure it'll feel strange and maybe even a touch vain, but from where I stand, I'll be grappling with phantom limbs of the fat variety

I truly wish that turns out to be the case! Being able to value the effort that goes into it would feel good, right?

A bit of looking is perfectly fine though there's 1 thing I'd suggest that I skipped myself. Snap a few progress photos! I never took any, and honestly I'm not sure I could even now since I simply dislike my own appearance, but whenever I come across people sharing theirs, those images quietly say so much!

 

[ambot88]

oh, the fat phantom limb metaphor really resonates with me too!

I definitely deal with some body dysmorphia. As an adult I've always been fat, and right now I'm objectively not fat, but in my head I am. This weight used to feel like a distant goal back when I was fat, and I figured at 150lbs I'd be super thin. Yet here I am at 150lbs, still fat — it's tricksy.

 

[BH_LOVER]

More than 70 lbs are gone. My weight sits at about 125-128. Even now, picking out S and XS sizes feels wrong to me. There's a big event on the horizon, and I've sent back and re ordered nearly every piece of clothing I picked up. In my head, I'm still the roughly 190 lb, 5ft tall, nearly 60 year old woman I was. For about 40 of those years, I've carried extra weight.

 

[FarmgirlRebel]

randompersonrandom said:

Just so the kind-hearted folks know upfront: I don't want soothing words or pep talks. I'm okay, not struggling. The reason I'm posting this is for anyone who feels this way AND is struggling — so they know they aren't the only one.

Okay, so... I'm 5'5", and I've dropped over fifty pounds, landing at 134 (that was a week ago). For me — someone who's always carried extra weight — I was wonderfully thin, and I saw myself as wonderfully thin. My goal is 125, though I intend to be relaxed and inconsistent about those last nine.

Today the scale says 136, two pounds up. That's just how my body works; right before my cycle I get hungry, hold onto a lot of water, and then it all whooshes off once my period arrives.

Over the past two weeks, nothing meaningful has shifted with my body, exercise included. Yet this entire week, I look fat. VERY fat. As in, if someone showed me a photo from this weight and said [[Q1]], I'd respond [[Q2]] My arms, face, midsection, legs — all of it suddenly seems exactly as large as it did when I weighed fifty pounds more.

None of that is remotely accurate; I fit into size six pants. Every shirt I own is a small, and a third of them hang loose on me. The scale gives me a number, my belt has no holes left so I need to punch smaller ones — there's hard evidence that what I'm seeing isn't real. But I glance around at women I know — we're all open about weight and size since half of us use GLP-1's and the rest are just interested — and a few of them are larger than me. Every single one of them looks WAY slimmer than I do.

Emotionally I'm steady, not upset or in pain, because I dealt with AWFUL dysmorphia in my younger years (mine was [[Q3]] rather than [[Q4]], but a lie is a lie) and I've gotten very good at shrugging it off, telling myself [[Q5]] and treating it like a flaw in my vision — the same way I'd handle being color-blind — so it doesn't wreck me. Still, I believe this is the first time my eyes have fed me such an OBJECTIVE falsehood. I put it to a friend today like this: [[Q6]]

My guess is that once my period begins and I drop a few more pounds, I'll look thin again until the next fluctuation, and then I'll look fat again out of nowhere. I figured this kind of self-perception distortion would disappear once I wasn't heavy anymore, but NOPE!

This hits home. There are moments when I pull up my before photos just to ground myself in what's real. I've still got another 25-30lbs to shed, yet the version of me that weighed 320lb comes back and takes over the reflection.

That's why I hang onto those before pictures — I bring them out, take a quick look, and remind myself how far I've traveled instead of getting swallowed up by whatever is still ahead.

 

[randompersonrandom]

Update: today my period arrived, and the scale went down to 134.4 (the earlier low was 134.6, and I won't round that up.) And in the mirror, once again, I look wonderfully slim.

I could be tempted to think 134 is just the weight where I see myself as slim, but I know that's wrong, since at one point I decided that number was 157, after that 149, after that 143, after that 139. My brain is simply acting like a gremlin.

 

[WLBLD]

randompersonrandom said:

Update: today my period arrived, and the scale went down to 134.4 (the earlier low was 134.6, and I won't round that up.) And in the mirror, once again, I look wonderfully slim.

I could be tempted to think 134 is just the weight where I see myself as slim, but I know that's wrong, since at one point I decided that number was 157, after that 149, after that 143, after that 139. My brain is simply acting like a gremlin.

PMS really can mess with your head that way. It's tough, but when those thoughts pop up, tell them to quit it / silence / shut up — whatever method clicks for you — and keep in mind how far you've come and that you're killing it. Honestly, 50lbs is incredible!! & such a massive amount to shed. If you haven't come across one, go look at a 50lb sack of rice to get a sense of the size. Or a 50lb bag of dog food, even.

I'm the same height & my goal is to drop 50lb down to 125. So far nothing has worked for me, so try to keep in mind that plenty of people would love to have your results.

Mine kicked off today as well boooooo!! ha ha

 

[randompersonrandom]

WLBLD said:

randompersonrandom said:

Update: today my period arrived, and the scale went down to 134.4 (the earlier low was 134.6, and I won't round that up.) And in the mirror, once again, I look wonderfully slim.

I could be tempted to think 134 is just the weight where I see myself as slim, but I know that's wrong, since at one point I decided that number was 157, after that 149, after that 143, after that 139. My brain is simply acting like a gremlin.

PMS really can mess with your head that way. It's tough, but when those thoughts pop up, tell them to quit it / silence / shut up — whatever method clicks for you — and keep in mind how far you've come and that you're killing it. Honestly, 50lbs is incredible!! & such a massive amount to shed. If you haven't come across one, go look at a 50lb sack of rice to get a sense of the size. Or a 50lb bag of dog food, even.

I'm the same height & my goal is to drop 50lb down to 125. So far nothing has worked for me, so try to keep in mind that plenty of people would love to have your results.

Mine kicked off today as well boooooo!! ha ha

The bags of duck feed I carry are 50 pounds each. As I drag one out of the spare room and down to the back hall, it hits me: that's exactly how much extra weight I used to carry on my own body.

 

[WLBLD]

randompersonrandom said:

WLBLD said:

randompersonrandom said:

Update: today my period arrived, and the scale went down to 134.4 (the earlier low was 134.6, and I won't round that up.) And in the mirror, once again, I look wonderfully slim.

I could be tempted to think 134 is just the weight where I see myself as slim, but I know that's wrong, since at one point I decided that number was 157, after that 149, after that 143, after that 139. My brain is simply acting like a gremlin.

PMS really can mess with your head that way. It's tough, but when those thoughts pop up, tell them to quit it / silence / shut up — whatever method clicks for you — and keep in mind how far you've come and that you're killing it. Honestly, 50lbs is incredible!! & such a massive amount to shed. If you haven't come across one, go look at a 50lb sack of rice to get a sense of the size. Or a 50lb bag of dog food, even.

I'm the same height & my goal is to drop 50lb down to 125. So far nothing has worked for me, so try to keep in mind that plenty of people would love to have your results.

Mine kicked off today as well boooooo!! ha ha

The bags of duck feed I carry are 50 pounds each. As I drag one out of the spare room and down to the back hall, it hits me: that's exactly how much extra weight I used to carry on my own body.

Right?! A mental picture can really drive it home sometimes!! Those bags are massive and they weigh a ton!! You pulled it off!!

Hope you don't mind the question — what kind of timeline were we talking about for you?

 

[randompersonrandom]

WLBLD said:


Exactly, sometimes you just need a visualization!! Those bags are HUGE & HEAVY!! You did it!!

If you don't mind me asking, how long did it take you?

Click to expand...

Last May I weighed 186 when I began putting in the effort, and by late July I was at 176 after starting tirzepatide. Since reaching the low 140's, my discipline has been far from great; I'll push for a week or two, then coast with barely any effort for another two, then pick it back up. Had I stayed stricter and put in more work, this would already be finished, but after arriving at "normal weight", I chose to stop treating it as a hobby/hyperfixation, accepting slower progress instead.

 

[WLBLD]

randompersonrandom said:


I started working at it last May (186), and got on tirzepatide in late July (176). I have not been terribly disciplined since I hit the low 140's; I work at loss for a week or two, then mostly don't try very hard for two more, then resume. I'd have been done by now if I'd been more disciplined and worked harder at it, but once I got down to "normal weight", I stopped letting it be a hobby/hyperfixation in exchange for slower loss.

Click to expand...

I believe the important thing is to keep everything balanced. Everybody should get a little indulgence and some rest now and then!!