Psychologically handling the new me

JulieSHelms

I want to thank everybody for their responses. I've read each one carefully and it just overwhelms me. It encourages me that my thinking is fairly typical, though needs to be dealt with or acknowledged, but isn't a disaster.

Several of you mentioned something I didn't even think to say--trying on clothes and feeling like an imposter--do these shoppers around me realize a plus-sized woman is trying on their clothes?? I've dropped about 7 sizes (26 Womens to 12 Misses) and it just feels...surreal.

Thank you for the encouragement and all the kind words. I will use your thoughts as my mirror, instead of the one that isn't being truthful with me.

Laurie6578

You lo.ok fabulous! Wow!

kerstenk141

Thank you for posting this. Sometimes I think I am alone in how I feel about my weight loss and how my brain is viewing the outcome. You look wonderful.

mmelnikov3

I had a quite contrary experience. As a child , then young girl and as an Adult I was skinny. One day I've quit smoking and all Hell got lose. I've gained 55lb and weighted over 180lb - 186 to be exact. In the last few years all I could see in the mirror was this skinny well fit girl, I only couldn't understand why I'm baying XL shirts and why I couldn't fit in my size 6 skinny leggings. A week ago as I was sitting on the couch against the entertainment section I looked at the mirror behind the Champaign glasses and I thought to myself ;" Who is this fat woman?" The shock I have experienced led me to my next door neighbor Carol, she is really in the best possible shape. I've asked her what's her "secret"... she said "oh, just genes I guess"... A few days later I invited her and her husband for Dinner, we had good time together and I asked her again, she opened up and told me her "secret" - MFP! The next day I've started the program. In just 5 days I've lost 4lb and I feel so happy about it. I have another 65lb to go...but now I realize that I actually was seeing the skinny girl in the mirror and was failing all diets in the world for that one reason, perhaps. On the way to success to getting back my own self, I wish you from the bottom of my heart healthy and beautiful yourself for a very long time!

lightenup2016

I'm sorry that I can't say much to the psychological aspect, but I will say that your before and after definitely show a different you, and you look awesome!

ETA: I will add that, like another poster above, I've had a little bit of the opposite feeling. I've been fairly thin my whole life, but had let things go in the past 10 years or so. I got up to about 30 pounds above my lowest adult weight, but somehow had told myself that I wasn't really that heavy. Now that I've lost about 18 pounds, I look back at those "heavy" pictures and can't believe I didn't realize how bad I looked.

spiriteagle99

You truly do look terrific.

Photos have been helpful for me. When I had gained weight, I didn't really notice, until I was on vacation with my husband and saw the very few photos that he took of me. (I don't usually let myself get photographed.) I erased every one, because I couldn't stand the way I looked. Eventually I was able to do something about it and lost 50 pounds. I am now at a healthy weight and have maintained it for the past 6 years with a few minor ups and downs. Even so, when I look at myself in a mirror, I see all the parts that aren't perfect, the soft waist, the loose skin, the legs that hold most of my extra weight, and I still feel fat. But last year came another vacation, with more pictures, and I was surprised to see that, no, I'm not huge. My legs actually look thin. My body looks normal. It was a revelation. It has taken about two years to actually believe that the person in the photos is me. Recently at a doctor's office, the nurse who was helping me called me 'tiny' and the doctor called me skinny. I laughed, because I sure don't see myself that way. My husband, however, agreed with them.

Mirrors are not my friends - they lie and tell me what I want to hear. Photographs, OTOH, are a lot more honest.

crooked_left_hook

Every thought you have is simply a sequence of electrical impulses in your brain. These neural pathways form over time when they are repeated regularly (like life long negative thoughts about your body), and become habitual. New thought patterns (like recognizing the new you) requires you to create new neural pathways. This is extremely difficult because your brain will always want to default to what it already knows because that is easier and more efficient, but it's definitely not impossible. Just like training a new muscle, or learning a new skill, or breaking a bad habit, you have to practice at retraining those neural pathways. If you stick a photo of the new, skinnier you on the mirror you dress in front of, and tell yourself 'yes, that is the new me' every morning and every night, I guarantee that you will actually start FEEL like that new, skinnier about a month.

STEVE142142

Congrats on your success. As far as your feelings, we've all gone through and at some point your new reality is going to hit you and you're going to realize you're not the person that you think you were.

I started January 1st 2016 at 288 pounds by mid September 2016 I was down to 208. I've had numerous people I don't know compliments me on the way I look during conversations in grocery stores where they've called me skinny or when looking for clothes they said what are you doing here you need an athletic cut.

When I looked in the mirror I always saw the fat man looking back at me even though the mirror showed something totally different. I remember one time walking into the bathroom and of the big box stores and I looked at my reflection in the mirror and I said what the hell is wrong with that mirror and then it hit me that's the new me.

You'll eventually get to the point when you can look in the mirror and go I am skinny and they are right

nurseangelamomof5boys

You look great congrats on your success

jadevalentine

I loved this thread. I completely have felt both ways like...wow, I don't know why I can't fit in a 10, I'm not fat to oh, how can I fit in a 10 now when I'm still so fat. Our brains really do a number on us in both scenarios. You look amazing in both photos actually. I can tell that your true beauty is on the inside.

JulieSHelms

Thank you everyone for the confirmation that if nothing else, these feelings are typical. Maybe there is some deep-seated expectation that when you lose so much weight you will somehow be a different person, but inside you are the same--so did a change really occur?

This week I experienced something that I think helped more than anything. Compliments are nice, but in our culture people give them for a variety of reasons--to be nice, it's polite, to encourage your hard work, etc--they can be sort of reasoned away. But twice this week I had people who know me not recognize me. One knows me very well but hadn't seen me in about 18 months. He said he didn't recognize me till I smiled at him! The second person is more of an acquaintance and after being told who I was by a mutual friend just couldn't believe it was me. People don't fake that kind of thing. So it seemed to have a bigger impact on me.

jadevalentine wrote: »

I loved this thread. I completely have felt both ways like...wow, I don't know why I can't fit in a 10, I'm not fat to oh, how can I fit in a 10 now when I'm still so fat. Our brains really do a number on us in both scenarios.

Wow, that's really interesting having it happen both ways--a real mind bender!

Anyway, thanks for all the encouraging words.

canadianlbs

mmelnikov3 wrote: »

I had a quite contrary experience. As a child , then young girl and as an Adult I was skinny.

i kind of relate to this (i think? i find the whole thing so confusing that i'm not even sure about that). but this thread is a great conversation around the topic anyway.

my head has two separate benchmarks in it: me in my 145-150-pound teens, and me in my twenties when i weighed in the low 120's and always felt like if i could get down under 120 i would feel 'set'.

[i'm now 52, and i'm sort of halfway between those two marks, on my way back down from waking up in my late 40's and realising that i was heading for 150 if i hadn't arrived already].

the thing is, i'm realising a couple of things. i got the aggravation for being 'fat' in the 80's when i was 20-some pounds heavier. so when i was 'thin' in my 20's i definitely self-identified as 'thin', while still feeling the whole time like another 5 pounds off would lock it in for certain.

but i'm realising that i had this set of specific landmarks i used to form both parts of that identity - both the 'i am thin now' and 'could still lose five pounds'. that same set of landmarks was part of my wakeup call too - when i found an old photograph of myself and understood that yup, i wouldn't score 1 out of 6 on that checklist righ tnow.

but this time around i've been strength training too. so even as i re-approach the same weight (or at least the same proportion of body fat), some of those 'thin' landmarks are there, and some aren't. a classic example to me is i used to use 'do my hip bones show through'? well, that worked when i was a skinnyfat 20'something, but right now in my heavy-lifting 50's those hipbones are so buried, dude. them and my collarbones ain't coming back because of the muscle involved.

so it all leaves me extremely ambivalent. i have a very checklist-based way of forming my overall body image, if that makes sense. and a lot of the time now, i'm just flying by various forms of 'yolo! let's just get there and then figure out what we think!' where 'there' is some number . . . again.

lorrpb

JulieSHelms wrote: »

Thank you everyone for the confirmation that if nothing else, these feelings are typical. Maybe there is some deep-seated expectation that when you lose so much weight you will somehow be a different person, but inside you are the same--so did a change really occur?

This week I experienced something that I think helped more than anything. Compliments are nice, but in our culture people give them for a variety of reasons--to be nice, it's polite, to encourage your hard work, etc--they can be sort of reasoned away. But twice this week I had people who know me not recognize me. One knows me very well but hadn't seen me in about 18 months. He said he didn't recognize me till I smiled at him! The second person is more of an acquaintance and after being told who I was by a mutual friend just couldn't believe it was me. People don't fake that kind of thing. So it seemed to have a bigger impact on me.

jadevalentine wrote: »

I loved this thread. I completely have felt both ways like...wow, I don't know why I can't fit in a 10, I'm not fat to oh, how can I fit in a 10 now when I'm still so fat. Our brains really do a number on us in both scenarios.

Wow, that's really interesting having it happen both ways--a real mind bender!

Anyway, thanks for all the encouraging words.

I'm like this too. One day I look in the mirror and think I'm really skinny and the next day I'll look and see all the fat. I think that's probably normal! So I just don't worry about that part too much. Regardless of whether I feel skinny or fat that day, I've gotten pretty good at knowing whether I've lost weight by noticing minor changes in my physique. It shows up the scales a few days to a week later. The ability to do this helps when the scale is not saying what I would like it to. I know my body has changed, so I stick with my plan. I'm always proven right, sooner or later.

cindiaugustine

I think what helped me the most was shopping for clothes. After losing 100lbs I had pretty much the whole mall to shop in, instead of just one plus-sized store. I tried on sooo many clothes, spend sooo many hours walking the mall...It wasn't about buying everything, it was about facing the full length mirror over and over again, giving my brain tons of exposure to the new me. If you avoid mirrors, naturally your brain can't change it's self-image.
Get a full length mirror, spend time with the new you. It's not vain, it's about building a healthy self-esteem.
Gongrats on your loss!

scrittrice

Based on my own experience and the experiences of others that I've read on MFP, I would say it takes at least a year for your brain to catch up. And I think there is a little part of my brain that will never get there. For a long time I would go to a big department store where I wouldn't be bothering anyone and try on the same item of clothing in several sizes, not to buy anything, but just to see myself in it and figure out what size I was. Also, I read a suggestion on here once to look at yourself in the mirror as you're putting on lotion after your shower--apparently seeing your arm while you're touching your arm helps the message that, yes, that is my arm, sink into your brain. It can't hurt!