Is "Phantom Fat" A thing?

echristensen010

I know I've lost weight, so why does it sometimes feel like I still look the exact same as I did when I started?

jseams1234

Yes, it's a thing - most people just look like smaller versions of what they started at for a long while. This happens to men quite a bit too; men often think they have a "muscular base" that only has to be revealed by losing some fat - but they learn that they aren't quite as muscular as they thought. It's that "base" that gives much of the desirable shape that many find as a positive aesthetic.

Anyhow, at a certain point - usually the very last thing, areas like the belly, thighs, and other problematic areas will reduce and the visible changes will become much more apparent.

tomcustombuilder

It all depends on how much fat you’re carrying at how much you’ve lost. The more fat the more you need to lose to make it visible where somebody with low body fat loses 5 pounds it will show easily and somebody with high body fat 5 pounds won’t even make a difference visually

AnnPT77

It took some time for me to internalize how I actually looked.

I think there's an element, potentially, of looking at oneself and seeing the mental image, not the actual reality, especially at first.

Lots of people here, after a significant loss, report shopping for clothes, picking out some a size or two lower than the old one, trying those on and discovering that they are quite a bit smaller than what they picked out. I went through some of that.

I even had brief momentary lapses where I failed to immediately recognize myself when passing a mirror or reflective window in public, thinking someone else was approaching me when I side-glanced at the image. Even one close friend (who saw me often throughout loss) reported having trouble picking me out in a large group at a party.

At first my right-sized clothes looked impossibly tiny, and I'd only lost around 50 pounds, not the 100+ that some people lose. Seven-plus years on, that's rare, but I still find myself looking at some stretchy things (leggings, for example) when shopping and questioning what I know intellectually is my right size.

It just takes time for self-image to catch up. It will. Meantime, doctor's opinion and objective measures (BF%, SmartBMI, whatever) can provide some guard rails, potentially, if concerned. (Friends'/family's opinons . . . not so much.)

tomcustombuilder

jseams1234 wrote: »

Yes, it's a thing - most people just look like smaller versions of what they started at for a long while. This happens to men quite a bit too; men often think they have a "muscular base" that only has to be revealed by losing some fat - but they learn that they aren't quite as muscular as they thought. It's that "base" that gives much of the desirable shape that many find as a positive aesthetic.

Anyhow, at a certain point - usually the very last thing, areas like the belly, thighs, and other problematic areas will reduce and the visible changes will become much more apparent.

correct. This is why it’s important to weight train when dieting down. For sure most men under estimate how much muscle they have and exacerbate the issue while losing muscle while dieting down. The latter can be mitigated by weight training however the common response is that you won’t be gaining muscle however maintaining muscle will go a long way to help not be just a smaller version of your former self.

One reason many main fail to get lean is they do see how little muscle they have when dieting down and hate getting smaller and stop short of their goal.

PAV8888

Time!

I am now convinced that my second leg will fit my pants.

In the beginning I had to check every time
Then once in a while
After I couple of years I no longer felt the need to check!

Same applies to eating at maintenance.

Play for time and adapt! Five year plans may never work out as envisioned. But they do cement for you that weight loss is NOT "fire and forget".

Previous weight history plays into it, of course. it's different for someone who was obese all of their adult life vs someone who gained weight due to a temporary condition and is now returning to default.

spiriteagle99

It can be a question of your self-perception seeing yourself as still fat long after the weight has gone. I lost 50+ lbs. several years ago. I still have times when I look at my legs or belly and think "Oh, how fat I am." But then I'll see a photo of myself or see myself in a store window and be amazed at how thin I actually am.

paperpudding

or just chamges are slow and incremental so you dont notice the difference when you are with the person every day (like you are, with yourself )

Somebody who hasnt seen you for a while might notice it more - or you see an old photo and suddenly realise.

I had a work colleague who lost a lot of weight - I worked with her most days so I didnt really notice - until I saw a photo of her at a work do a year ago - and realised how different she looked from then.

mtaratoot

It is fairly common to have some body dysmorphia after a significant weight loss. We tend to "see" ourselves a certain way. Our brains interpret the signals our eyes send, and even when looking right at the mirror and actually SEEING one thing with our eyes, sometimes our brains interpret what we used to be.

Another completely different thing can happen from other people after weight loss. When I first lost weight down to a healthy level, some friends were worried I was losing "too much" or developing an eating disorder.... because I was using MFP to keep track of calories. It is true my face looked a LOT different after weight loss. It wasn't huge amounts of saggy skin or really gaunt, just a lot different from the person I had become over the previous 30 years of slowly increasing my mass.

I gained some weight back in 2020 when COVID restrictions changed our lives. I struggled with that for about two years before getting it back off. When it came off the second time, nobody made any comments about it being "too much" or getting "too thin." I am at the low end of my maintenance range which is a healthy weight that's just a little bit into the upper half of the healthy BMI range. As an adult male, I think that's fine. Even I sometimes see something in the mirror that's not real.

Then, for some reason, I was talking with a friend about such issues. I found an old picture I created from two pictures of my face. One was from a few years before I got SERIOUS about losing weight - I had been trying halfheartedly for a couple years before that. The other was from several months after I had completed my loss into maintenance. It's funny because now I wouldn't recognize the person in the older picture as myself. It surprised my friend, too, and she thought that was surprising because she saw me routinely during those years and that person wasn't in her memory.

If you can find any old "before" pictures, it's worth a search to have a look so you can have another tool to internalize your success. It was a picture someone took of me on a river trip that really caused me to get serious about weight loss, and it was worth it.

kshama2001

echristensen010 wrote: »

I know I've lost weight, so why does it sometimes feel like I still look the exact same as I did when I started?

Your lying eyes...

Take progress photos and measurements periodically.