Self Perception gets in the way to shedding 150+

judymoving

Read a few posts on the topic of self perception today. Basically the concept of mind catching up with new body one has after weight loss. People dealing with their weight being a shield, or always feeling like the largest person in the room even after the weigh is gone. Apparently loosing weight quickly doesn't allow your mind to catch up with your body, and it becomes a self perception issue.

How does self perception play a role in weight loss or weight gain?

For me I think the reason I am fat is because I never wanted to believe that I was. If the scale went up, I would look in the mirror and still see curves. I am 48 and was a thin child. Weight gain started in my 20s, I was either biking, aerobics, running, or walking to stay in shape. When people would comment on my size, I would flat out tell them, "there is a lot of muscle under here." "I work out." "I just like to maintain a warm layer for the winter." or " I am like a retired football player, my fat and muscles just keep growing."

My self perception has always been one of strong will, can do spirit, and not weak. Being fat was for those weaklings who sat around all the time, eating Cheetos. So even my perception of obese people is skewed. Have I really become this? The scale at the doctor's office said 314 pounds. The most I have ever weighed. I am considered Morbidly Obese. I don't feel that way. I don't think I look that way. I see curves in the mirror and think I look good. But then it happened......

I was impressed with the success stories and pictures on MFP so I took mine. (This was after I had lost 11 pounds, feeling good, and was already trying to fit into the next size of jeans at the store.) Those pictures were a wake up call to me. WOW Who was that woman? I look like that?! I didn't want to leave the house, and I just could not believe how far I had let myself go. I know people had said things to me in the past, but I just shrugged it off as nothing.

This ignited my desire to research what success would mean for someone my size. I kept thinking I was beautiful, like the young 20 somethings, but in reality I am a very large 48 year old. My research allowed to understand the self perception has so much to do with weight loss. Either you know you are heavy and are trying to hide it, hide inside it or use it as a guard to keep from doing the things that you plainly just don't want to do. Or you accept yourself as you are and ignore the scale and the signs until you are out of control.

How do I control my self perception? Out of control eating happens to anyone who is restricting calories. We all have a desire to eventually go and lap up everything we can find, because our body wants to maintain the weight it is at. This is true for ANA Pro- Thinspro or whatever the anorexic types call themselves today, and to those who are morbidly obese.

There is so much similarity between anorexia and obesity when you consider the guilt and the pressure we put on ourselves to be thin. Our self talk is similar, we feel terrible that we over ate. Anorexic person overeats, and they feel guilt and shame and they starve themselves more. I overeat, I feel guilt and shame, but I justify it as "this is who I am" and I eat more.

Anorexia look in the mirror and they see fat, fat, fat. I look in the mirror and see a slightly large middle aged woman doing okay.

When does the mind and the body find the right combination? And is it that combination which makes being a healthy size possible?

ktsmom430

This is a very interesting topic Judy.

I guess that most of what I have read indicates that I am in the minority here.
My self perception was that I knew I did not look good. My biggest feeling having lost over 150# was, relief. I could blend in. No longer having people stare at the morbidly obese woman. People not noticing because I was fat and not making snap judgments or remarks.
It kind of surprises me that I was in a very small minority of people whose self image was awful as a morbidly obese person. I felt so much shame for not having the self control to do something about it.

Relieved by the anonymity, for being a normal weight. That is how I feel about my weight loss.

judymoving

I probably should have posted this topic under the Motivation and Support.

I had one person ask to be friends after posting this topic.

Not much other response.

I am curious to understand for those who have lost 100+ pounds, what is your self perception? And did you have to modify it in order to start loosing weight?

schonsdragon

I have a screwed up self image, always have and probably always will. I see myself as the fattest person in the room. I know that is no longer true but that hasn't changed the image in my head so I focus on being healthy and staying that way.

I started this journey over 2 years ago not to lose weight but get healthy. I was beginning to have some health problems that would in time go from very minor to serious and I didn't want to live like that. So I made changes, one small change at a time, that would lead me to being healthier. The weight is really just a side product of getting healthy for me. I am doing it slow making sure each change works for me and making it part of my life.

I will admit that I do like fashionable clothing which is funny since I see myself as fat but I can life with it as long as I am healthy because I would rather be healthy than skinny.

cchew686

I am by no means a success story as of yet, but I know what you mean about the skewed self view. I know I am obese and I need to lose weight for my health, but for me that is a scary prospect. I had some things happen to me while I was a child (and thin), that really made me want to hide. I think the whole time I have been fat, I was hiding. Being thin and "attractive" welcomes the kind of attention that I have never wanted due to being touched inappropriately as a child. I think finding my boyfriend has helped me only because he loves me no matter what and I have established trust with him, another thing I struggle with. As far as perception goes, it is an everyday struggle for me. I am about 30 pounds lighter than my heaviest and working towards getting healthy, but sometimes I don't see it. I know my clothes fit better, I feel better, but sometimes I don't see it and I have to actively remind myself of the real progress that I have made. It depends on the person and how they cope I guess and what the "wake up call" is that motivates them to start. In my case, it was my son, who deserves not just a healthy mom, but one who can keep up with him.

shellbatronic

The mental stuff has been a big hurdle for me. I gained most of my weight when I was around 8 years old, already 200 pounds in 5th grade. So I suppose you can imagine that children were not nice to me. I spent most those years completely and utterly miserable. I would try to exercise and it would be physically difficult for me, so then kids would make fun of me, and I felt like a spectacle- an easy target. So I would quit and be told I'm lazy, and then I started to believe it. I'm fat, I'm lazy, I'm a horrible person who doesn't deserve to exist. I was 10 at this point when I seriously started considering killing myself.

Anyway, my perception of myself was always what people told me- I'm worthless, I'm lazy, I'm not worth knowing. I spent a lot of time alone, ate my pain, and waited to die. By the time I hit high school and my family moved to a tiny town where I thought maybe I would get a fresh start and could escape some of the cruelty, but people were even meaner there with the added bonus of there being so few kids that I stuck out even more. I don't think I was in denial of how big I was, I was very much aware of it but the reality of it and what it had done to my life was so crushing, and had started so young that it felt completely insurmountable. I still thought of myself as bookish but not athletic, not willing to work hard, a quitter. All those things people told me I am.

I was socially outcast and desperate to feel any sort of validation as a person. By the time I got to college I hit 350+ pounds and still was treated cruelly and mocked, still depressed, but at least now there were enough people around that I was able to make any sort of social attempts. I found things I felt like I was good at. For the first time in my life I thought- well, I'm fat and I'm lazy but at least there might be something I'm actually good at. I stopped believing all the time that everyone was right about me. When I was a fat kid I was in a world where adults are always right, what people think is the way things are, disagreement was frowned upon. Finally I was in a place where I could stick up for myself and, frankly, tell people to shove it. Of course, I still thought the weight was insurmountable- by this point I had cycled so many times around starving myself and then binging and purging that even when I ate "right" my body was broken.

Through this journey I've been amazing by myself and just how different I really am from what I was told I was. I am not lazy, far from it. And now I look back and I'm able to see all the things I did as a kid- when I really did at the age of 10 get up early in the morning to exercise and stuck to diets and showed real determination, but they failed because of things out of my control. Because I was 10 and not in charge of my own life. Now I get up at 5 AM every day to go to the gym for 2 hours, I preplan all my meals and say no to things that aren't worth eating to me, and my husband is like "I am amazed by how hard you work." I finished Tough Mudder, I've done multiple obstacle courses and other events, I can deadlift my own weight and I still battle the voice in my head that says "you're lazy, you're worthless, you're fat and no one needs you." Therapy has been crucial to me through all this, because I've had to revisit a lot of stuff that I hid from.

Sorry this turned into a novel. We can be our own worst enemies. I guess I'm still learning that people can be cruel enough without you helping them tear you down, and just because someone else thinks something about you doesn't mean it's true.

jenanon1

Judy I know exactly what you mean, I look in the mirror and see a curvy fairly pretty woman. Everyone else ( except my husband and family, I hope) sees a fat middle aged woman. Except now I'm losing weight, and I've taken comparison pictures so I sort of know how other people see me now, but I don't care because I'm losing 23 lbs down and I can see the difference.

cathylopez1975

I don't think I ever truly saw myself as large as I was, and I'm working on seeing myself as I am now. I always felt "fat" as a teen but in reality I was just maybe 10 lbs above a healthy weight. When I had babies I gained big time and was above 200 lbs for 30 years. I had struggled for years trying to lose weight and not being successful, even when sticking to a particular program like Weight Watchers and doing it by the book. I finally gave up and decided that I couldn't change. But getting older I developed health issues and then watched my mom die with complications of what I was developing. It was scary and I didn't want to end that way, too. So I started looking for health answers and found a way to lose weight. Working with an endocrinologist and a registered dietitian/diabetes educator (for type II diabetes) to control my diabetes kicked me into gear and began the weight loss. But even at that time it was more about getting blood sugars under control that losing weight.

I lost so slowly (since Sept. 2012) that I didn't really notice the change so much in my body. But I never really noticed the changes when I was obese and gained either. The only thing I noticed was my clothes size going down. I still had/have belly fat and fat on my thighs and upper arms (bat wings) that I would like to lose but I try to not focus on what is still to be done. My focus has been on my health and it has improved greatly - so has my energy!

Maybe I'm not a deep thinker, but I never considered that I was hiding behind my body size. I was who I was on the inside and the outside didn't matter that much. I did feel a little intimidated by the parents of my kids' friends who were healthy-sized (or so I thought) but it didn't limit me - many things used to intimidate me, including people with money. But that was more a function of my perception of others. I realize that those I thought were normal sized have their own issues. The ladies I thought were really great looking - I LOOK LIKE THEM NOW!!! And some of them are not as small as me! It now seems so irrelevant.

One last thing, I'm still shocked when I pass a mirror and see myself at a normal size. I am surprised at how small the clothes are that I can wear. My husband tells me I look hot and calls me bony. And honestly, in clothes I do look good! Don't let your self perception get in the way of success - however you want that success to look and feel. Because your self perception will change with the success, as well as with time and situation.