I sure dont feel 45 pounds thinner

WDEvy

I think it's the brain not catching up. I'm down 55, it's the lightest I've been in 10 years and I do not see it in the mirror. I see it on pictures but not when I look at myself.

reedandmalloy

I'm also 5'9" and I always have to lose at least 30-40 pounds before someone might notice. I once went from 240 down to 155 and it wasn't really until about 175-180 that people started commenting. But on the bright side--the opposite was also true. No one ever believes that I weight as much as I do.

Do you exercise? I have noticed that the times I lost weight while exercising the results were MUCH quicker to be seen by myself and others.

retirehappy

It is a body image thing. Tons of us have that issue. I always think I look SOOOOOO much bigger than what a picture will show. I keep hoping the problem will go a way but it never has. Even when I was 110 lbs (5'3") , during most of my 20s, I felt big. I keep hoping the problem will go a way but it never has.

I didn't see any pics do you have some at your higher weight and have any recent ones to compare them? Pics do help, even if you hate looking at them!!

eazy_

I feel the same way. Still fat just not as fat.

seltzermint555

I can relate. I think for me a lot of it is that I never FELT crazy-fat, and from ages 17-35 I've usually been in the range of 240-270 so for me that was "normal" (unlike someone who is always average sized and then gains a ton from pregnancy etc). I felt like I looked pretty average, even at my highest weight of 307 lb.

From 2008-2011 I went from 307 lb to 272. Felt no different really. I stopped having swollen ankles and could walk faster and more easily, that's about it.

In 2012 I went from 272-262. Felt no different aside from noticing that I fit better into chairs, booths, etc.

Since March I've gone from 262 to 223...actually this AM's weigh in said 220.6 but I wait until a loss is sustained over several days before logging. I feel no different except when people go on and on about my weight loss (which everyone in my life does) and when I realize that I really have gone down to a 1X top and 18 jeans are getting baggy - I have not worn a 16 since 8th grade so that's gonna be surreal.

However, even with my loss of over 80 lb in the past 5 yrs I just DO NOT feel drastically different!! In photos I see a change but it does not seem like THAT major of a change to me. I was happy before and I'm happier now, true. But it has a lot more to do with changes in my life (divorce, getting remarried, new job) than my weight. I know a lot of people who lose 20, 50, or more lb and feel so much more energetic and like a different person and I don't know what that is like at all really...

alisonlynn1976

Try on the clothes you wore 45 pounds ago if you still have some and you will see the difference.

Tammyinbali

In the past when I've lost weight I find that for the first while I actually feel 'fatter'. I think this is mostly due to the fact that my body changes shape & I lose weight off different parts at different speeds...so I go from being big all over to looking a lot more bumpy & lumpy in certain parts. For example when I start to lose weight my butt & thighs get all around smaller to everyone else's eyes, but what I notice is that suddenly my lower area changes to an 'S' shape rather than an 'O'...lol...if that makes any sense...everything goes in and then out and then in again instead of a smooth line. I think taking our measurements at check-in rather than our weight alone is what helps with the reality check that I am in fact getting smaller. I try to alternate, one week I do my measurements for check in & the next week I do my weight. Weighing myself every two weeks also gives my body enough time to register something on the scale & there's less of a chance of being disappointed with a really low number. Also keeping a journal of photos going really helps to show us the changes going on in our bodies. I'm sure that everybody else notices it. And last but not least...take great pride in the fact that you've made an amazing changes in your life that has made you a healthier person! Slow & steady wins the race! Congrats on your 45!

julyjulie50

A WW woman brought a jumper dress that you can fit overhead (sorry English is my 2nd language). It had pockets with weights in them and we had to wear the jumper and guess the added weight. My knees folded when I tried it on so I guessed around 80 lbs. A lot of woman said 100- 120 lbs. The overall average was around 80 to 100 lbs.

Actually it was 15 pounds (not kidding). 15 x 1 pound weights in little Pocket all around the dress. Just to show you that 43 pounds is a lot! and you are use to it but if you would wear it all at once, you'd feel it!!

Just a little story I wanted to share, it has changed forever the way I see a 15 weight loss.:happy:

JJ

kuroi19

I have that too. I can feel the difference and I look better with clothes on, pretty much healthy and your average guy but mentally I know I still don't look well and I suspect I won't lose my folds and belly fat until i hit the middle of my bmi. Not even the tip.

ClementineGeorg

I'm 5'7'' (172 cm).
I started here at 210 lbs (95 kg). Now I am 159 lbs (72 kg). That means 51 lbs lost.

Do I feel different?
Most times I don't. Still got big thighs, a big belly, so big calves that make me don't want to wear nothing but long pants and maxi skirts/dresses. Sometimes I feel even worse because I think that from workouts by thighs and calves get bigger and bigger everyday. And I don't even workout that hard.

I know that I have lost. I know I wear smaller clothes. I know my whole body starts looking better. But I most time forget I know that.

I lost the weight very slow, in a little more than a year. I thought that losing slowly I would cope better with the weighloss. I didn't.

But I know that little by little my body image will change. It just takes more time.

nena49659

When I first started losing weight, I think i'd lost 10 lbs maybe... when I asked how I looked I had a friend (now EX friend) tell me, "Nobody notices when you take a couple buckets of water out of the ocean."

She was a **** lol.

However, in my experience, the farther along you get the more difference a few lbs seems to make. Even if you're not noticing so much of a change now, stick with it! You'll get to that point I swear it!!

I might add that even though i've gone from a size 16 to a size 6 there are still days I feel like I look horrible, sometimes one's perception of ones self isn't always realistic. I'm sure you look fantastic.

Stick with it. Don't be discouraged! Good luck!

You're right, she was a *****!

lambchristie

There are so many people here, me included, that experience your same thoughts/feelings. I am having one of those days myself. I've lost 50 pounds, I am 5' 5" tall and I still sometimes she the 220 pound person in the mirror. I tried on a pair of shorts today that have been in my drawer forever, still with the store tags on them ... a size 14 and I still can NOT get them zipped and buttoned!!! REALLY? All my pants are a size 12 and TO BIG!!! That experience with the shorts set my mind-set back to being 50 pounds heavier...:embarassed:

I too want to encourage you to keep going. We are well on the road to a healthier you and I nor anyone else here want to see you so discouraged you give up. Losing 45 pounds is like using a small toddler in weight; or 4-1/2 bags of (5 pounds each) potatoes. You've accomplished so much and you should be very proud of yourself.

Congratulations and best of luck on your journey.

BozGirl

Could this be because I had a lot of weight to lose to begin with? Or because I'm tall (5'9)? I've gone from 245 to 200. Will I notice a more dramatic difference as I work toward my next goal of 175? I'm not sure if this is the right section, so please forgive me, but I'm looking for input/experiences as I'm feeling a little discouraged.

I think the height thing is a factor. I've had almost the same experience as you, and it was frustrating for a long time.

I'm 5'9" and started at 255. When I got to about 185, people started coming up to me everyday, like, 2-3 people a day, and telling me how skinny I looked. It was like, that 5 pounds from 190 to 185 made a HUGE difference.

Now, I'm 170, and I finally see it.

HeyGoRun

What is your fitness routine?

DanIsACyclingFool

Yeah, I know the feeling. I need only look in the mirror or at my before/current pics to see the huge difference, and my ticker tells no lie, but all I seem to care about is far I have to go.

Somehow I seem to believe that having six-pack abs would make all the broken pieces of my life come back together, and nothing less is worth celebrating.

guessrs

Yes, you'll notice huge changes under 200 pounds. I began at 198, when I lost 20 pounds I could tell. When I lost 40 others could tell.

silencioesoro

I'm 5'7 nd went from 242 to 142, it's hard to tell when it's yourself that you're looking at. It's time to take a step back and look at yourself through their eyes. Someone mentioned going to the supermarket to get a bag of potatoes, do it!

Go to a thrift store, find your old size, it'll blow your mind. "I used to fit into THAT?"

I still have a hard time now, after losing my recent 10 pounds, going "I can fit into a small?"

and OP, way to go for losing 45 pounds!

skinnybythanksgiving

It's pretty common. Taking measurements and tracking them on MFP helped me a lot. It forced me to stop lying to myself and admit I'm doing great. Here's an explanation of what goes on.



Even though Kellylyn Hicks has lost about 85 pounds over the last year and a half, and gone from a size 24 to a tiny size 4, she still worries she won't fit into chairs.

While out shopping, she fears that she’ll bump her hip into a shelf and break something. A few years ago when she was heavier, she accidentally knocked over and broke a wolf figurine and had to pay $60 for it.

And every morning when she looks in the mirror while getting ready for the day, she sees her former, heavier self. “My brain says, ‘Yep, still fat.’”

“It's been really hard to change my self-image,” says Hicks, 37, of Chesapeake, Va. “I still feel like I'm this enormous person who takes up tons of space.”

While many people are thrilled when they lose excess weight, not everyone is as happy as they expected to be — or as society assumes they surely must be.

Body-image experts say it’s not uncommon for people, especially women, who have lost a lot of weight to be disappointed to some extent to discover that they still aren’t “perfect.” The excess fat is gone when they reach their goal weight, but they may have sagging skin, cellulite or a body shape that they still deem undesirable. Like Hicks, some even continue to see themselves as though they are overweight.

Some specialists use the term “phantom fat” to refer to this phenomenon of feeling fat and unacceptable after weight loss.

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“People who were formerly overweight often still carry that internal image, perception, with them,” says Elayne Daniels, a psychologist in Canton, Mass., who specializes in body-image issues. “They literally feel as if they’re in a large body still.”

Daniels and other experts suspect this may happen because the brain hasn’t “caught up” with the new, leaner body, particularly for people who were obese for many years and then experienced rapid weight loss.

“Body image is a lot harder to change than the actual physical body is,” Daniels says.

'Waiting for the other shoe to drop'
Another contributing factor, especially for yo-yo dieters, can be fear of regaining the weight, says Joshua Hrabosky, a psychologist at Rhode Island Hospital who studies body image and counsels obese people undergoing bariatric surgery.

Climb out of your fitness rut
“They’re still in the back of their minds maybe waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he says. People who’ve gained and lost and gained again may be less likely to embrace a new image that they worry won’t last.

Hrabosky co-authored a research paper in 2004 that discussed the notion of a phantom fat phenomenon. “We were kind of playing on the concept of phantom limb,” he says, in which people who’ve lost an arm or leg feel like the limb is there and even causing them pain or itching.

In his study, published in the journal Body Image, Hrabosky and colleagues questioned 165 women who were grouped into three categories: those who were currently overweight, formerly overweight (and at an average weight for at least two years) and never overweight.

Both the formerly overweight women and currently overweight women were more preoccupied with weight and had greater “dysfunctional appearance investment” — telling themselves, for instance, that “I should do whatever I can to always look my best” and “What I look like is an important part of who I am” — than women who were never overweight.

Still focused on the fat
The findings suggest that “people who undergo major weight loss may experience improvements in satisfaction in appearance, though still not necessarily as much as someone who was never overweight,” Hrabosky explains. “But they are also still more invested or preoccupied with appearance than someone who was never overweight.”

Though she’s lost 50 pounds, Nell Bradley, 25, of Atlanta, says she’s more weight-conscious now than five years ago when she weighed 200 pounds.

“I’m so afraid of being that size again,” says Bradley, who exercises three to four times a week and watches her diet to keep her weight in check. She’d like to lose about 10 more pounds.

Even five years later, she still hasn’t shaken the image of her heavier self. “Now I’m down to 155 to 160 and I still feel like I'm at the weight that I was before,” she says. “It's weird because sometimes I'll shop and immediately look for clothes in my size when I was nearly 200 pounds. I always have problems seeing myself in the mirror or in pictures.”

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Experts say part of the problem in our body-obsessed culture is that many women — and increasingly more men — have highly unrealistic expectations of what weight loss can do for them. Too often, they think hitting their ideal weight will make them look like a swimsuit model in a magazine, and they’re disappointed when that’s not the case.

People who expect perfection can “get stuck in dichotomous thinking that you’re fat or you’re perfect, and there’s no gray area in between,” says psychologist Leslie Heinberg, who counsels bariatric patients at the Cleveland Clinic. “So if you’re not perfect, you’re ‘fat.’”

'Blind spot' about own body
Heinberg says a lot of her patients who’ve lost large amounts of weight know they have a “blind spot” when it comes to their new body, so they really have to work at believing they look the way others see them.

“It can take years after surgery, after losing weight, for people to really buy that,” she says.

Think of getting a dramatically different hairdo and then doing a double-take upon seeing your reflection in a store window, Heinberg says. “Losing 80 pounds is much more of a cognitive shift than getting new highlights,” she explains.

Some people will adjust naturally and more quickly to the weight loss than others, experts say. But it’s time to get help when people are experiencing significant distress, sadness or depression, they say, or their feelings are interfering significantly with their normal activities (such as not going to parties or children’s events, always looking in the mirror or avoiding intimacy with a partner).

Counseling may involve challenging distorted ways of thinking about one’s appearance (by studying before-and-after photos, for instance, or bringing out the “fat pants” and seeing the difference in the mirror), learning how to think about oneself in a more positive manner, and working to engage in activities one’s been avoiding.

“You have to look at retraining your brain and understanding that you have been reinforcing this negative image for probably a long time,” says Adrienne Ressler, a body-image specialist and national training director for the Renfrew Center Foundation, which has several eating disorder-treatment facilities around the country.

“We become numb to how mean we’re being to ourselves,” Ressler says.

“We need to learn to appreciate our bodies,” she says. “If we could all look in the mirror and say, ‘Hello, Gorgeous!’ I just think the world would be a better place for women.”

© 2013 msnbc.com

Mini_horse_lover

I've lost 30ish lbs. I don't really feel like I have either.

27toheaven

You have achieved something great but theres still work to do. Use your sucess as motivation and you'll be fine. 45lbs is most certainly a noticable difference and you should be proud of it!!

When you start out as obese or very overweight its very difficult because your working your butt at the gym or whatever and being soo careful with your food, but to the rest of the world your still overweight. It can get you down I'll never forget the day I lost 60lbs and got down to 190lbs and i felt on top of the world i went into a shop and tried on this short denim skirt and then walked out changing room to large mirror and had 2 girls laughing at me, i felt ashamed. cos 190 to them look obese still.

I just had to remind myself im on a journey the chequered flag is still some way down the road but im more than halfway there and im proud of it.

Warchortle

"thinner" is such a bad adjective.

vanillacoffee

Thats still a HUGE milestone. Congratulations! The rest will come. Be proud of yourself, and keep it up!

asia_hanebach

Sometimes it just takes some time to adjust to seeing the weight loss. I'm in roughly the same boat as you, being 5'8 and going from 225 to 170. It's really only been very recently that I've really seen the weight loss myself. I think it works the same way as not noticing weight gain. You know when you gain 5, 10, or 15 pounds, you usually don't see that in a mirror. Instead you notice it first by the way your clothing fits and by the way you look in pictures. So look for those things first with weight loss too. Is your clothing way too big? Are you happier with how you turn out in pictures? Sometimes it just takes some time for your mind to adjust to seeing a new body

Sandytoes71

I sooooo feel the same way about myself! It's very discouraging but the responses you have gotten on this post are awesome!