I think I'm skinnier than I actually am...

monalissanne

I often think the same way. I'll see pictures of myself and think, "No! I don't look like that in real life!" On the other hand, I know that I have lost 40 pounds, but I gain and lose evenly all over so even though I know my clothes are looser sometimes I just don't see any difference.It's all mental. I feel like I look smaller than I am when I am feeling good about myself and I don't see the change when I am being hard on myself.

Natihilator

yeah, I've always had this problem, and I think it was one of the factors with letting myself get to 250+lbs, since I was still able to fit in my size 16 jeans, nevermind that they were extremely stretchy 16's and require more than a little effort to zip up. But I've also experience the other side as well, looking at pictures where I weighed 172lbs. and remember feeling huge in the picture, but looking back I was at a nearly healthy weight for my height.

It makes me wonder if I'll ever have an accurate idea of my size one day... :ohwell:

Evelyn_22

Myabe your more muscle so you may weigh more but you don't look like your weight. When i had more muscle and i was 145 i looked 130. I'm sure it's more extreme in bigger girls.

Kaddyshack21

YES YES YES.It finally hit me one day. I didn't realize it until I was looking at a photo of myself and thought "why did nobody tell me?"

I always saw myself as a couple size smaller. I think for me especially it's because I get bigger in the gut but I don't widen. Actually now I am starting to widen ....yikes.

I had to take a pic of me and keep it somewhere I could see it just for the reality check " No everything is not okay, you are not a healthy weight, you need to continually, actively, do something about this"

I assumed everyone hit this point at sometime or another.

finchest

i totally do this in the mirror! i've always felt FINE/happy with my body! it's when i see photos of myself that i feel judgmental of myself

ili_s

It could just be that you are so used to seeing your body a certain way and now that you are losing weight you are noticing the difference a lot more, especially more than other people who see you. You can see yourself slimming down, and that's good.. isn't it?

lemonjune

I always see myself as being smaller in the mirror, but think of myself as being much, much larger. If I'm in a room full of people I don't know, I feel like I might as well be 100 pounds heavier than I am, but when I'm by myself and just happen to check myself out in the mirror, I don't seem quite as big as I really am.

marywanoKC

I'm a photographer, and I've had to learn to disassociate myself from my work and be critical towards the product I put out, and the hard-hitting moment of dedication I think came when I looked at my "Before" photos that I took, and really saw myself. When I was truly able to distance myself from, after the shock and disgust and helplessness, I finally saw me for me.

Up until that point, I'd always think, "Oh, man, I'm glad my ankles aren't that big!" or "Whew, my butt is much more round than hers - I might be a fattie, but at least it's not that lumpy!" And I'd spot appraise myself! Makeup looks great! Flab of muffin-top concealed! Hair looks great! I got to be a pro at compartmentalizing!

Now that I'm losing weight, I'm having to balance between being super pumped at this tiny amount of weight I've lost and complete dissatisfaction. *laugh*

Honestly, though, I think there are very few people who see themselves as they are.

fragilegift

when I was 47, 50..maybe even 55 kilos I thought my husbands XL clothes 'fit' - never mind he was 6'2" and 110kilos. I thought/felt I was huge.

When I was 101 kilos (and didn't actually know it - no scales), I thought I 'wasn't that bad.' I was all 'OMG, look at her, she makes me feel skinny!' One of my neighbours said she was such and such a weight, and all I could think of was, 'you are looking much fatter than that. I was never THAT big. [at the same weight]' Pictures of me looking THAT big were just a 'trick of the camera' - or 'wearing the wrong clothes.'

I'm not sure where the line was where I saw myself as 'just fine.'

AliciaBeth78

I had this same problem for the longest time - especially before I started losing weight! I was 240 and 5'5! If my friends and I would see bigger girls when we were out and about and I would always ask them "Am I as big as her???" Of course, they'd say no - effin liars - but I still have much love for them! I think one day it even got as far as me saying, "OMG, shoot me if I ever get THAT big!" - In retrospect, I may have been bigger than that girl - who knows?

The worst was when my clothes would stop fitting! I would seriously blame whomever did laundry for putting the clothes in the dryer for too long! Or when I went shopping, "I just don't understand why all of these stores have to make their clothes so much smaller nowadays!" (Yes, even at 240 5'5 I still whole heartedly believed that I was a size 14!) haha

Talk about issues! hahaha

Lolli1986

Lol, yeah totally... i used to be really quite thin for my height and i thought i looked kinda large and bulky, but now that i have more weight on me i think that i still look skinny. lmao - it makes no sense.

kelleymeg

Some one posted this link on another thread a month ago. It was enlightening...

http://www.mybodygallery.com/photos-8283-body-shape.htm

it shows you annon pics of people with the same specs as you, so you can get an objective idea of what someone like you looks like

BuckeyeBabe10

I was just thinking about this earlier today!

I'm the same way too. It's like my brain is still in denial that I'm this overweight and I can't physically see it visually. Like others have said, I definitely see the bulges and imperfections everywhere, but it seems like I'm only seeing things individually and not what I look like as a whole (and there's a whole lot!).

My big wake-up calls are whenever I see pictures of myself and see how full my face is or how drastically different I look than what I think I look like. I also get a dose of reality when I'm at the gym working out in front of a mirror - it's like I'm faced with watching myself struggle and its then that I see my whole body in its entirety and grasp the reality of how much more overweight I am than I think.

It definitely sucks, but it's also motivating.

mustgetmuscles1

Bigorexia: Body builders suffer from this sometimes.

rebelo3

YES. I always think something looks cute on and in the mirror, then I see a pictures of myself and WOW not at all what I saw in the mirror.. maybe it's a psychological thing.. I don't know! All i know is you are definitely not alone!

misskerouac

50% of the time I think I look WAY heavier than 173
50% of the time I think I look smaller than others who weigh the same as me.

onequirkygirl

Yes.

It's like reverse body-dysmorphic syndrome!

AmberzHeartz

I feel the same way. All my life I was small. I am 5'5" and when I was in highschool I was 115-125 and college I was 135. Now I am up too 175 and I can't seem to drop that image of myself. I still have all my old clothes that are a xs and s and all my pants that are between a 3 and 5. Even though I know they do not fit I keep them anyways thinking I am not far off from fitting into them. Fact is I am very far off. I have 1 pair of pants that actually fit me and 1 pair I can force myself into yet I hold onto 30 pairs of pants that I will probably never fit into again. I just do not see myself as a big girl. You are not alone in this at all.

kiminikimkim

Me too. It was only seeing myself in other people's photos I realized I was not as small as I thought I was.

Calyps0

I was just thinking this same thing! It's not that I don't know it's just that I forget, or don't keep it in my consciousness until I want to buy new clothes or see recent photos. Seems this site will be good for overcoming that delusion!