Breaking the "Fat Girl" Mentality

funkyspunky872

I lost 145 pounds (gained 30 back, but working my way back down) and I've always felt huge. I had to remind myself all the time that I'm not 300 pounds anymore. I forget my weight easily -- the other day I was trying to enter so info into a calorie calculator and didn't realize I added 50+ pounds to my current weight. Whoops.

rubyautumn4

Five years ago I lost 30 pounds I still felt fat even though I got a new wardrobe, could fit into anything at the mall and people were telling me how much weight I had lost. The weird thing is now, at my heaviest, I feel like a skinny girl trapped in a fat girl's body! I don't always realize quite how big I've gotten till I come across a mirror *sigh*

Pinkigloopyxie

On the contrary, every day I take a few minutes before bed to lay down and feel my ribs and the small hollow between them, and in the morning I flex my arms and feel my newfound collarbone and feel the edge of my jaw. My favourite is hunching my shoulders a bit and seeing these hollows I have above my collarbone.

It's so awesome because I've been fat all my life (never up and down, just steadily up) so I don't remember being skinny at all. I think it's cool discovering new parts of myself and I can't wait to find new things. I think I will have a very prominent collarbone when I lose the rest of my weight. (60lbs to go)

RawVeganFlirt

this is what happened to me actually. when i first started losing weight it was an accident, i didn't particularly love my body but i didn't stress over it or care enough to count calories but i did start eating much better and i did have a weight i wanted to be. when i got to that weight it just made me want to lose more. and then it got out of hand

story short, i got down to almost 100 pounds and felt the ugliest ive ever felt in my life, full of anxiety towards eating and the need to over exercise, developed an eating disorder, was depressed etc. it was hard to get out of it but i did. i'm now at my "ideal weight" which is 110-112ish, have a much healthier mentality towards food and i exercise to feel good, not as a punishment or because i feel like i have to.

its true when they say being thin wont make all your problems go away.

angimac

I'm smaller now than I've been since I was 15 years old (I'm almost 41 now). I still get startled by my shadow sometimes, or my reflection if I catch it in my peripheral vision. But when I look in a mirror, I still see Fat Angie... Only when I see photos, does it click that I've really lost well over 100 pounds. I honestly don't know if I'll ever look into a mirror and see what others see.

I freaked out the first time I felt my hip bones. I thought "WTH is that? I have a tumor!" Same thing with my ribs. I'm an intelligent person. I KNOW that I'm not Fat Angie anymore, but I still see her in the mirror. I guess it takes longer than one year to change what you have seen staring back at you in the mirror for 25 years...

veggiesaurus15

I lost nearly 90 pounds and still deal with the "fat girl" mentality. It's been less than a year and breaking the mindset is difficult. People tell me all the time how good I look and guys hit on me constantly, but all I can think is... there must be something wrong with them.... Sad.

kingofcrunk

I've lost 67 pounds so far and I'm now in my healthy bmi range but I do still feel like a fat person.

Rockmyskinnyjeans

I am far, far beyond "fat girl mentality" and I am in full-blown body dysmorphic disorder, as diagnosed and still in therapy for. I wish it was so easy as to lose OVER 200 lbs, regain a substantial chunk back, get it together, work my tail off and lose it again AND look ever better than better... AND be able to see it and be able to accept the compliments I get for it without thinking they are backhanded.

I'm still hopeful that with continued hard work, someday I will finally see what everyone seems to see and I will stop nit-picking everything about myself. I am hopeful that I will no longer feel FAT at a 136-137 lb size 4.

veggiesaurus15

I am far, far beyond "fat girl mentality" and I am in full-blown body dysmorphic disorder, as diagnosed and still in therapy for. I wish it was so easy as to lose OVER 200 lbs, regain a substantial chunk back, get it together, work my tail off and lose it again AND look ever better than better... AND be able to see it and be able to accept the compliments I get for it without thinking they are backhanded.

I'm still hopeful that with continued hard work, someday I will finally see what everyone seems to see and I will stop nit-picking everything about myself. I am hopeful that I will no longer feel FAT at a 136-137 lb size 4.

Wow. You should be so proud of what you've done! The fact that you didn't give up and did it again is amazing. I hope that the learning experience will motivate you to keep it off for life! You deserve it!!

Starbuck2020

I was 95lbs when I got pregnant the first time. I had two children and usually weighed around 120lbs give or take...Then several years later when my youngest was 5 or 6 I started gaining...and gaining.

When I was 95lbs I thought I was fat. I could prove it too...If I leaned forward a bit and squeezed really hard I could pinch some fat on my lower stomach. Disgusting right? pffftttttt. I want to punch my younger self. lol

I don't want to weigh that little again, I was super boney...but I did look good at 110-120 which is my goal now. I always wore baggy clothes when I use to be skinny and I NEVER wore a bikini or anything sexy. Silly me. I am not going to be that foolish this time around. I'm going shoppin'! haha

purplepiggy1

I think it becomes a case of always wanting that bit more, which is often the case in our society. Once you have a flat stomach you want to be toned, once you have those slim arms you want to gain muscles etc.

veggiesaurus15

When I was 95lbs I thought I was fat. I could prove it too...If I leaned forward a bit and squeezed really hard I could pinch some fat on my lower stomach. Disgusting right? pffftttttt. I want to punch my younger self. lol

You made me laugh. But I totally understand the feeling.

AislinnKitten

I used to weigh 230 lbs, got all the way down to 145 lbs, but not a healthy way. I felt/looked terrible at 230 lbs and I felt/looked terrible at 145 lbs, I'm now back up to 182 lbs, once again feeling/looking terrible but now trying to loose it the right way but fear that I will never see it once I get there. My boyfriend tells me all the time that you have to learn to accept yourself as you already are in order to make and see the changes you want to see to improve yourself (On top of telling me that I look gorgeous as I am but he supports my weight loss decision so I can feel beautiful and healthy), but I can't seem to do that. I don't really know what I look like now to be honest, people tell me I don't look as much as I weigh but I feel like I still look 230 lbs. I think it comes down to time to adjust, strength to accept the changes despite what your mind is telling you from years of what it's used to, and being able to learn to love yourself inside and out. Good luck to all of you who struggle too with the "fat girl" or "fat boy" mentality, hope we can all see our beauty someday

cloveraz

Yeah, today while shopping, I literally forced myself to look in the misses section. I felt very uneasy, like I was trespassing or something. I don't know another way to explain it...For me, I believe, that my lack of self-esteem is creating this wayward thinking. I, also believe this way of thinking is fueling my addiction to cardio. I've been on this journey for over a year now, and my brain is not even close to catching up with the whole weight loss thing. It's crazy....

dhiammarath

Yeah, today while shopping, I literally forced myself to look in the misses section. I felt very uneasy, like I was trespassing or something. I don't know another way to explain it...For me, I believe, that my lack of self-esteem is creating this wayward thinking. I, also believe this way of thinking is fueling my addiction to cardio. I've been on this journey for over a year now, and my brain is not even close to catching up with the whole weight loss thing. It's crazy....

I know exactly what you mean. Yesterday while out shopping for Christmas gifts, I passed this store called Hollister (I think). I remember over the summer, I ventured in there fairly upbeat and confident with my forty pound loss, only to be scandalized by how small their sizes were! So yesterday, without my husband (who is so supportive), I glanced to the left. Glanced to the right. Nibbled my lip. And stepped back into the land of Tiny Sizes. I glanced suspiciously at the girl folding sweaters and didn't meet her eyes when she greeted me. I stared, debating the stacks and stacks of Little People jeans, again nibbling my lip. The girl comes over to ask me if I need help and I very nearly jumped out of my skin! Like I'd been caught about to steal the diamonds out of a showcase.

I thought for sure, she was going to look at me in pity and tell me that perhaps nothing would really fit. I steeled up my gumption and picked a variety of sizes in random jeans (I'm surprised I could find the courage to grab anything, to be honest) and this pretty white, shimmery sweater in an /ambitious/ medium.

I make my way back to the dressing room (at this point, I discovered their dressing rooms kind of suck with no bench or chair or /anything/ and for an upscale place, they need SOMETHING) following the dressing room attendant's lead. I stare at the jeans I have hung on the hooks and proceed to try things on like I'm about to be yelling, "LET THEM EAT CAKE" as the proverbial guillotine is about to come down on my fat booty.

One size didn't fit (and it was comical how badly this was going), but the middle size (yes, I did the goldilocks thing: small-not-to-be-really-expected, the-just-right-hopefully-please-Lord medium, and the-please-not-this-size-but-I'll-take-it-because-it's-their-largest-size-in-store. I was amazed! The medium-just-right size fit! And the medium sweater fit!

Still, once undressed and back into my street clothes, as I was leaving, and they were like "nothing worked?" making those cluck-cluck-please-spend-your-money noises, I STILL felt like I was in a land that I was outclassed in.

In the end, I didn't get chased out of the store and I fit into something I've been gearing up the courage to try to fit into for a few months now.

aubbie67

There are some people that never get past the fat girl mentatlity and I am one of them. Nine years ago I weighed in at 375 pounds. I had gastric bypass and lost down to 137 pounds. Everybody says I looked like a walking skeleton but I could not see it. I still saw the grossly fat girl who everybody laughed at (even though I was fitting into a pair of size 5 jeans!) This inability to see myself as anything but fat Is what I believe led me to regain up to 271 pounds. I did not realize I had regained that much as I never saw myself as anything but fat. I have been back on a weight loss journey since January of this year and am back down to 197 pounds for a loss of 74 pounds. I have made it back to the beginnings of the proverbial "onderland" but still I feel like the whale at the marine park or the hippo at the zoo. I can't see myself as anything but fat. My husband tries his best to make me see how much I have changed and what I look like but it just won't sink in. I still have quite a ways to go and for the past week or so have been having to fight an inner battle with myself not to sabotage things and start on the journed back up. If I can ever get the fat girl out of my head and my mirror, maybe I can lose the rest of the weight and stay there this time!!!

kelly_e_montana

I am weirdly the other way. My mind has not accepted that I am morbidly obese. I refuse to be deeply affected, but it does bother me. I just feel like it will change and I will look the way I want again. I have been doing well this year but have lost 79 pounds previously, then sabotaged it. I recognise that now and I will be successful.

Me too. I never see myself as fat or thin, just always somewhere in between and that causes a lot of problems.

mogletdeluxe

I think that's pretty common for almost all of us, to some degree.

For me, that lack of a realistic body image has worked both ways. When I was at my heaviest about 12 years back, I had no idea just how big I was and thought I still looked pretty good - until I saw the videos from my wedding.

Now that I'm probably in the best shape of my adult life, I look in the mirror and I immediately notice all the spots that still jiggle. BUT I am starting to be able to move past that and pay more attention to the parts that are looking better and better. I think what's helped me the most this time around is that I've been working out as much as possible. So maybe my arms still don't look exactly like I want (yet), but when my shoulders and chest are sore from the pushups I did the day before, I still feel pretty good about getting healthier and stronger despite what my reflection tells me. My thighs may never be model-skinny, but I frankly don't care - they need to be muscle-bound so I can kick harder! Shifting that focus from "skinny" to "fit" is definitely helping my mindset in how I see my body.

Absolutely this. It frustrates me that I have worked this hard and this long to lose the weight, and yet my noggin is nowhere near as advanced as my body (shameless plug, but relevant - I've written about it before: http://russianweightsandsmallerplates.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/the-skin-im-in/).

Like others have said before me, I was the other way around when I was fat, too - partly denial, partly just plain old non-realisation that I was THAT big. The battle, for me, has been 99% mental.

msbunnie68

I thought I had a pretty good handle on my own size whatever my weight and up until I lost weight I did - I could judge pretty closely what size pants to grab to try on and be nearly spot on every time.

...now the other day I was folding the laundry and whenever I picked up a pair of pants that I KNEW to be mine my brain kept telling me they belong on my teenagers piles. I had to stop and look at the label for the brand to confirm they were my pants/jeans/shorts. Could not believe how weird it felt because my brain kept automatically telling me 'too small for you must be Miss A's or Miss J's clothes although I KNEW they were mine.


Weird.

mgram2

I completely have this problem. At my highest (unpregnant) weight I was 162.. and now I weigh between 118-121. Every time I look in the mirror I see an overweight girl. I still feel "fat" in my clothes" and still try on half of my closest every morning to see what I can find that I don't feel "fat" in.
I have to continuously remind myself that I know I am not in fact fat because I only weigh 118-121 lbs now.
It's still a daily struggle.
When you still see the fat girl even when she isn't there.. you know the problem wasn't really the extra weight to begin with .. it was something mentally inside yourself.