People with big weight loss...weigh more at smaller sizes?

I have no answers ....... just want to congratulate you on that awesome weight loss ...... be happy, be healthy :drinker:

I have no answer to that question, but I also am told that I look like I weigh less than I actually am. I'll take it.

I would guess and say that in most situations it deals with muscle gain. I've seen a lot of people who look physically MUCH smaller than when they began working out, but they are basically the same weight on the scale as when they started out.

I get told that too. I'm about 150 and according to people I look like I'm 130. They can't believe I'm in an 8/10 pants. I really think I weigh more because my skeleton is very dense. My fingers don't touch when I grasp my wrist, and I really am not that fat, I have bones sticking out all over... I think being a formally morbidly obese person makes your skeleton heavier to hold up the weight.

Don't have answers either, but I'm wondering if the clothing sizes are just bigger & being labeled smaller for our self-esteem or something so that we buy more... lol I lost 102lbs & am in a smaller size, in theory anyway, than I was when I was 18.

I totally know what you mean! I'm one of those that never had much weight to lose (my first goal was to lose 15 pounds, which I hit, and I'm in the middle of the healthy weight range now at 128). I'm a size 8, and have been for years. I mean, the size 8 was a bit tight before and now it fits well, but I'm still a size 8. Meanwhile, I see women who went from 300 to 200 fitting into like, a size 10. Huh?! How are they only one size bigger than me? I'm not hating; I'm genuinely curious. I've been meaning to make a thread about it.

I started out at 496 lbs. And I am now down to 339. So with that said. I am fitting into clothing that is the same size I wore in High School when I weighed in at around 250-270lbs. How is that possible, I dunno.

MY body fat percentage has been tested and shows to be much lower than what it's 'supposed' to be for any BMI/body height weight calculator. So everything is off. I've gotten used to this.

As an example I went to amusement parks this summer and the ride attendants were all dumbfounded why I didn't fit on some of the rides, when they were absolutely sure I would. Annoying. But I am sure it will be even worse if I ever actually DO get any more of the weight off.

And Father.... I'm happy to donate any amount of skin and tissue anyone wants to remove from me *grins*

I know with me I don't look like I weigh as much as I do, this is because I am tall and have been luck at how my body has placed the fat so I don't look as big as I really am. My bones are only 3.3 so it doesn't have much impact I think.

It's not just about what the scales say. It's about your height and your body shape too.

At 5"10, when I was a size 14, I looked like a size 10. At my heaviest over 20 stone and a size 24, no-one believed I weighed that much.

However if my 5"4 friend weighed over 20 stone, she'd look a lot different, and would probably be a bigger size too.

Muscle. People gain muscle with fat, just like we lose muscle with fat. We don't only put on muscle when we're picking things up and putting them down.

Take someone with an extra 25-50-100 pounds, and they are going to need more muscle in their body to carry that extra weight. If you lose weight sensibly and maintain lean mass, you're going to have more muscle than someone who never carried that extra weight.

If you lose weight without preserving lean muscle, though, you're not going to look as lean at the same weight.

10 years ago, I had a jaw problem and couldn't eat normally. I wasn't concerned enough with nutrition or exercise, so when I lost weight, I lost lean mass. When I could eat again, I gained weight, including lean mass.

When I lost this time, I took nutrition and exercise very seriously, and preserved lean mass. I'm about 15 pounds heavier now, and the same size. Maybe with a smaller waist.

I would also say muscle. Im bottom heavy but when I weighed 210 lbs at 5'6", I wore size 14 misses jeans and size M tops. Since I'm bottom heavy, I tend to use jeans as a guideline.

Hey, I know this is a fairly old thread, but I thought I'd answer anyway for people still reading it. When you gain a significant amount of weight, your body creates more lean mass (muscle) to support the extra load. Think about it- Your body has to find the strength to move your larger frame around, and that requires more energy to do even simple things like sitting down and standing up. This is a bit of an exaggerated example, but imagine you weigh 300 lbs & you are getting up off the couch- it's almost like you're doing a 300 lb squat! Obese people tend to have more lean mass (muscle) than regularly lean people. It's just difficult to see because that muscle is covered in layers of fluffy fat. Sure, you gained fat, but your body built extra muscle for you at the same time! Take advantage of this! Those people you see that lost a lot of weight but look trimmer than their equal-weighted counterparts look so great because they lost the weight the best way & preserved that lean muscle mass. Muscle is very dense. It takes up less space than the same amount of weight in fat. 5 lbs of fat is nearly 3 times the size of 5 lbs of muscle!