Not used to my new body yet... Still feel awkward

Hi everyone. Right now, I kind of feel lost and upset with my “new” body. I’ve read some posts about the difficulties of the mental aspect catching up with the physical aspect of weigh loss, which helps to understand this process, but I really need to vent.

6 months ago, I started to turn my life around (going from a BMI of almost 29 down to currently a BMI of 21). I’m even past my original weight loss goal. Since the beginning of the whole process, and after starting to lose a few kilos, I was starting to get a lot encouragements and congratulations from my friends and relatives which felt on the overall nice. But since the weight loss really shows, I’m in a new city where no one knows about how overweight I used to be…

I always have had self-esteem issues my whole life… Always felt so invisible and always looking for validation in other people’s eyes to get the slight feeling of being accepted. Before changing my life style, I started seeing a therapist to help accepting myself as an individual (which has been helping regardless of weight related things). While therapy, I decided to change my lifestyle to be healthier not only in my mind but in my body too.

Now that I am skinny… I have difficulty accepting it. Of course I am happy of the results and the payoff from all the efforts and the will power it took, but I still have difficulties in getting used to being perceived in a different light by people. In my old city, I had my group of friends that I know love me regardless of the weight. But here… it’s getting overwhelming getting not only used to a new city but also to new people.

I now get comments about how small, tiny, delicate, petite I am (not in the negative way) by people who have no clue that I used to wear clothes with a double digit size. I feel like they aren’t even talking about me when they say that.

Even if I look different, on the inside I still am a shy girl with the same interests and personality... Maybe I feel more positive and a little bit more confident, but on the overall I still feel like the same awkward person.

Last week I went clothes shopping because I needed smaller pants size and I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing in the full length mirror. It was a shock to me, I felt like crying. I read so many posts about people still feeling like they never lost weight and I feel like that too. Sometimes I “miscalculate” if ever I need to go through a narrow space and feel like my butt and hips are going to bump into things, which is far from the case.

To a party I went to recently, I actually had people/strangers that were interested in talking to me and making efforts to know me, even though I’m not a very talkative person. For once I can say I had fun meeting complete strangers. Some guys tried to flirt with me, which just felt so out of place… I felt so upset because I was thinking that this would never had happened with my former self. I guess the self-confidence and the more positive side of me is shining through so maybe that makes me look more approachable to people than I ever was. I still feel like I can’t let go of who I previously was (and still am) and the feeling that if I was still the same as before, these people would have never even bothered with me unless maybe I was making most of the efforts to get to know them (where as, here it was the opposite, I felt like they were the ones putting the energy to get to know me) .

Right now, I feel like I am on the verge of crying… Now I am confronted in changing the way I perceived myself most of my life. Someone told me that it’s like a grieving process. How long is this transition period supposed to last?

Thank you so much for reading all the way through if you have. It feels good to type out all this.