Body image issues-- definitely skewed

I felt exactly the same way!!! I am in my healthy range but I "feel" like I would love to lose another 20! There are times I want to be super skinny but then I think about culture and such. Do some google image searches and you will see that the "ideal" has changed over the years. It is a very recent phenomena that super skinny is "in". It you look at images of Twiggy it is easy to see that she either suffered from anorexia or was oppressed into a mind set that to succeed she needed to look like that.

For me, I am still in transition but I am starting to have more days where I am liking myself more and more. The thing that made the biggest difference for me was strength training. As my body gets stronger (not just smaller) I am liking what I see.

I hope you can start sending some self messages to yourself of just how great you do look!

If it starts to become a real problem for you talk to someone, your MD or some of the ladies on here who also struggle.

My prayers and my best!

D

First of all, most people are going to tell you that you don't look that bad. There are a number of reasons for this. Some is that our society has gotten fatter so people are used to it and just don't see it. Part of it is an urge to be polite. Part of it is that they are used to you being the weight you are and are comfortable with their image of you.

Here's an example: I know a lot of people who were morbidly obese or even super morbidly obese and lost a tremendous amount of weight. Many of them have experienced that once they lost about half of their excess weight, their family and friends telling them that they were "too skinny" and "had to stop losing weight". The problem was: they were still obese. One of them had a relative tell her that she "looked like a crack *kitten*" when she still had a double chin!

So clearly, they weren't being objective.

Secondly, you can't use BMI that literally. You say you are only 6 lb. from being a normal weigh by BMI but what about your frame size? I'm supposedly a normal weight at 132 but I clearly had excess fat that I needed to lose when I got to that weight. I have a small-medium frame so I need to be farther down in the BMI range to truly be a a normal weight.

So, maybe you do have body image issues -- most of us do -- but I wouldn't trust what my friends say over other more objective evidence. If your doctor is saying you need to stop losing weight or you are in a good dress size and have a body fat % under 25 and you still think you are incredibly fat, that's one thing. But people telling you that you "carry your weight well" is another. :laugh: