Recognizing others weight loss, but not your own

I have a hard time recognizing that I've lost weight just by looking at myself. However, I can notice the physical changes by feeling them. For some reason, I always tend to notice my fingers getting smaller. Probably because I fold my hands a lot. Or when I put on pants or shirts that I haven't been able to wear for a while. Or when I touch a certain part of my body, like my stomach, and it feels smaller. I tend to notice those changes a lot more than visible changes. I know I'm a very haptic and experiential kind of person, though, so that's why I think I'm like that.

It might help for you to take pictures of yourself as you hit certain milestones (like every 10th or 20th pound.) This will help you to compare and see how far you've come. Since you live with yourself everyday, and the changes happen gradually, they can be difficult to notice. However, if you capture a moment in time, you can always look back to it. If you already do this, sorry for the pointless suggestion

Whenever I get discouraged, because the mirror is not yet showing what the scale does, I grab weights of similar amounts to what I have lost and climb stairs with them. That's all it really takes for me to congratulate myself on not having all that weight to carry around daily. It feels so good to just set that weight down.

I totally get that. I don't have that same dialog like I could have done better. Sometimes I think it didn't make much difference visually, but I really feel the difference and that's very important to me. Being able to turn in bed is a good thing, not struggling to get up a flight of stairs is another good thing, being able(even if it is just barely) to fit into clothes in regular stores is a good thing. It's just that it is really hard for me to impress myself. I tend to be more impressed by other people's efforts.