Still seeing the fat girl..

If you have always been heavy, you will not stop seeing the fat girl until you reach for an outfit in a size you consider small and it fits you, or you see a number on the scale that belongs to you and is what you consider not fat. Keep taking pictures of yourself though as you lose and take note of how far you've come. Pictures tell the truth even when our self image doesn't. Give yourself credit for your achievements along the way even if you haven't arrived at your final destination yet. When you get there, you will be overjoyed that you didn't give up along the way.

I am 114lbs and still see myself as 140-150 most of the time. Only occasionally in certain outfits do I feel my current size.

I think you need to get rid of the old girl....I know you want to see a place so you know where you started from but really how important is it..its just a reminder of the fat girl...you know sometimes its like people we forget how they look if we don't see them in a while...well your keeping those "fat girl" images and things or maybe favorite items and those things could be triggering ...why you cant let her go....I would burn it all its not important to see how far you have come anymore ..you know where you are at...get rid of anything that is a mental image of that old fat girl

I think this is something everyone struggles with, especially if you've been big all your life.
I used to wear a 22 and now wear a 10. Even though I mentally know that I can find my size on a straight size rack, I still get nervous shopping in straight stores because for some reason, I still feel like nothing will fit. I still cringe when I pull on clothes in the dressing room, expecting it to get stuck at my hips or over my boobs and am always surprised when the clothes go on and zip with no struggle.
I think everyone has that.

What has helped me alot is taking pictures (I take them on the first of each month) and hanging onto a few clothes from when I was at my heaviest.
When I have bad days where I feel like nothing has changed, I put on my old outfits.
There's nothing to get your mind right like seeing that a pair of pants that you could barely fit into before is now so loose that it cannot stay up. Or that you can actually fit both of your legs into one pantleg.

And yeah, keep old goal clothes too. I remember the first time I could fit into my winter formal dress from high school. When I bought it, I couldn't fit it even back then, so it literally has never been worn. 7 years later and the tags are still on it. It even still has that fresh store smell still because it's been hanging in the plastic jacket since I tried it on all those years ago and I could not even close it, talkless of zipping it. I tried it a few weeks ago and it was actually loose. I cried like a big disgusting baby, but it was the best feeling ever.

I know how you feel. When I lost alot of weigh 9 years ago I felt the same way. Ppl would tell me how good I looked but I didnt really see it. I must admit that I was a person with depression at the time and most of my life back then. I also had low self esteem. It wasnt because I grew up heavy or anything, there were other reasons that are besides the point. What I did do is take a lot of pics. I could see the dif on pics but not in the mirror which was weird to me. I still wore big clothes thinking I was still big until one day I went to the dressing rm to grab a 16, then a 14, then...all the way down to an 8 or 9. I couldn't believe it! Eventhough the pics showed it, but the mirror didn't to me. The true relection of yourself is in your head. How do "you" really feel about yourself, at least it was for me. I didn't even realize that I suffered from depression until I was no longer suffering, not saying that you are. What I did do was look in the mirror everyday and tell myself, I love myself, you are beautiful, and thin (or whatever word I said for smaller) I actually said these words over and over daily before I went all the way down. After a while, I started believing that I WAS beautiful and I could see the change finally. It felt weird to "talk" to myself but I felt it was worth trying. And it worked. To this day, I don't have low self esteem (it took more work than self talk to get over low esteem and depression for me) and although I'm larger now, I still feel that I'm beautiful and I love myself. Of course I dont like the fat rolls but I think you get my point. In conclusion, maybe you should take lots of pics and put next to old pics and tell yourself that you are not that same person and that you have come a long way. BUT then again maybe you are the same person. Maybe the issue is internally. Only you would know that...

Hi, I am new here. I think that is wonderful that you lost that much. You need to pat yourself on the back for it. It isn't easy to loose weight. Some people brag and it come right back on them, so SMILE, BE HAPPY, SAY WTG! ME! I think too that we all have a poor image of ourselves and it doesn't go away. Take a look at your fat picture and look at you know, ok. Love yourself because if you don't know one else will, ok. Great Job! Judy Brackney

The more you accomplish, the more you realize how much more you could achieve than what you originally set out to do - it's human nature to keep raising the bar as we approach it. The more you improve, the more improvement you become aware of that you could still do.

i really like that passage. It's kind of a reminder to remember to take a step and look at how far you've come, but we can always keep going.

Sometimes I see the new me, and sometimes I see the old (OR - what I THOUGHT the old me looked like. I probably looked worse!!)

I think part of it is body fat% - when that gets down lower it will make a difference.

I think part of it is that we still see...us. It's still kind of the same proportions, just smaller. And that is hard to gain perspective on - which is where the pictures come in handy. Just looking in the mirror without your old self standing next to you doesn't give you something to compare to.

I also wore a 22/24 - and am now getting too small for most of my 10's. I wear scrubs at work, and can get the size smalls onto my body. I used to wear the 3XL. Yet I still see fat, especially certain angles.

When I'm at the gym with a certain couple of guys who are the football coaches at the highschool...I look tiny. I can't see ANY fat then. I *love* those guys. (he, he...but it's the persepective thing - me compared to them - and I can see how small I am. Me next to a size 2 lady, even if I *am* more muscular - I see BIG!)

One day I was at the gym and there were two bikini-body-builders who were headed into a competition (so they were at their tiniest). They were drop dead gorgeous to me. Stunning. You know what one of them said? "When will it ever be enough? I still see myself as fat. Even though I know I am not." That was most of the conversation I heard. But it was all I needed to hear. It has helped me to remind myself of it.