Anyone else back at "what used to be normal"?

I'm in another category. I was never really overweight but was at the high end of my weight range. After having 2 kids I was overweight by about 17 pounds. Now I have lost 27 and am smaller than I ever remember being and still have a goal to lose more and tone. When I look in the mirror I see a thin person that I never remember seeing... But I still see someone who has a lot of work left to do. Sometimes I am pretty hard on myself...

I'm another one who gained a lot of weight during/after 2 pregnancies. I'm now finally back at my pre-pregnancy for my first child weight, which I haven't seen in almost 10 years.

At that time, I thought that weight was "normal" even though I was probably on the slender side then, but I had been thinner in the few years before that. Now, I feel wonderfully thin, given that I've spent the last 10 years at a much higher weight.

I have been overweight (obese) all my life. I probably weigh less now than I did in high school. My problem is when I look in the mirror I have no reference to how I look now; but my brain has moved away from what all the obese picture show. I have a hard time remembering what 350 was like. So I have a hard time relating to either. I know I recently put about 10 lbs back on and am now working hard to take them back off. At 60 years old it tough to say that I don't know myself. I will work with the guy in the mirror and I will run in fear of the one in the pictures.

I never had a teenage or adult normal. Been fighting this ever since I stopped being an active kid and started being a sedentary teenager, decades and decades ago. But I do have a weight range where i can look in the mirror and not go, "Who is that?" And I'm at it right now. The trick is not letting the fat lady back out ever again.

I'm about down to what I was in my first year in college, probably about 5 lbs off what I was in high school, but I'm positive my body fat percentage is WAY lower now than it was before. I can pretty much say I'm in the best shape of my life, which is a nice thing to say at 32

It's funny, I don't feel as though I wasn't "me" when I was heavier (I've lost about 25-30 lbs), but I sure as hell am a lot more comfortable. I don't think I could ever go back. I still keep a pair of jeans when I was at my heavier weight as a reminder and I also have a dress I bought for my 30th birthday when I was at my lowest (post-high school) weight. As long as I don't feel those jeans fitting me, I'm pretty happy.

I am at the lowest weight of my adult life 128 pounds at 54 years of age.. I am at my lowest percentage of body fat as well. Most of adult life i weighed between 135 and 150... High of 174 in 2011..

I like the new normal better... But i gotta say, still think my body is a us size 10 or 12. .... Vs 6 or 8.... And no, i dont recognize my silloutte in mirrors in stores or retaurants yet... And i am on my second year of maintenance!

What a great question. You have raised an important issue that I had not thought about before.

Like many others have said, I don't have a memory of being a normal size. Even though I was not especially overweight during college and in my early 20's, I felt big because I had a poor body image. I always believed I was fat. I lost 60 pounds when I turned 30 and kept if off for about 10 years, but even then I did not feel normal. As I look back it's still not completely clear to me why. I suspect much of the reason has to do with not knowing myself. There were so many new experiences I had as a finally thin person during my 30's that in hindsight were probably pretty overwhelming. As a result I gained a lot of weight during my 40's and became morbidly obese. Being overweight felt normal to me, though less so as I approached age 50 and began to experience health effects due to my size. I am now at a healthy weight and while I am "normal" size, I am still learning to accept that this is who I am. What is different compared to my 30's (when I was last at this weight), is having a greater self confidence and having lost the weight by eating well (healthy and nutritious food) and establishing sustainable activity routines.

What resonates strongly with me in regard to this topic, is the need to view my current weight as the real me. Doing so will allow me maintain my health.

New acceptable standards is a slippery slope. It was a big part of my weight gain. I used to yoyo between where I am now at the lowest up to about 15 pounds higher. Buying decent clothes with a little more room in them was a big mistake in retrospect. It made the extra pounds look normal. I justified it because I "really wasn't fat - it was just the tight clothes from the bottom of the range making me look fat". If you are going to allow your weight to fluctuate, yo should have clothes that fit for the full range, right? Wrong! Well, at least for me. It opened the door to accepting extra weight as normal as long as I had clothes that fit. Unfortunately, clothes come in several sizes...

The change in women's clothing size did that to me too. I had been a size 14 for my whole adult life. But a 14 in 1977 is NOT a 14 from 2013!

I can now get into an 8 - or smaller in a high end shop.

It does make it hard to shop at Goodwill though, because the clothes are from different eras in terms of sizing so the same number means different things.

I was 118 when I was 18 and about 120 at 20. I am 124 now, and I think I look better than I did back then. :drinker:

When I was in my teens and twenties I weighed 98 pounds (I'm petite and small framed and very active as a dancer). After having children, and regaining my fitness I have been maintaining around 99 to 101.5. I only gained weight during my pregnancies and lost it quick and easy. I was back to my "normal" weight when my second baby was 7 months old (and had been there between pregnancies also). Over a year ago I gained 5-10 pounds, but lost it (on a slow cut) and been maintaining for over a year.

I was around 110lbs at age 18 and hovered around 120-125lbs until I after I had my second child, aged 31. I have been fluctuating a lot more since then, reaching a high of 140lbs in Feb this year aged 44. Now at 45 I am 112lbs and maintaining it easily, having blown my original goal out of the water and lost 10lbs more than I expected to. Roll on the rest of my life! I've gone from a size 12 UK to a 6/8 UK and refilling my wardrobe has been quite expensive!

I remember being around 110lbs at 18 too! A combination of bad lifestyle, ill health and the side effects of the medication took me to 131lbs the day I got married in 2006. Then I gained more when I had my son. Then another bout of ill health and medication added more weight until I hit my recent high of 155. Now at 135lbs and still losing. I know I will be happier under 130 but I would really like to be under 120 again. Part of me thought maybe I was aiming too high with a goal of 112.5lbs (why 112.5lbs.... for me that's a BMI of 21!!) but now I really feel like that's achievable. I am looking to break into the 120's by late Oct (my husband's birthday!)

Thanks for the inspiration snallrunner

I'm about 10 pounds lower than what was normal for the majority of my adulthood (except for when I was even heavier than that).