Objects in mirror may be bigger than they appear

I suffer the same affliction. I mean, I'm still fairly critical of what I see in the mirror; however, it's 10 times worse than photos. Even video isn't as bad as photos!

To be honest, it was actually seeing a few candid photos lately that made me decide to get serious and lose some weight. I just visualize it and it keeps me wanting to stay under my calorie limit.

I've always had this problem as long as I can remember. There are years worth of time where I don't have a single photo of myself because I wouldn't let anyone take photos of me. In fact, it's a common joke with people that know me that I simply HATE having my picture taken. Who knows...maybe after another 20-30 lbs. I'll be less afraid of the camera ...we'll see!

I look huge in any mirror, photo or reflective surface but then again I do have 50lbs min to lose for my 5'2 height, so being smaller does show my weight more.

I have noticed one thing though, near me is the local council run gym, it's above the local library. The library happens to have windows, I thought these windows made me look huge, in fact I thought they made me look bigger than any other mirror or window and I was right, these windows made a frail old lady look bigger than she was, So I decided to do some digging.

I found out that the glass they used was aimed at distorting reflections to make people look 10-15% larger so that they would use the local facilities, so be very aware that if gyms have lots of windows at low levels, they are not always there to allow more natural light in, they can be there as a psychological marketing ploy...

I actually got the information about the glass from the glass manufacturer.

Me too! Truly bizarre phenomenon! I think our expectations increase as we lose and we actually FEEL so much better, yet our mind wants to visually match that. Lol