Body image issues. (After losing the weight)

A lot of us have this, and it goes both ways. I've been a healthy weight and looked in the mirror and thought I was fat, and I've been 40 pounds overweight and looked in the mirror and thought "I don't look so bad". Body dysmorphia's a *kitten*.

One thing that might help is to look at before and after pictures instead of relying on the mirror. Sometimes putting two pictures side by side helps you see the individual points of difference much better than looking in the mirror does.

Other than that, it might take a while for your brain to catch up with your body's changes. But congrats, regardless. That's a huge weight loss.

It's a daily battle for me. I have days were I feel good and love the way I look. At the same time there are a lot of days were I still think I'm huge and think I look fat. I don't know if my mind will ever catch up.

It's been almost a year since I hit my goal weight and I still struggle with the changes in myself. Like someone else said, some days I feel great and other days I feel like my former fat self. On the bad days I find myself thinking...how fat was I if I'm feeling this bad now??? It messes with my mind a lot....

I don't know what to do to fix it, but I'm hoping that as more time passes this new body will feel like "me". It doesn't yet. As much as I love it, I'm not used to it.

You're not alone here.

@CadenDavid I'm 56lbs down and do exactly the same! I can feel the difference in my clothes but I just can't see it especially on my thighs and waist

I'm in the same place as you OP. I've lost almost as much weight as you have over two years. I'm still not quite seeing myself as I am now, and wonder sometimes if I ever will. I really have no answers. I try to focus more on meeting fitness goals and less on what I see and just hope some day my silly brain will catch up with me.

I can sympathize! I look much better. I feel like my problem areas look much worse by comparison though. I don't walk around in public without clothes off so I am not thinking about how I look to other people. And my husband thinks I look good and tells me so that is a bit of a confidence boost.

I starting to lift weights 21 months ago was also a huge confidence boost. I have seen positive changes to my body. There is also something really awesome about not having to ask for help in my day to day life. If something needs to be picked up and moved I just do it! I feel powerful so I tend to not think about my fat *kitten* and thighs as much

yes, i struggle with this even after 5 years of maintaining a lower weight.

Even worse, i switch back and forth from seeing myself at my fattest to seeing myself at my most fit and ripped. In other words there are days when i see myself as much less attractive than i am, AND days when i have a super inflated ego and see myself as much better than i objectively look.

I think i struggle with some serious body dysmorphia and i really can't see myself objectively at all. It's incredibly frustrating. you're not alone!

After I had lost 160 pounds, from 340 to 180 @ 6'5", I still had it in my head that I needed to lose another 15-20 pounds, even though I probably didn't. Everyone said I was too skinny, or if they knew I wanted to lose more weight, they would freak out and give me a lecture. I've only been skinny once in my life, and that was last year before I binged 50 pounds on this year. I looked skinny with my clothes on, but with my clothes off you could tell I needed to lose a bit more weight and do some sort of strength training. Even at 180 pounds, when I had my physical, my doctor asked me if I was going to lose more weight. My BMI was 21, but even he said that I needed to lose more weight, while other people would never say that to me.

But currently I am in the process of losing the extra weight I gained this year, and when I get back down to my goal again, I am just going to focus on building some muscle to change the composition of my body instead of thinking that I need to lose more weight.

I understand your feelings. My weight is 5 lbs over normal BMI and I admit that *maybe* I could lose a few more. I've decided to speak to a dr about that. But I recently put my before and after pictures as my profile picture there and my phone screensaver so I can see that this is real. I finally threw out my big clothes, too. My fear is that if I don't see myself as a smaller person soon I will regain as a I have so many times before. I'm not going there again, I worked too hard for this. So my mind better catch up to my body and quick!

Btw, what also helps is not to compare yourself to others who you think might be in better shape than you. Youn don't know their journey or how they got like that. Appreciate the body you have now and be proud of the time and effort you put into it to improve yourself!

Just seconding the suggestions for trying on clothes. Might be different since you're a dude but I would literally go multiple times a month to try on clothes - sole purpose, didn't even buy them - up until just recently. I went from automatically heading to stuff that was too large and being unaware to now being able to hold up a shirt and say, "Yup, this will fit me or *gasp* this looks too big," before getting to the fitting room. My husband buying me two "tiny" tops last month was also a good kick in the brain. He didn't know my size; he just held them up and thought they looked like my size. That was a good realization for me. Good thing he didn't err on the side of caution and go larger, lol.