Anyone else have an inaccurate perception of yourself?

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Replies

  • macchiatto
    macchiatto Posts: 2,890 Member
    I think studying before/progress/after pics can help with that.
  • CoffeeNBooze
    CoffeeNBooze Posts: 966 Member
    cstehansen wrote: »
    Can I re-phrase the question? Does anyone in this age of photo-shopped models in every ad have an accurate perception of their physical appearance?

    I think nearly everyone falls into one of two categories:
    1. I am ugly and fat (based on aforementioned models)
    2. I'm not that fat (based on the fact that the average person is so much heavier now because of the SAD which has been pushed on us these last 40-50 years. On that note, we may have the SAD (Standard American Diet), but those in the UK have the SUK diet (Standard United Kingdom diet). The name of theirs is more accurate for what we have.


    The models aren't my problem, I just have a very high expectation of myself. I would whether or not they were there. The karsashians for example are very in right now and their bodies aren't that of the runway model. As for the second part, I feel like people have an unreal picture of me because of the average person being so much heavier now! I definitely have room to improve and not in an unrealistic way. But also, I am too hard on myself. I see myself as unacceptable just because I don't currently look exactly the way I want.
  • ShanBanKrup
    ShanBanKrup Posts: 55 Member
    I feel like I don't see what others see when they say I'm too thin right now. I'm at my lowest weight and I often consider going lower but want to concentrate now maybe on maintaining my weight and fine tuning it in certain areas with exercise to tone. I hate how I never seem satisfied and I think that's what makes weight loss like a rabbit hole for some of us. It's never enough and we can always see ourselves going lower. I added u if u don't mind. I know what has helped me is to listen to my body despite the negativity going on inside my head. What's set me free is feeding it what it wants even if my diet says otherwise. It's important to not always deprive ourselves
  • kimberlyb6682
    kimberlyb6682 Posts: 79 Member
    I don't feel as fat as I look, I guess I'm in denial. I took a selfie the other day for the first time and I looked at it and thought *kitten* I have a long way to go! I should have took one 32 pounds ago
  • Cadori
    Cadori Posts: 4,810 Member
    kpk54 wrote: »
    Cadori wrote: »
    ...right at this same point I started having these same feelings...gave up and regained.

    tmbpwff4tbbl.jpg



    Yes!! I just need to convince myself that I'm NOT where I started :lol:
  • Libellue23
    Libellue23 Posts: 76 Member
    I'm down 35kg. My friends and family comment about how skinny I am now. My best friend of 25 years hugged me with tears in her eyes and said I look amazing, like a different person. I don't see it though. The mirror still shows me the same fat girl. I don't feel any different at all.

    Have you thought about talking to a psychologist about this. I have held onto my weight emotionally for years and working on my head helped me
  • KnitOrMiss
    KnitOrMiss Posts: 10,104 Member
    I personally wonder how different this conversation would be if we all described our inner avatars/self, without looking at mirrors for a while. I get caught on the flip side of this, too, despite the picture evidence. If I really stop and think about the inner me, she's somewhere in her early twenties, filling out a size 14/16 nicely, curves and all. When I think about myself and who I am and who I'm to be and all of that, she is always the one who comes to mind.

    The me at my heaviest weights and unhealthiest version of myself, she is foreign...like some version of me from an alternate timeline. 40 pounds away, give or take from that person, but it seems like 40 years sometimes. I don't even recognize her. I look at those pictures and wonder how I got to that point, at least when I see my face in a picture now, it's much closer to my inner me... The body still has some poundage to go...

    I wonder what psychology says about our inner selves. Because many times, I get overwhelmed and caught up in being fat and life being impossible and all of that. Other times, I feel like my inner 20-something self is just kicking my butt, telling me to get moving and stop acting like an old fogie...

    I feel like that 20-something me, but all old and wise in the head. Sometimes, looking back, reflecting on mistakes of the past, I even project my now-me's mentality onto past-me's present, and almost like rewriting how it all fell out. I'm not even sure how clearly I could see any of that nowadays... It's like the new me in my head overwrites the old me's ... mental hiccups, but the old's me's physicality is hard written into stone, and the new me's physicality KNOWS it is only temporary???

    To reconcile the two seems impossible, but then I realize it's all just me, and it is just as wacky, imbalanced, and unconventional as I've become, and so I just roll with it all...
  • KnitOrMiss
    KnitOrMiss Posts: 10,104 Member
    @McShorty7 - Honestly, I feel that same way every time I carry in a heavy load of groceries from the car! Some people fill up water bottles in a backpack to remind themselves of the weight factor, too!
  • Cadori
    Cadori Posts: 4,810 Member
    McShorty7 wrote: »
    Carry 30 pounds of potatoes around a grocery store for 5 minutes. It'll really make you think about how far you have come. Seriously - I've done it.

    I do that when I carry my daughter upstairs! And then I think "there's no way" :lol: I'm gooooood at denying progress.
  • swezeytba
    swezeytba Posts: 624 Member
    I lost 70 lbs previously not with this WOE (have gained about 20 back since my lowest weight) and I used to get aggravated when people (my mom mostly) told me that I was getting too skinny and I needed to stop losing weight because I felt like I was finally getting to where I wanted to be.....

    Some of it is just jealousy from people that can't get over the fact that you've actually accomplished success in weight loss because it is so hard for most people.

    However, sometimes I do look back at pictures from my lowest weight and wonder if maybe I wasn't a little too thin....lol.

    I do know that this is the first WOE where I actually feel like I could maintain my weight and get to a point where food doesn't control me so much. I was always great at gaining weight and great at losing weight but not maintaining so much.....So I was always yo-yoing back and forth.

    My husband was skeptical at first....He worries about me and cutting out entire food groups scared him a little bit I think. He kept telling me...at some point you are going to have to eat something with carbs in it again. But when I told him how awful I felt after I tried re-introducing some carbs back in and how much happier my body is with this WOE I think he finally got it.
  • SuperCarLori
    SuperCarLori Posts: 1,248 Member
    This can go both ways for me.

    Sometimes I feel like a lean mean dancing machine, then I see my reflection, or my a arm fat and am taken down a few notches.

    Other times I feel like a blimp, then I put on my jeans and they slide down, and I'm like WOW I'm getting there!

    I always try to visualize the little Lori inside, before life and societies expectations changed my self esteem, and I take her in my arms and hold her. Tell her she'll always be the most important, my best friend, and I'll be her hero.
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
    McShorty7 wrote: »
    Carry 30 pounds of potatoes around a grocery store for 5 minutes. It'll really make you think about how far you have come. Seriously - I've done it.

    I wear 40-60 lbs. of weight vest for several miles any day that I am not training lower body. Unfortunately, it's still a bit shy of what my starting weight was. I need to get one of the 88 lbs. Vmax vests. That would be almost spot on.

    I also need to start wearing them for pullups, now that I am over 15 reps with all of the grip styles.

    My inner Hulk says "quit being a little *kitten*".

    Meanwhile, I'm looking to lose that last 10 lbs. so that I have less weight to run with, and on longer trail runs. I'm carrying a 10 lb. pack with water, first aid supplies, glucometer, glucose tablets, and some extra layers to add or remove.

    I suppose adding weight for training would be helpful, and it can be left off during races.
  • Gallowmere1984
    Gallowmere1984 Posts: 6,626 Member
    McShorty7 wrote: »
    Carry 30 pounds of potatoes around a grocery store for 5 minutes. It'll really make you think about how far you have come. Seriously - I've done it.

    I wear 40-60 lbs. of weight vest for several miles any day that I am not training lower body. Unfortunately, it's still a bit shy of what my starting weight was. I need to get one of the 88 lbs. Vmax vests. That would be almost spot on.

    I also need to start wearing them for pullups, now that I am over 15 reps with all of the grip styles.

    My inner Hulk says "quit being a little *kitten*".

    Meanwhile, I'm looking to lose that last 10 lbs. so that I have less weight to run with, and on longer trail runs. I'm carrying a 10 lb. pack with water, first aid supplies, glucometer, glucose tablets, and some extra layers to add or remove.

    I suppose adding weight for training would be helpful, and it can be left off during races.

    Absolutely. As Wendler quoted one of his high school coaches as saying: "I'm going to make practice so hellish that you'll look forward to game day so you can get a break."
  • cstehansen
    cstehansen Posts: 1,984 Member
    McShorty7 wrote: »
    Carry 30 pounds of potatoes around a grocery store for 5 minutes. It'll really make you think about how far you have come. Seriously - I've done it.

    I wear 40-60 lbs. of weight vest for several miles any day that I am not training lower body. Unfortunately, it's still a bit shy of what my starting weight was. I need to get one of the 88 lbs. Vmax vests. That would be almost spot on.

    I also need to start wearing them for pullups, now that I am over 15 reps with all of the grip styles.

    My inner Hulk says "quit being a little *kitten*".

    I'm just happy I can do pullups now. Before it was a matter of maybe getting 3-4. Being able to do sets of 10 or 12 used to seem impossible.

    I had kind of the same thing happen with running. I was never a runner. I started trying to run a bit at age 38. Got to the point of getting to a 24 1/2 minute 5k, but couldn't do any better for years. Dropped that extra 30 lbs or so and beat my best time by over 2 minutes and felt bad because I really wasn't winded and thought I could have pushed myself harder.

    Those two things are what really hit me the hardest that I really was significantly lighter. Baggy clothes hadn't done it because I had been wearing my clothes a bit on the baggy side for years just because it was more comfortable.
  • Sunny_Bunny_
    Sunny_Bunny_ Posts: 7,140 Member
    I think I have a messed up view of myself too but it changes from day to day.
    Some days I think I look great and other days I feel like I look excessively fat and feel that way too.

    My daughter has a messed up body image though. She is 5'6" and was barely 100 pounds, if that, in this top left photo with an A1c over 14 somewhere. She thought she looked great! She is saving some of those jeans hoping to wear them again at some point. You can really see how thin she was in her arms in the bottom 2 photos.

    2gj5iokpmsyb.jpg

    She still doesn't understand how sick she actually looked. You could tell there was something wrong with her health. She couldn't even go do things that required standing and walking for a long time. I took her to concert that summer and bought pit tickets. She had to go find a seat to sit in the entire show.

    Anyway, she's back to a healthy weight now, I think she stays between 135-145 mostly. Top right. But she's trying to lose weight, luckily the healthy way this time, because she still thinks she looked awesome at 100 pounds.
    I think I have her convinced that a reasonable maximum weight loss goal is 10 pounds. But she may just be agreeing to shut me up.
    It's really hard to get a 22 year old to prioritize health over appearance. She seems like such a confident person. Just not necessarily on this matter.
  • KnitOrMiss
    KnitOrMiss Posts: 10,104 Member
    I wonder if showing your daughter images, @Sunny_Bunny_ of someone else at these extremes that she would notice the unhealthiness? If so, you could then show her that her own images were showing identical levels of health risks... Or maybe a friend/boyfriend could tell her repeatedly how healthy she now versus how scared they were before.