Connection between weight loss and visible body fat?

I didn't ever really start seeing myself at my new weight until I started dreaming of myself that way, and that was about a year and a half after reaching what's my goal range (I'm still losing, just playing with vanity pounds now). This was after losing 90 pounds. I still looked in the mirror and just couldn't see myself right.

If I could do it over again, I'd do more progress pictures than I did. The few I did were helpful but they still didn't get past that inner block I had when I looked in the mirror!

I second the suggestion upthread to also focus on other milestones/accomplishments along the way. I did this with fitness since I had never done any sort of exercising except for a few brief flirtations with it here and there. I found reaching new goals with that along the way very motivating.

This thread is really good about finding a good head space while you're losing weight:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10662287/the-goal-is-the-process/p1

Congrats on your progress so far! Honestly the more you have to lose, the slower it will be to visually see it in the mirror. Take lots of progress pics & measurements. Celebrate the small victories!

Great job. For many of us, the weight comes off all over and you get proportionately smaller, so it’s harder to see.

Sorry to say that you probably will not see a difference in the mirror after 5 pounds. Those 5 pounds are still important, though. They're the first step in a longer process.

I'm also sorry to say that we can't control where we lose fat from, or what order the body takes fat from what areas. Often, the areas that bother us the most--like the stomach--are the last ones to lose fat. I still have a roll of fat on my stomach even though I lost 100 pounds, am in an optimal BMI range for my height, and have been maintaining for a year and a half. That roll is a LOT smaller than it used to be, though. I could start a recomp program to try to reduce body fat without losing weight, but I just don't want to.

Depending on how much you have to lose, it may be a long time before you notice changes in how you look. This is mostly because you see yourself in the mirror multiple times every day during the weight loss process. Imagine leaving a bowl of water out for several days until it evaporates. If you look at it every few hours, you won't notice much change, if any. But in a few days, you might think that maybe the water looks a little lower. It may be hard to tell for sure. After a few more days, though, you'll finally be pretty sure that there's less water. However, someone who only looked at the bowl on the first day and then three or four days later will definitely notice that the water level changed.

I hope that analogy made some sense.

Also, many of us who lost a lot of weight still have trouble thinking about ourselves at our new weights. I look in the mirror and I know I am 100 pounds lighter than I used to be. I don't see myself as "fat" anymore. (If you are an optimal weight yet see yourself as fat, it's worth talking to a mental health professional about your body image.) But I spent almost my entire life up to this point being obese, so sometimes it's still a surprise to see a thinner person in the mirror, and sometimes I automatically start looking at clothes in my old size, things like that. Even as you lose weight, it can take the mind a while to catch up to what the body looks like.

It took me about 20lb to see a difference. Then I started lifting heavy and boxing. When I started training I started seeing more dramatic changes on my body composition with less scale movement.