29lbs loss but cant see a difference?

springlering62 wrote: »

I see a large difference.

You do realize you’ve lost over 11% of your body weight so far?

29 pounds is six bags of flour, several large bags of potatoes, or a giant bag of potting soil You used to carry that around, all day, every day.

Take regular photos of yourself for comparison. I wish I’d done that earlier on.

I used to laugh at the concept of Body Dysmorphia being a thing, until I experienced it myself. Many of us suffer from brains that, well, mess with our minds, if you’ll pardon a bad analogy. I still look for the widest gap to get through, apologize for being in the way of people I’m not, reach for clothes that are too big.

Those progress photos will help.

Good job!

AnnPT77 wrote: »

callumrayb wrote: »

springlering62 wrote: »

I see a large difference.

You do realize you’ve lost over 11% of your body weight so far?

29 pounds is six bags of flour, several large bags of potatoes, or a giant bag of potting soil You used to carry that around, all day, every day.

Take regular photos of yourself for comparison. I wish I’d done that earlier on.

I used to laugh at the concept of Body Dysmorphia being a thing, until I experienced it myself. Many of us suffer from brains that, well, mess with our minds, if you’ll pardon a bad analogy. I still look for the widest gap to get through, apologize for being in the way of people I’m not, reach for clothes that are too big.

Those progress photos will help.

Good job!

Thank you! I wouldn't go as far as to say I have body dysmorphia, (I do suffer with mental health issues) but I have extremely low confidence and extremely high anxiety, so I guess that doesn't help right?!

"Body dysmorphia" is a technical term in psychology, of course. But though an "anxiety disorder" is a serious thing psychologically, nonetheless most of us have some struggles with irrational anxiety from time to time.

In that same way, it's absolutely common among well-adjusted people, in the midst of weight loss, to have a mental self-image that does not allow us to see changes that may be obvious to others (as your changes are - I agree with the others). So, we call that - casually - "body dysmorphia", just as we might use other technical terms casually to recognize minor instances of a similar thing in generally healthy people.

I remember posting some photos on a thread here with before & after face photos, 60ish pounds apart, and writing that I didn't see much difference. Others swore there was an obvious difference, but I still couldn't see it. Now, 5 years on, looking back at those very same face photos, I can see that obvious difference, myself, too. "Body dysmorphia"!

To this, I'd add specifically about your current stage: Remember that we may lose fat from all over our bodies. For that reason, it's a little like taking layers off a big onion, one at a time. The first layer we take off the outside of the onion, even if it's a pretty thick layer, the onion doesn't look all that much smaller. Each successive layer removed tends to make a more obvious difference than the previous one, not just compared to the original onion, but to the immediate previous one.

In your photos, you have an obvious large reduction in belly size, but you also have lots of smaller changes in many spots: Your arms look smaller, your neck looks a bit smaller, your cheeks and other parts of your face have a slightly different look, even your fingers look a bit firmer. Those many pounds you've lost have come off a good bit from your stomach, but also in small bits from many parts of your body . . . kind of like that onion.

Besides the weight loss, I'm seeing some improvement in your posture, too, which will help the appearance of body fat. Specifically, you have a bit of head-forward posture (near universal among all of us screen users these days) with the slightly rolled forward shoulders that usually accompany it; and a bit of anterior pelvic tilt (which happens for various reasons, but one is having carried a body fat store in the stomach area for a good while, which pulls that area forward and down). You have improvements in all of those, IMO, between your start and current pictures.

Continuing to work on those postural things, as you get lighter and stronger, will not only help with the appearance improvements you're working so hard to achieve, but also the important health goals: Improved posture will help you to avoid some of the back problems that are unfortunately so common for many of us later in life. (At age 65, I'm sadly quite aware of this!).

You're doing great!