Am I the only one who thinks I look smaller than I actually am?

I have had a similar experience as Xellercin, except I don’t wear scrubs to work, I am a university professor at the graduate level so although I could wear anything, I tend to wear well designed, professional, flattering clothing that compliments my figure and hides it in a different way, whatever shape it happens to be. It hides a multitude of sins when selected correctly— or hid before I lost as of this morning 70 lbs. That I never set out to lose that much or thought I had that much to lose answers your question! I always blamed the higher sizes on the inconsistencies of clothing designers.
A couple of things contribute to this ability to overlook my true size when I was heavier: I put on weight in an evenly-distributed way so when I am fat all over, you don’t notice as much until I get really fat. At my heaviest I was hovering around 200 lbs at 5’8’’ which qualifies as obese, but I exercised, so had a good amount of muscle to pull it off. I did pilates so had good posture which also helps in how you look —heavy or not. As a university professor I am constantly delivering public presentations (whether i am fat or not) so I have to have enough self confidence to pull that off no matter how I feel/felt. After a while I may have become as good at projecting a confident outward demeanor that I also tricked myself.
I also did not see myself as fat when I was — or at least not as fat as I was. I must have recognized I needed to lose weight because I did so. Now when I see photos from a year or two ago that pop up on my iphone in my “memory feed” I literally do not recognize myself. The photos are saved in my phone so I must have thought I looked good enough to save the image at the time. I have also had people send me group photos where I supposedly appear and I cannot pick myself out.
I don’t want to sound harsh, but not everyone needs to cower in their house and hide from the world when they are fat. It is ok to have self confidence and do great things in the world and not spend all of your time thinking about how terrible you must look. If you are able to pull that off (like I was and you apparently are) then great. But, you are here and I am too, because we both recognized for one reason or another that we had health issues to address. SO no matter how good or bad we look to ourselves heavy, we will be better healthy (and I just keep feeling better now healthy too and hope you will too). I am saying this just to underscore that it has been a shock to find out how much I actually had to lose because I had no idea how heavy I was. I am actually glad I didn’t know when I started because I would have been overwhelmed. So just start getting healthier and you will know when you hit the right mark. Don’t necessarily try to set an ultimate goal weight now.

In my head I think I look smaller than I actually am. But then I see a picture of myself and it floors me EVERY time. I am so much bigger than I think I am. I saw a pic of myself from a family event 2 weekends ago. I have lost weight and felt I was looking good. I was not. I guess it’s because most of my life I was at a normal range so these last 6 years of being overweight hasn’t computed? Maybe I am good at lying to myself? I don’t know.