Do you still feel "fat" mentally after a lot of weight loss?

when i had lost about 20 pounds and could feel the beginnigns of my hip or shoulder bones, i just couldnt reconcile that to whan i had been feeling (or NOT) for the past 20 years.
as the weight came off, though and i grew muscles....i liked it. i had been wearing 16/18 sized jeans forever, but had some 12's hanging in my closet and the day i could slip them on was fabulous!
THEN the day i went to Nordstroms and was actually able to buy a size 31 off the rack. OMG.
just the other day i went to Buckle (LOVELOVELOVE Buckle!!!) and i told the chick helping me that i needed new jeans, and that i had been weaing some BKE's but the waist was too big and i thought i needed a 28 or 29 (those words have NEVER come out of my mouth when talking about jean sizes). she looked me up and down and said "actually, you might need a 27". i STILL thought "no way". and yet...here i am, wearing my 27's which are NOT tight.....they are comfortable and i'm thinking i'll be in 26's soon. when i hold them up..they look impossibly TINY, but they slide on easily.
plus i rawk in them.
so...being able to actually go into a store and verbalize a small size and actually wear them has really helped with readjusting mymental image. its getting so that i think i may just stay here....all comfy and lean and all .

all the time...no matter where i go i feel like the fattest person in the room...

ive still got a ways to go and im hoping that reaching my goal weight will be the start of shaking this feeling but im honestly not too sure about it...

i can tell myself over and over...you've lost 90lbs...you are not the same person...you do not wear a size 30 or mens 4XL shirt anymore...

but my mind tells me that im still huge and i should just throw on some baggy pants and a huge mens t-shirt and head out the door...since morbidly obese people have no business trying to look cute (this is what i tell myself people...dont take offense)...

glad to see that im not the only one struggling with this issue...

oh yea! i feel fat as ever i have to look at pictures to tell myself im not

Simply, yes.

HOLY CRAP THIS IS A DOWNER !

LOL seriously. Every body you have accomplished so much. Stand up, be proud, keep up the work and move on. Geeze, three pages of I feel fat is depressing!

This journey is not a one time thing, use these feelings as motivation and work hard dang nabbit !

Thats a big YES,

Actually today was one of those days where I felt fat and sluggish and still see my self like the same old me 50+ lbs heavier at 5 feet tall. Psychologically Im not on the same page as my body. I have always hated taking photos since I was convinced Im not photogenic, when there is a camera around I want to hide behind people and after the photo is taken I want to see it right away to see how bad I came out, and more recently every time I look at the photo after it has been taken, it takes me a minute to process, " I really look like that" call it body dysmorphia idk but it's going to take longer mentally to adjust to the weight and body changes. One reason I have a body image picture of myself from last month as my default is to remind me Im not obese anymore, a pose I would NEVER allow to be taken. The part that sucks is I hardly have photos of my before except one I keep on my fridge, so you are not alone many of us unfortunately feel this way but it's nice to know Im not alone, great job to those who have changed bad habits and lost weight keep up the hard work!!

Yep I def have this issue too. I struggle to believe I'm this thin.

I Just recently lost 102 lbs and sometimes i feel like I am still 265 ... i feel like I still can run a 5k or hike up a fire access road and make it to the top and still run back the remaining 3 miles. I still feel fat when i look in the mirror and wish i still was smaller. I remind myself you are no longer the fat girl and are cute and spunky (as my friends tell me). It is all in the mind and it will pass once I have been this weight for a while.. SOMEDAY

I do almost every day. I have been fat for so long that it is just a hard thing to come to grips with. I am proud of what I have done and I know that I have lost it. It is really hard getting myself to feel it.

I wasn't even technically "Fat" to begin with... yet Ive lost 13 lbs and still think I am... some people say "nO, you're not" but when you're not as skinny as the perceived "hot wome" you are judging yourself on that image and so yes, you still feel fat and that work can be done.

If only we promoted health and not image and that humans weren't all so shallow human beings...

I am shallow, I want to look good. I want to be thin and be perceived as attractive. Its an unhealthy mindset we all need to break and men and women need to understand what normal bodies look like... women should appreciate what a normal man and woman's body looks like in health and vice versa... we all put far too much pressure on ourselves. If we're healthy and not bad looking and not having to do ridiculous things to keep healthy and fit then why are we all so obsessed... I still don't know why...

I've lost 70+ and I'm STILL not happy when I look in the mirror.

Ditto

I was just starting to feel not-too-fat, but then I stopped actively trying to lose weight in order to focus on muscle training. It's been two weeks and I feel fat, despite weighing only half a pound more than I did two weeks ago... :huh:

I know a woman who used to be in the 300's and now weighs 152lbs and is a body builder. She looks outstanding!
She has kept the weight off for 5 or 6 years now, yet even she has days where she feels fat or "thinks" fat.
She calls it Fat Girl Thinking or FGT for short. She says it may never go away.
Another part of FGT is thinking you can have one little nibble of something, or one bite, or eat it just this one time.
Most times you end up eating that whole cake, or that whole bag of chips.
It's hard to go from FGT to HGT (Healthy girl thinking)

So you're not alone.

Sometimes I still picture myself as the short and... stout girl I used to be. I always think I'm really WIDE. And sometimes when I look in the mirror, I can still see it. But for me, it's a matter of putting it back into perspective. I have this friend who I always thought was TINY, and when I stand next to her and "compare", I notice that we really aren't that different. It drives me crazy feeling like this though... Like I'll never be completely satisfied.

I have lost 40lbs (22 since starting MFP) and I still feel I look like I looked 40lbs ago. The sad part is that when I was at my thinnest (Size 8-10) I felt like I was a size 18. I didn't even notice when I gained the weight, I thought I had always been that big. The plus side, I feel great, I see muscle I didn't even know I had, and I have more energy...That to me makes more of a difference than how I think I look :-)