Body image issues

CallmeSbo · February 2012

Hi everyone,

I think i have body image issues. I am 34years old, 1.63m tall and weigh 94kg, down from 108kg. The problem i have is, when i think about myself. I am of "normal"weight. Then i get the shock of my life everytime i look at myself from the mirror and worse, those glass walls/windows at the shops. Sometimes i get a glimpse of myself with the corner of my eye, i just want to break down and cry. How could i have let myself to where i am? Is there anyone who feels the same way.

annabellj · February 2012

absolutely! i think that is why we are all on here, for about the same reason! i have lost and gained the same forty lbs over the course of my life multiple times. and every time i say to myself, you are disgusting! how did you let it get this far? then i pick myself up, and get to the gym and start to feel better when i work my *kitten* off, log healthy foods, and get compliments from my friends on here! this works if you give it time.

CallmeSbo · February 2012

:-) thank you. Now i feel better that im not alone.

fiberartist219 · February 2012

I have issues with perceiving myself, but I don't necessarily see myself as fat or unattractive. I have a problem where I look in the mirror and always see the same thing even though I have changed. For example, when I weighed 165lbs, I still saw myself in the mirror the same way I saw 120 lbs. It looks the same unless I see it in a photograph from a different angle. So, I can't tell that I've gained without actually measuring. I got all sorts of unhealthy and didn't even notice.

Then, of course, I am down to 151, and I still can't really tell by looking at myself in the mirror. I should feel happy and accomplished, but all I see are the numbers from the measurements I took. I can't tell that my waist is any smaller, but the tape measure says I've lost about 4 inches around my belly button area.

brendac72 · February 2012

You are not alone....I am the same way. If I go into try something on I am rarely happy about it. First of all you'd think they would put better lighting in the fitting rooms because no matter which store they're all the same, not very flattering at all. If we are going out for the night I change a minimum of 3 times because I don't think I look ok. I think you'll come to find that there are a lot of us like this out there.

runbyme · February 2012

I am totally that way. Number obsessed. Scale obsessed. I got down to 128# a few years ago and while my friends and family were questioning me on whether I had taken up meth, I would look in the mirror and see a big fat cow! It truely is an unhealthy way to look at ourselves but I'm afraid I haven't progressed very far on the ,"love your body" theory!
Good luck to you!

liog · February 2012

I have the same type of issue, but, when I look in the mirror I think that I don't look so bad. However, when I see pictures of myself...oh my goodness it is a shock every time. I know that I am clearly 50 pounds overweight and that it is not healthy, but it doesn't hit me until I see the pictures. We went to Disney World a few weeks ago and every picture of me really screamed out "You need to get healthy and lose this weight!" I think that was really the motivation I needed to do something about this now.

awagz · February 2012

I'm having the same problem. My highest weight was 252 in early 2011. I am now down to 200, but when I look at myself now, I'm more disappointed than at my highest weight. I feel embarrassed that I have lost 50 lbs and this is now how I look.

2hungariangirls · February 2012

I have an opposite image and I guess that is one reason I've been able to get to be as big as I have been. The weight starting creeping up after my 1st child and then ballooned after my 2nd. She was born with lots of health problems and well....I'm an emotional eater. Lots of doctor visits with her that I put myself on the back burner. Her survival was way more important. I still thought I looked like I was a size 14/16 180 lbs when I was actually wearing a 20/22 and 242! I can't explain it and I don't know why I didn't see it. I would see pictures and think that I possibly couldn't be THAT big. Must be the angle. I was in total denial. Then one day, I snapped and realised that I WAS as big as the pictures showed. So as of today, down 17.4 total. Lost some weight before starting MFP. NEVER again will I be in that bad of shape.

CallmeSbo · February 2012

Thank you so much ladies for your responses. Now i feel better. Oh my word i totally get it when you see a picture of yourself and you like that cant be me. As a result when taking picture now, i dont take close shots. Lol. The further away i am, the better.

kelseylynn_cr · February 2012

I've always had body image issues...For as long as I can remember. People in school used to call me fat all time (AKA: I had a chest and they didn't). And I, of course, believed them, even though I wasn't actually fat. But since I believed them it was like I didn't really notice when I actually start gaining wait. I had always thought of myself as fat. I am extremely self-critical of the way I look. I get so extremelyyyyy frustrated when I look at a picture or look in the mirror.
I have, however, been trying to get a little bit better about not being so harsh on myself. I got a wake-up call, you could say, this summer when I lost a friend to suicide. She had a terrible eating disorder, she was addicted to laxatives and exercise obsessed. After she died I realized just how skewed our own personal views of ourselves can be, and I realized I needed to start loving myself a little more and hating myself a little less. I didn't want end up the way she did (our personalities were extremely similar, so it was perfectly possible).
I just focus more on being healthy and happy with myself than how I think I look.

star87cc · February 2012

My weight always yo-yo'd through my teens and being only 5'3 isn't helpful! Some photos recently surfaced from a few years ago where I'd been going through a bit of a tough year and i'd lost 2st I remember people saying at the time how I looked so well and I didn't believe them I couldn't see it I just saw me. So these photos I got some comments of 'wow look how slim you were there' and it prompted me to stand on the scales and found I'd put that 2st back on, I look in the mirror and didn't see any difference but now I look at recent photos and see a HUGE difference, I go the gym classes and look at the room full of women and think ouch yeah what was I thinking, its like I was blinded before but now rather than skulk away and hide I know I have to stand up and do this!

beduffbrickie · February 2012

god yea! I look back at some pics and think, how did I let myself slip like that and I only put a stone on, but I still wake up and have them days where I think I look fat. I hear your supposed to get more body confidence with age, But I think it boils down to mood, feel good about your self, and you look good!

Pete1471 · February 2012

If I can be one of the token guys in this discussion (at least so far) this isn't a female condition. I have exactly the same thing. How I've managed it I don't know but I've managed to eliminate myself from my head, even when i know i can see myself.

Firstly I have no mirrors in my flat. I mentioned this to someone and so they bought me a mirror. Kind of them but why? If I tell someone I have banned mirrors as I don't want to see myself why go and but me one?
I also destroy any pictures of me I can get my hands on. The one on my profile I had to ask for someone to send me it so I could use it on here. Although I am in it I can't actually see me. All I can see is a red box and I am aware there is something inside it.

Then we come to reflections. Again I can shut those out competely. I am aware of a shape, a huge blob shape but I have no characteristics, features etc. If I'm looking directly at myself it's a blob or I see through it.

In my head I am the person I saw in a photo taken when i was 17, some 30 odd years ago. I was fat then but not even close to this size. I know I'm not that person, the tape measure tells me that on the waist alone, so I'm not completely potty.
The last time I actually saw myself was about 5 years ago. I was staying in a hotel which had what was virtually a mirrored wall. For some reason the mental block didn't work and I saw myself standing there in my underwear. Not a pretty site at any size. I was totally shocked at the way I looked I burst into tears, got into bed, pulled the covers over me and stayed in bed the rest of the day and night until morning. The rest of the time I was in that room I never looked up only down or at the floor.

It took me a while to get that image of me 30 years ago back into my head as what i look like. I know no matter how much I lose, even if it is the unlikely 12st (168lbs) I should be losing I'll never look at myself in a mirror and try to avoid having my picture taken where possible for the fear of what I will see. What if it's not what I believe and hope it is and I'm just a walking pile of "loose skin" instead? I'd rather be like I am now than that.

There are a lot of people with emotional and psychological baggage they need to lose as much as the physical weight. Maybe it's just me, but I do wonder if there are people like me that whilst wanting to lose weight are actually scared to do it and succeed because they know whatveer they lose and regardless of what people tell you that you look like now you'll just see that fat blob.

siobhanhannon · February 2012

I think most people associate how they look with their happiness. I know I do. When I gain weight I get more sad, more self depreciating and more negative. For me, its only a recent thing. When I gained 3.5stone 2 years ago very quickly while ill and on a lot of medication it really knocked my confidence. All I could see was a whale when I looked in the mirror. (It didn't help that I recently had just gotten out of an emotionally abusive relationship). Last year I worked my *kitten* off and lost 2.5 stone of the weight and began to feel good about myelf again. Then,6 months ago I started a new job and have been working 70hrs + a week and have piled back on one stone and now feel I look horrendous again and suddenly feel rotten about how I look and how terrible all my clothes look on me.

So Im on this to help me focus and lose the weight again. I want to get back to where I was before all this started...a healthy size 10, confident and looked good in my clothes.

I have been watching the new reality tv show Chelsea Settles and watching her lose her weight is helping me be more realistic about my appearance.

I think we all need to, and it is very hard, try to remember that while we can change how we look we can't change who we are....so thin, fat or somewhere inbetween we are the same person and need to learn to like ourselves no matter how we look

CallmeSbo · February 2012

I've always had body image issues...For as long as I can remember. People in school used to call me fat all time (AKA: I had a chest and they didn't). And I, of course, believed them, even though I wasn't actually fat. But since I believed them it was like I didn't really notice when I actually start gaining wait. I had always thought of myself as fat. I am extremely self-critical of the way I look. I get so extremelyyyyy frustrated when I look at a picture or look in the mirror.
I have, however, been trying to get a little bit better about not being so harsh on myself. I got a wake-up call, you could say, this summer when I lost a friend to suicide. She had a terrible eating disorder, she was addicted to laxatives and exercise obsessed. After she died I realized just how skewed our own personal views of ourselves can be, and I realized I needed to start loving myself a little more and hating myself a little less. I didn't want end up the way she did (our personalities were extremely similar, so it was perfectly possible).
I just focus more on being healthy and happy with myself than how I think I look.

Im sorry to hear about your friend. We really need to change the way we view ourselves. Life is a price too high to pay.

CallmeSbo · February 2012

Wow, thank you Pete and Beduff for sharing your stories.

lizard053 · February 2012

In this day and age, it's hard to not have body image issues. Male or female! I hate it.

I've always seen myself as fat, even when I was skinny! I don't fit into super skinny, supermodel mold, so I must be fat. Ugh! I'm working on shaking that. I'm learning to love my body, the way I am. You can't lose weight successfully, and keep it off, if you don't love yourself first. This body is what I have to house my soul. If I don't treat it like the temple it is, who will?
I'm sure I'll always struggle with my body image, but I'm trying to look at myself as beautiful, at 190 pounds or at 135 pounds. I would like to fit back into all my cute skinny-clothes though...

santini1975 · February 2012

Yes!!! I thought I was nuts!! I did not see the difference between my weight at 140..165..188 until it was too late!! I thought my mom was taking pics at bad angles LOL I do not have full length mirrors in my house so I guess I didnt get the "big picure" (ha!)
One day I was walking into a store and thought the glass in the front window must be wonky...that couldn't be my real reflection..
Then I needed work clothes and almost had a meltdown in the dressing room... but still blamed the lighting.
I decided 2011 was my year and made the same 'ol new year's resolution to get in shape. And did it. Slowly I shrunk out of my clothes, my feet and knees and back stopped hurting, and I don't constantly compare myself to other women's sizes.
Now when I buy clothes, I hold up my size and say "No way! That has to be sized wrong. It's too small!!" but it isnt

kk_achieve · February 2012

I'm going through a similar struggle. I'm 32, and still battle with my inner-16-year-old who only cares about feeling good in a bikini.

I'm trying really hard to change my thinking and focus more on fitness goals rather than scale goals. Sometimes it helps, especially when I get faster in a race or complete a workout I didn't think I could. I know my ultimate goal is still to look and feel good in a bathing suit this summer, but I"m trying to get there with a more positive approach by appreciating all the things my body can do (run races, Insanity workouts, hike) rather than what it looks like. I still definitely have my blaaaah days, but having fitness goals that I can measure immediate results is helping alot.

i_love_vinegar · February 2012

i have the opposite problem. When i look at my reflection in windows i look extremely thin and think, "Whos that babe ;D" but when i look in mirrors its like, "o-o why u not come home with me and be my reflection"

TheDreadedJynx · February 2012

I definitely have the same problem. I had never gone over 135 in my life before 2009, so when I hit almost 200 it was a real shock. I motivate myself by imagining myself now how I want to look, but how I WILL look in the future whenever I'm working out and before bed. Visualizations make things happen, right?!

Body image issues

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