What do you see when you look in the mirror ?

[lisacaron 5,075]

Great topic! I love all of the responses! I will say this, I'm not one to "look" at myself as any one way. I have had the frame of reference of being super skinny and being severely obese.

Through all of it I have never let my size affect what I want to do, I just do it. I do see today that my appearance has changed and in some ways dramatically with the weight loss.

At work we are required to have a picture ID that the company takes when you first start. Now we operate on MS 365 and our e-mail and Lync IM show our photo's, let me tell you I hated that! I think I look terrible in my photo! It's not the first one I took while working here, my first one had me in these red glasses that were tipped on my nose I looked like the typical ditzy blond secretary. So when we had Weight Watchers at work here I joined with a friend and we said when we lost 20 pounds we would take new photo's. Well she lost 50 and I lost 19 so I took a new photo.

Recently I got an e-mail from a new co-worker that asked me if that was me? I have one of those faces that just stays the same, so you can tell it's me...but is it really you? Yeah it was me in a fat suit Yes it's me!

OK maybe after 70 pounds it was time for a new photo. I look younger in my photo today then I did 8 years ago and that feels pretty good!!

[bobbyswife 862]

Please keep us posted with what your therapist has to say on the matter

[MichiganChic 3,262]

Great topic and responses. It's such an interesting phenomena. When I was fat, I didn't think of myself as fat as I was, but when I took a hard look I could see it. I was surprised sometimes when I did that. Now, I think I see myself accurately as others do, and I see that I'm normal/thin, but it's not so much what I see as what I know (or think I do). Even though as a size 8/10 and small/medium, I'm pretty sure I'm not fat, the number on the scale and my BMI say I am overweight and make me think I must be/look fat. So it's a never ending cycle of thinking I better lose another 20 pounds to not be fat, then remembering I look pretty good. I really feel like the fat girl getting away with something! Somewhere in the back of my mind I think maybe I actually DO look fat and I'm not seeing myself accurately, lol! OMG, we need a pill for that kind of crazy

[gowalking 10,790]

Please keep us posted with what your therapist has to say on the matter

I sure will.

And thanks for the comments everyone. Obviously I'm not alone in the body dysmorphia. I figured as usual that if I was experiencing something, so were others.

[IronDruggist 136]

My body dysmorphia always puts me heavier. I've lost 60 lbs so far and I DON'T SEE IT. It's maddening. I still won't take pictures of myself, maybe that would make a difference.../shrug

[lisacaron 5,075]

Last night as I was walking out the door from the office, (We have large long glass doors in the building) I noticed that I kind of look like a hobo in my too big jacket and clothes. Here I am this tiny woman carrying all these bags with her coat hanging off her...it's time to buy a new rain coat...but not just yet...

[JustWatchMe 7,117]

Lisa, a coat was my one "new" purchase. Other items have been Goodwill. A dear friend gave me a gift card to a store I like as a congratulations on my weight loss and I ran out and bought a winter coat! Like you I have no raincoat now so by spring I'll be freezing. But I hope to be approaching goal by April so I want to wait.

[Rena's got this 274]

I have been a normal weight most of my life, and most of my adult life too. In my late 40's I started gaining. My thyroid decided to get lazy and that didn't help at all. I stopped taking pictures or letting others take pictures of me, and just didn't really notice how large I was getting until my health started taking a turn for the worse. My ex husband took a picture of me at my mom's funeral last year, and holy cow....I looked like a beached whale! I could not believe that person was me. In my mind, I was still the slender person I had always been. Intellectually I knew I was fat because the scales and my doctors let me know in no uncertain terms that I needed to lose a lot of weight, but I just didn't see it when I looked in the mirror.

Minus 60+ pounds later, I look in the mirror and I see the same person as always. I still see myself as slender, even though I still have a ways to go. Why does my mind see what it sees? I think it is a blessing that I never saw myself as fat, so I don't have to worry about seeing a fat woman in the mirror when I finally reach goal, but why can't my image in the mirror be truthful to what I actually am? I don't get it at all.

[lisacaron 5,075]

@@Rena's got this I can relate to this in a BIG way. I too never looked at myself as "fat" even though I knew better. I carried my weight well and I was evenly proportioned, I always dressed appropriately and I didn't carry myself or act like what to me a "fat" person would be/act like.

I used to tell my son when he was very chubby that he was a "typical" fat person. Lazy and living hand to mouth. Not thinking about what he was putting in just unconsciously consuming food. As I have gone through this journey, I am still me. I don't look at myself as fat or skinny and I don't stereo type those words anymore.

What I told my son, was obvious that I was doing this as well! I might not have been sitting on my butt eating cheese doodles and watching Nickolodian but I too was unconsciously eating. I wasn't thinking about what I was eating or what that was doing to my body. Not just in making me "fat" but in the way it made me unhealthy.

I drank diet soda thinking it was better then regular soda but I drank it like it was Water and that is the LAST thing it is. I could have drank gasoline for all the damage it was doing to my digestive tract. I would consume high fat high salt high sugar but low nutrition foods and thought nothing of it. We lived on fast food and soda.

Today I still see me as me. I am Lisa no matter my size, the difference in me today vs. 70 pounds ago is that I no longer eat unconsciously. I think about what I am going to consume. I think about it's nutritional content, what it will do to my body. I exercise to feel better, and if I want to eat that cookie, or have that piece of birthday cake, I have it and I don't sneak it. I just enjoy it for what it is, and I let those things be what they are "treats" something that doesn't happen every day, something that is out of the ordinary and not my every day choice of meal.

I'm not 10, so for me making these changes takes commitment and work to always be conscious when I put something in my mouth. I'm not perfect, and I can admit that it will often happen that I am distracted and/or stressed and I fall back into those old habits but as the years are passing, the old habits are being replaced by good habits and I find myself falling back on those and working every day to keep incorporating more and more so they become my old habits and the bad habits disappear from memory.

I also find it odd that as I lose more weight the sleeves on my jackets are getting longer. I might could get away with this rain coat through this fall with the buttons done up and the belt cinched if it weren't for the sleeves. Maybe worth a quick trip the tailor to hem them before it ends up in the donation bin!!

[enjoyinglife 313]

This might seem kinda weird, but when I look at pictures of myself pre-op I don't recognize myself. I also don't recognize the guy that is staring back at me in the mirror now. I am in a weird place right now. I haven't decided how to feel about that.

[Bandista 7,466]

@@Seymour1971 thanks for posting the Brené Brown link. I'd seen it before but took this opportunity to watch it again. So many powerful statements there. "I am enough." Here's to wholehearted living, and to being seen. Here's to embracing vulnerability.

[SillyAuntDi 1,610]

I still don't always see what everyone else sees. I have been able to finally realize how much of a transformation I have made. Someone sent me a picture from May 2013. I almost didn't know me in that picture. I was smiling, but I clearly remember that day and how miserable I was. The friend who sent me the "reminder" said "I want you to see just how far you have come." I realized then that I don't always give myself credit. I do the "I still have a ways to go" or "Stop it...I am NOT sexy." But darn it...I don't have a ways to go anymore...25 lbs isn't very far. And I am sexy I am a bad a*s, boxer chick who goes into beast mode punching a heavy bag. I rock my jeans and my new boots. Now, I just have to convince myself that the person in the mirror is really me...I'm getting there

[gowalking 10,790]

I ran into a woman this morning who I got friendly with a couple of years ago. She and I are on the same train alot so we got to talking and have become pretty close.

So today she tells me after we're talking for a while that she wants me to write a book and she'll be the first one in line to buy it. I know she means that I'm so much more positive now so I agreed with that part of it and then she said something that literally brought me to tears. She said that I always was full of warmth and affection and care for others but the weight loss and less pain/better mobiity has taken me out of my prison and now I shine. No one ever said that to me before and I was overcome by that.

I really liked how she put the change in the way I look on the back burner so to speak and just told me how the weight loss just brought out what was always there, but hidden. I think alot of us are like that. We hide behind our large bodies and only after we shed the excess, can we become who we always were meant to be.

All I knew was that I wasn't embarrased by her praise because she was talking about the inner me...and not the outer me. I guess I have to really focus on that girl instead of the one I see in my head or my mirror.

Edited November 6, 2014 by gowalking

[JustWatchMe 7,117]

@@gowalking, she is right. And here's the nice thing about BariatricPal. Save off your posts and your book is already started. I may do that myself. A year from now I want to see where I was mentally and emotionally when it all began.

[Ginger Snaps 1,323]

I was just discussing this with a friend yesterday. Obviously if I look in the mirror I can see my stomach has shrunk and I can almost reach my fingers completely around my thighs and I've gone from a size 16/18 jean to a size 4... but I still don't feel thin or "skinny" or even small. I went to get the size 4 jeans today because the 6's I bought about 4-5 weeks ago are sagging off my butt. As I'm pulling them off the rack I'm looking at how small they are on the hanger and thinking "there's no way I can wear these" but I can and I can still breathe in them. But my brain just doesn't think of me as being that small.

I think part of it is the number on the scale... I don't think of someone (me) weighing 145 pounds as being tiny... I think of someone in the 120's maybe as being "skinny" but not someone in their 140's. And I've started getting the "don't lose too much" comments and I think to myself my BMI just hit the high point of normal so I could lose more and still be in a healthy weight range.

I guess eventually with enough people telling me how great I look and when I have to keep buying all these small or medium clothes or size 4 (or smaller) jeans, my brain will connect with my eyes and the mirror.