Okay, sometimes my mind plays tricks and i don't see myself accurately. I was noticing over the last few weeks that my face looks a little drawn, a little thinner. My other meter, which is attention from the opposite gender is definately falling off too - but I think that happened when my boobs disappeared sometime in the last 10# lost...lol

It makes no sense because i have only lost maybe a couple of pounds since i hit goal in late Feb. I am not really trying to lose alot more, just wanting to get a little under goal to give me some "flex room" - goal is the top of my weight range now! I am also slowly adding in more food and wanting to coast into maintenance. I expected to stop losing becuase i increased my carbs but so far, I am still slowly losing.

Anyway, today I had a meeting with my boss who hasnt seen me in about 2 weeks and she said "it looks like you have lost more weight!". We agreed that it is probably just re-distributing but it was like "thank God someone else sees this. Maybe I am not completely nuts"

Anyway, my partner is of no help, he really does not have the best attitude toward this stuff. He thinks I can get thinner and is fairly oblivious to the fact that the "jelly roll" around my middle is skin and not fat. It plays with my brain.... I have decided to stay focused on what the surgeon and plastic surgeon tells me because i can see where it is very tempting to get quite thin.

A friend of mine who is itty bitty framed and only 5'0" tall is now under 100#. She told me that when I shared my weight (mid 150s) and she felt that I look better then she does that she realized that she is too thin. It was like it shook her up to realize that she looks like a broomstick - and in all honesty she does look too thin. She has never been anerexic but is seeing how it happens. She has alot of anxiety, and when she looks in the mirror she just thinks getting thinner will be better. IT is good to have other people help guide us on these topics since the brain plays funny tricks.

So, we are all individuals, but i truly do have a large frame and being at the upper end of the BMI "normal" seems about right to me. I am okay losing a few more, but i do not need or want to get down to a lower end of the normal BMI range.

Anyway, today for the first time I had that irrational thought "what if I can't stop losing". I about laughed at myself because I have a lifetime experience on how to gain weight. should it come to that, I suspect I can figure it out.

I've been thinking the same thing recently. I'm about 15 pounds away from a "normal" BMI. My goal was to be about 145lbs. So I'm maybe 17 lbs away from that. I look in the mirror and I feel huge. I had a co-worker tell me to stop losing weight today before I started looking sick. I checked my BMI today and for the first time in many years I'm not morbidly obese or obese. Why do I still feel obese?!

I was thinking about this the other day, and almost thought of posting a similar thread, but never got around to doing it.

A little while ago, I used to look at myself in the mirror and think I had gotten skinny, I am and was wearing sizes that I always thought was good sized skinny (for me and it is different for everyone else).

I am not sure where my mind changed, but now I look and see an fat person.While I am not in the normal range for BMI, I am curvy and I like that, I am tone and would be close if not in a normal range, cept for all this damn skin. The skin I feel is making me see a fat person it hides the muscles I work so hard for...grrr and bulges out in places it shouldnt.

I am at a weight that I can easily maintain with my lifestyle (ie no more loosing but not putting it back), and have been here for over 6 months ( with christmas, celebrations, over eatting, injuries etc occuring during this time). I believe there will come a time when you will find your normal.

I dont know that I have an answer but I do know that I experience it too...

I posted a long post under the emotional side of being skinny about this almost exactly. And I am where you are at. When I was about 15lbs heavier, I actually felt skinnier than I do now. I am just within a normal BMI (upper end), have been maintaining for almost a year, and truthfully, I would not really want to look any thinner. But the numbers on the scale drive me crazy some days and most days I feel so unhappy with my body. I have a lot of skin hanging and want to get it fixed, but I just don't have the resources right now to pay for it. One person in my last support group had a good analogy...it was like looking at the same "shape" but just smaller. I have rolls when I sit too, and it is all skin, but it still makes a person feel fat. And I don't like pictures of myself either, I usually find something wrong with them.

And many people have said things to me....making sure I don't want to lose more weight, telling me how good I look. I have people that don't really know me from before ask me how I stay so thin, etc. But in my brain, I always tell myself they are just being nice. Or they need to get their eyes checked!

One thing I am trying to do, but not guaranteeing it will work, is trying to Celebrate how far I have really come. I have pictures from my heaviest and I am using Picisto to make side by sides of me now. And I did keep one pair of my biggest pants, so once in a while, I will put them on. I don't have any answers either, but hoping to feel "normal" one day....

So, I share these thoughts in this forum becuase they do cross my mind.

Just to be clear 98% of the time I am running around....woohooo.... I am no longer carrying around the weight of an extra person!!!! Who the hell cares what my BMI or scale number says - I feel great, i look about 4 hundred million times better then I did before.

In truth, I am not as obsessed about this crappola as I make it sound. My hubs has not been the most supportive person in the world, and he really doesn't issue compliments. He did say to me that I am "the same size or smaller then the typical woman my age." He is right and it isn't worth stressing over a few pounds over or under. Of course, he couldn't leave well enough alone and finished the remark "but that is because everybody has gotten so fat these days" groan.

I keep a few before pictures highly visible - so I see them everyday... just to keep that mind of mine in line and behaving itself!!!

that final pic - that is me on the right with the shiny earring. do I even look like the same person??? Who the heck cares about a couple of pounds???

I didn't notice until just now - in the before pics I am oozing out of my shoes even. My goodness, I even had obese feet!!!! I had to get rid of those shoes as they got too big!!!!

I want this aussiegirl..........

I am at a weight that I can easily maintain with my lifestyle (ie no more loosing but not putting it back), and have been here for over 6 months ( with christmas, celebrations, over eatting, injuries etc occuring during this time). I believe there will come a time when you will find your normal.

But yes, I too am waiting for my mind to catch up with my body's changes as I don't see myself accurately either. Then again, IDK what "normal" is... I'm right smack dab in the middle of "normal" BMI but think I should try to get smaller. Most of my life has been spent obsessing on dieting/exercise... now what that I'm "there"? Am I truly done? then will it poof and be gone...?

So I want what aussiegirl stated above. I think THAT is truly successful maintenance!

and btw, OMG cowgirl jane... you DO look like a different person! wow!

Gosh this topic is so interesting to me. I'm still 17 lbs over my ultimate goal weight, which would put me at the top end of a "normal" BMI. Anyway, it still throws me when people tell me I'm "tiny" or "skinny" (at a tight size 10P I am hardly either of those things). I know people are comparing me to where I was before surgery, and indeed I am quite tiny compared to then, but still, I don't feel great about my weight and keep pushing to get down at least 10 lbs more.

My mid-40s body definitely tells the tale of 15+ years of morbid obesity. My breasts sag horrendously, I have the dreaded loose belly skin (with a map of stretch marks all over my abdomen, to boot) and my thighs are like granny thighs, with loads of cottage cheese thrown in for good measure.

Still ... no matter what ... I am thrilled I got the sleeve and am truly grateful for the years of additional life I have given myself. I am sure I would have died relatively young, had I not had the surgery.

BTW Cowgirl Jane, I have to second the compliment -- you do look FAB and lovely and healthy!

It's really hard to accept too, as you get farther out, regain is a real threat.

You're right about having a life time of experience on how to gain weight. It's all too easy to slip up too many days in a row now, and freak out while I am trying to take off the results of slacking off.

When I reached my lowest weight post VST(which was still in the "overweight" BMI) I had many people ask me "you are not going to lose anymore are you?" And "You don't still think your fat do you?". And really I felt I looked pretty good. I look at picts from before surgery, and I can't even recognize myself! I knew i was fat, but just didnt really want to believe it...and had a heck of a time finding cloths I liked... mostly because I was looking for cloths that made me look 85 pounds lighter and they just didn't do that! I look at photos of myself when much younger, when i thought I was so fat... I weighed 20 pounds less than I did at my lowest after surgery! My body image has often been screwed up. I can look in the mirror one day and think woohoo! And the next....FAT!!!! While I was actually obese I worked on loving myself, trying to eat healthy and 4 years before surgery took up dancing and walking... trying to get more healthy, so my head is not as crazy as it once was... but it is a struggle at times! Looking at photos really helps put things in perspective....and trying on the old cloths just for a reality check.

I posted this original thread a month ago. It is funny how fast things change. i feel pretty comfortable at my weight now. I no longer feel fat... well... sometimes my belly skin looks like fat but my brain now knows better.

The next year is really about maintaining at this current weight, where i do feel comfortable and healthy.