I know I have a LNG way to go but I am down to 220 from 343 now wearing a large/x-large from a snug 3x. I keep hearing that I look great but to get honest I don't see it. When I look in the mirror all I see is loose skin and saggy girls. To be honest it makes me disgusted and I am having difficulty adjusting to the new me. Has anyone else felt this way if so how did you deal with it?

Wow... You are an inspiration. I have lost only about 40 lbs and I don't like what I see. But I feel SO much better! Please be proud of yourself. Don't worry about saggy boobs - we all have them! I plan on wearing a bra and three-quarter sleeves all the time! (Think I can find a swimsuit with sleeves?) Plus doing neck exercises and moisturizing. As for the rest of it, who cares? Clothes will cover us. And we will be healthy! I am proud of you. God bless you!

All of us here have issues about extra skin. We will probably not look the way we did when we were kids. So? At least we will be alive. I try to focus on my health. I had a friend who although only a bit heavy, actually wore a jumpsuit into the pool! She was so paranoid about her body! She wore a French corset to bed with her boyfriend (14 years younger! They eventually married.) and covered as much as she could. Funny. She kept telling me that after 30, a woman needs props and went for lace everything in the way of undies. She was a terrible tease and guys just loved her. So, relax about the skin.

my saggy girls are now armpit warmers... they are no longer for sexual desire.. just another way to keep warm LOL

We all have this adjustment - even now, at goal weight - I still have issues.. some days are better then others. it will get better. good luck! your doing great!!

I can appreciate how you feel. I'm 8 pounds from goal and I've had most of my plastics done and I still look in the mirror and am not terribly happy with what I see. I am almost at a weight where I feel like I look decent (at least in clothing!) but the only thing that really got me to that point is getting close to goal. Everyone told me I looked great when I was heavier too, although I suppose that was in comparison to my starting weight, lol, which well, short of gaining weight, almost anything would have looked better! I look in the mirror and I see flabby arms with batwings that I can't decide if I should fix or not (is the scar or the flab worse?)...I see a fat butt that no matter how much I lose isn't going to get any better unless I have the back part of the body lift (I did the tummy tuck, and breast lift and augment) and I see all the scars from my other surgeries and just remind myself that it is totally cool to only ever be naked in the dark! I don't like what I look like...but it certainly gets me to the gym everyday in the hopes that I've come this far, I can still keep improving.

Much as I think the advice to just love yourself is not incorrect, the best advice I have is to keep on keepin on. You may not think you look great now, but use that as motivation to keep working. I had a wedding to go to back in March and I was around 170-ish at that point, which is not hot, and when I saw my pictures of what I looked like then, I used that disgust to really get over the plateau that I had hit. It might sound a little harsh, but if you use how much you dislike what you look like to motivate yourself to look better....that has always worked far better for me than convincing myself I looked great when in actuality I was kind of a chunk. Sadness doesn't have to be bad....it makes the happiness at the end all that much better.

Edited October 22, 201411 yr by AvaFern

Yep, definitely. I've struggled with eating disorders all my life and right now am battling body dysmorphic disorder. What I see in the mirror and what other people see are definitely not the same thing. Therapy helps, but it is a constant struggle. I keep thinking if I lose 5 more pounds I will "look" thin, or if I get rid of the excess skin I will "feel" thin, but I know it is a much deeper issue than 5 pounds or some saggy skin that no one else sees. You are definitely not alone!