Most of the time I feel pretty good about my weight loss. I know I have a ways to go, about 20 more pounds, but I'm proud of myself and what I've accomplished in a relativlely short time. It's hard, this way of eating, but well worth it. So, I'm down 35 (about) pounds, down from a 16 to a 10-12.

My boyfriend and I were going to a dinner function Saturday night. I had on very slimming black pants and a nice top. I felt good. boyfriend told me I looked great. We get there, and I...don't know what happened. I felt huge. all of a sudden I looked around and saw most of the women were still thinner than me, and the past few months of working so hard just came crashing down on me. After noticing how I was quiet, my boyfriend asked what was wrong, and I blurted out that I felt huge. He tried to tell me how great I looked, how sexy, etc. All I see is the same person from October. The same fat person. And I've worked so hard, and even at dinner on Saturday, I ate a bit of salad with no dressing, a piece of chicken breasts and a couple of veggies. no bread, no dessert, no rice or potatoes. Then to add insult to injury, we went out with a few friends AFTER the dinner to a pub, and everyone started ordering appetizers. Didn't have any of that either.

I just feel like some people seem to have it so easy, and others of us have to work so hard. And it's ALWAYS going to be that way for me. And I see someone, and think to myself, why can't I look like that?

I dunno. I just got really depressed. Anyone else lose it every once in a while? Or am I just crazy?

I have felt that way more times than I can count. You're not crazy. It's not fair and it sucks. I deal with it better some days than others.

Thank you! I actually felt fine yesterday. I never cheated, and just had a really wierd emotional thing going on. But yesterday I was fine. I feel like I still have such a long road ahead of me, I guess.
I want it now!!!

I wish I could make you feel better. I know exactly how that feels. You get dressed up and fit into clothes that you never have worn before. You worked so hard to drop that 20lbs that most people can not even do, you feel confident, happy, and then you get somewhere and you can not help judging yourself or comparing yourself to everyone else. We have all done that. I have gone places and felt so much better about myself, not "thin" but proud of my hard work..then we get there and I cant help but think that all eyes are on me and that they are judging me, calling me fat, etc. Thinking, that poor thing, she has a pretty face, etc. They don't know how hard you have worked or how easy that feeling is to strip away.

You have lost 20lbs, you have the right to feel good about that hard work. you faced a very difficult situation where most people would have said the heck with it and gone off the plan right there and comforted themselves with food. You know what you are working for and you did not let it derail you. I know how hard it is to sit there and watch everyone else eat things and be social, while you aren't. I do the same. I sit there and toy with my napkin, look all around the resturant and wish I could just disappear, or hope that dh will say, "Know what, we need to get somewhere, thank you for the evening", anything. Instead I look all around and eventually the eyes turn to me and someone asks "Want some? , Why aren't you eating, etc." I would totally die of embarassment to have to tell them, "I'm fat, I'm on a diet" thats how I'd feel. Instead, when appitzr. come I normally say something like, I'm allergic, that usually stops it..or when dessert comes I tell them "I can't eat that because of my blood sugar."

I understand that right now when you think of yourself you still have that mental image of how you looked before you started. You are in an inbetwen place it sounds like emotionally..you still see your preakins self, and you don't feel youve lost enough lbs yet to feel thin, even though you have done an amazing job loosing 20lbs. I am in the same situation. I may have lost around 15 lbs right now, and feel good about that. But, when I look at myself I am still carrying around so many extra lbs and it doesn't help when I feel that the end will never come, that I have to loose what at least another 20lbs not to be in the "obse" section on the BMI. , or for anyone to really notice a huge difference.

That must be a really common feeling because I just experienced something similar today. I took an in progress photo and was amazed that I did not look as good as I do in the mirror

A few things for all of us to remember:

1. The lower you get the more dramatic the weight loss is...the next 10 lbs are going to really show up more than the previous ones because you are losing a greater percentage of your body weight.

2. You are seeing those thin women on their splurge nights. They are not thin because they eat like that every day. Every one of them is at home dealing with the scale or their clothing doing some repair work. That is something you get to do when you are maintaining. It is a myth that people just get to eat the normal standard western European diet and not have ill effects. When you really dive into their lives you see that the thin women have to work at it in some way or another.

3. People are never as critical about you as you are on yourself. They just see a beautiful woman in a nice black outfit. Think of how many beautiful overweight women there are out there that you just don't focus on their flaws. No one really even pays attention to you past a quick glance. They are all thinking about their own insecurities.

You are doing great keep it up....the best is yet to come!

I have to thank you addict for posting this cause I never really stopped to consider this. I neve picture them as "real" women as they look perfect, who are they to ever worry that they wont fit in their pants, that they never lost the lbs of baby weight before having another baby like you did, etc. etc.

Yep...part of what really got me on track is that I was complaining about my weight with a group of friends talking about what size we wear based on our heights etc.

Then one thin friend said that she wore a size 6, but that she really had to work at it. She got up before the kids every morning and ran on the treadmill and then she said a lot of times she cooks for the husband and kids and then has to eat something else. It really struck me because really the only times I ever saw her was a parties...and she seemed to be eating like a normal party goer.

Then another new friend told me that she never had to worry about her weight...she was naturally thin...and she could eat anything she wanted ....because of that comment I started watching her eat and you know what she ate? She always meat and then like 1 TBSP of a starch

It was an eye opener and it made me stop feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't eat all the junk I wanted.


Oh and another one...Kate Beckinsale the actress once said in an interview that when she died she wanted to be reincarnated as a man so that she could eat. That has always stuck with me...thin women work at it!

Eureka! I really never thought of it that way. Of course the nights out are the exceptions in every way, you dress up more, you drink more, and you EAT more! And if certain people only see you at those times they're going to have an unrealistic mental picture of your life.

thanks addict1000, this will be helpful to me as I remember it on future occasions.

I've been feeling the same way, and you guys have been a huge help. Thanks. I'm gonna go walk now and stop lurking.

I agree with addict1000 so much here!! When I was heavier, about 100 pounds more than now, NO ONE would talk to me about food, what they ate etc. Every one of the women I work with are very very thin. There is one woman I work with that is a size 6 on her largest day and she is 44 (she's the heaviest).

Fast forward to when I have dropped 100 pounds and it's like I was suddenly in the "club". They talked to me all the time about their eating habits, etc. Now, mind you, I would go out with them and saw the same thing, they would eat, drink and I would wonder how they could stay so slim and "eat whatever they want." Well, turns out that was a big fat myth. Turns out these very thin women work out like crazy, worry about everything they eat and if they see even a couple of pounds added to the scale, it's a full on assault to lose those extra pounds. It was SO eye opening for me. Here I had thought all this time that they could just eat anything!!

One woman that became a very good friend told me that she eats like a sparrow and works out so hard so when she goes out she can eat "the fun stuff" as she put it. I can't tell you how liberating that was for me to hear. I finally felt like there wasn't something wrong with me after all!!

Personally, I don't want to eat like a sparrow. I would prefer to stick to LC. Definitely more satisfying way to live my life. I've now seen some of their normal everyday meals and it's a pathetically small amount of food. I would starve!

I go through periods. I can truly feel content where I am [weight wise] one day and then bash myself to hell the next.

I'm just now, at the age of 43 - learning to reconcile with myself.
If I have to be thin to love myself, I'm damned.
For sure.

Just take it one day at a time. Love who you are in all capacities - TODAY.

When I was thin and on low fat diets, I would not eat all day, so I could eat dinner with friends. I had lots of tricks to stay thin and make it appear easy. It was never easy. Now, it is easy.

I've been having some of these issues, too. I've been running which is a sport that supposedly directly benefits from being a lightweight. Of course all the other runners are tiny, so that's been getting to me a bit. I am still so much bigger than the average woman even though I've lost over a 100 pounds - it's just a tough position to be in.

Boy can I relate. Especially when you don't have a lot to lose. People look at you like you're an anorexic because you won't eat their poisonous high carb food. I hate that I have to separate myself from everyone by telling them I have blood sugar problems just to get them off my back.

So, no, you're not crazy; you're normal. When we stop judging ourselves by how others see us (and good luck with today's crappy media), then the freak outs will stop.

You need to love yourself and rock out like you are the hottest in the room. You probably are too. Personality is soooo much sexier than shallow looks.

I'm not sure that this is relavant but here we go anyway...

When I discovered how GOOD lowcarb was for my body (the aches, the pain, the cravings) I went from a size 18 (okay -- I would sqeeeeze into a 16) to a size four in about a year... but I didn't SEE myself as a size four for about another year. When I looked in the mirror at home I was still the same person. The only time I saw my loss was if I caught myself in a window or something.

It didn't matter on some level what ANYONE said -- in my head I was still the same I had been for so long.

Fast forward -- I was on a gambling weekend with a friend (his wife doesn't gamble, my girlfriend doesn't gamble so we just get sent away), I was getting ready to go down to the casino -- stepped out of the shower and saw myself in the mirror. I swear I almost forgot the towel when I ran out of the bathroom screaming, "I'm hot! I have a nice body!" He tried to remind me that everyone had been trying to tell me that... and they had but I didn't believe them.

Bottom line (after a very long story)... it takes TIME to change your body image in your head. You can see it in the mirror every day but it doesn't compute until it's ready to. Think about gaining weight -- we don't see it as it happens -- we have a wake up day one day... same with getting smaller I think.