So I'm 34 years old, 5'11" and currently hovering at 205 pounds, down from about mid 230s at the beginning of the year. I was near this current weight a year ago which was down from near or above 240 from the year before.
Last time I lost that weight, I didn't feel like much had changed. Other people had commented but I my sense of my own body image hadn't changed. Even when looking at comparison pics that I take time to time, it was hard for me to notice much of a difference. When I finally started noticing weight changes was when I gained it back (was unemployed for much of last year and let myself go). It just felt less comfortable being in my own body. I just felt grosser (like eating food made me feel more bloated). Clothes felt tighter.
Since then, I've lost most of that weight again and I have noticed it a bit more in terms of how clothes fit better, but my sense of body image hasn't changed much. I get that me seeing my body every day makes it hard for me to see changes but I feel like there has to be some point in people's weight loss journeys where it's obvious to them. Eventually your belly fat is gone and it's impossible to not know that it was much much bigger years ago. When I started this journey I had no idea what my goal weight would be so I basically set the initial goal to 200 thinking that when I got there I'd have a better sense of how much more I needed to lose based on a vague idea of where my progress was in terms of looking and feeling healthy. I see a trainer twice a week and I can see the numbers going down. I can feel how I'm able to do things in the gym that I used to struggle with or not even be able to do. I know all that but that doesn't change my sense of body image. My belly still feels big because it hasn't changed all that much. Probably because being 40 pounds over weight vs ideal weight is a bigger difference in how it shows up on your body than the difference between being 40 pounds and 90 pounds overweight.
So my question is for those that lost a lot of weight, when did it really click in your mind that you look and feel like you look different from before? Is it just going to get more and more noticeable from now on? Will losing the next 10 pounds feel more significant than losing the last 20?
I'm still trying to figure out what my next goal should be. I'm not considering it too heavily since I need to focus on getting under 200 which I feel like I haven't been since mid high school (like 18 years ago). But I'm getting close and I have to start thinking about it. A long time ago I made a random guess that maybe 180 would be ideal weight but now I'm not so sure. BMI charts (which I know aren't always accurate) seem to think for my height, 175 is threshold between normal and overweight and the bottom end of normal is closer to 145, which seems absurd to me. I cannot imagine getting much lighter than 170. 145 just sounds unhealthy. But like I said, I don't really know. Maybe if I get to 175 I'll still have a decent amount of belly fat and realize that I still have a lot more to lose. All I know is I always assumed that if I got to 200 that I'd be over half way to my ideal body shape but as I approach 200, I don't even feel like I'm 1/4th of the way there as far as body shape goes. So now I'm wondering if I'm really that far away from it or if further losses make more noticeable changes to your body shape as you get lighter.
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