OWLers with question: Body Image

[not2late]

Hi Lifers!

This topic was brought up in the OWL forum and we would like your opinions/perspectives on this.

It seems a number of us still "see" ourselves at our start weight, eventhough we have evidence that we are not as fat as we once were. See this thread http://www.atkinsdietbulletinboard.c...ic.php?t=58114

Do/did you all have this issue? How did/do you deal with it?

[Perry]

I didn't see any posts from guys in that thread. I wonder why? (not really. lol)

I have a slightly different issue. I don't have the 'visual' issue that some of you are experiencing. I'm so in tune to my body on this WOE that in my mind I can tell immediately when the scale moves up before stepping on it. When that happens I don't fret because I've grown to understand that its either 1) something I ate (usually on purpose!) or 2) a normal balancing that my body is going through. This feeling lasts for a couple of days every month (DW thinks I have male PMS).

Absolutely normal to have visual and physical symptoms during/after weight loss and nothing to be alarmed with (IMO).

[cmcole]

I hate that "society" (and here, I'm generalizing) has portrayed women in such a light that we all seem to have fat glasses on, playing the comparison game with not only irrelivant body images, but what in our minds we "should" be.

I'm not saying that I don't (or haven't) done it, because I still pick up my fat glasses and see myself in the worst possible light.

Men don't seem to have the same problem, usually (again, a generalization). Could be that there are far fewer men's fashion magazines, and also the fact that suits and typical men's "fashion" clothing is loose enough to hide a multitude of figure flaws (so called) that it is not as obvious to what should be the "norm" according to industry standards.

Go into a men's clothing store (I have recently, because my son needed a pair of dress pants). They have sizes ranging from really small waists to quite large ones. There does not seem to be a stigma whereas they are all designated to the back of the store or some "specialty" store for the big and fat (with a few exceptions).

Certainly there are exceptions to this observation, but I notice that men's pants can come as high as waist 38 or 40 in a "regular" store (Le Chateau, for example), whereas you'd be hard-pressed to find a lady of well-endowed proportions shopping in that store and finding anything to fit.

So, our glasses keep being replaced by media and industry, and we just have to consistently fight the image that we are unworthy and less than wonderful as we are. I know we are all working at improvement, but I don't want to be told on the way there that I am not a wonderful person "just as I am".

I've rambled . . . sorry.

EDIT

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