Do you ever stop seeing yourself as fat?

I am down 109 lbs and on vacation visiting my husband's family.  Absolutely everyone has told me how skinny I look (I am far from skinny at 179 lbs) but honestly, I still think of myself as fat.  I was fat for so long that my brain just has not caught up yet.  I see the difference when I look at pictures but just cannot wrap my brain around the new me.  Hopefully some day soon this will change.

I still see myself as fat, just not as fat as I once was. I'm not sure if that will ever change but it's something I am working on.

Thirty years ago I dyed my hair blonde and kept it that way.  To everyone around me I am a blonde, but in reality I am a brunette. 

I have lost all of my excess weight and keep it off, but I am still a fat person.  Like an alcoholic, I am in remission, but never cured.

I'm down 140 pounds with at least 30 more to lose.  I've got about 6 to go before I'm "just" overweight.  So I'm definitely still fat.  I have, however, gotten better at seeing me as I am now, instead of me as I was.  

Although I still screw up and buy clothes that are too large.  TRY EVERYTHING ON.  

When I look at myself in the mirror or in pictures I see myself much slimmer and healthier. I don't see myself as fat anymore. Sometimes I have hard time comprehending that I fit into smaller clothes......when I do laundry I question if those are really my pants or undies! They look so small to me! 

Oh my gosh, the clothes thing.  I put a pair of my black running pants into R's drawer the other day and he was like "these aren't mine, why did you think they were?"  And I said, "they're a size medium, so they couldn't possibly be mine."  

Yeah.  The clothes thing will get you every time.  

I was just talking with my dad about this today.  He is 13 months post RNY and I'm 15 months post VSG.  We've both lost about 120 pounds.  He is about 170 and I'm about 145.  We aren't fat, and we know that.  But, it doesn't change that I pick out the wrong sized clothes, that I do a double take when I catch my reflection unexpectedly.  I don't know when it changes.

i went from a 2X to a XL and feel good. but when I see myself in pictures taken I look fat and feel thinner than I look...next month 12/12 will be 1 yr. and I stopped losing. i have been sort of maining month after month give or take a pound or so. I haven't reach my set goal neith the first nor secong. My surgeon said to me on my 6 mo. visit about where I am was going to be it. Imnot happy with that. would like to lost at least 10 more pounds before my 1 yr. but dont think it will happan...

Something unexpected happened with me once I hit about the 140s.  (I dropped to 132 before coming back to 143, where I am now.)  I felt right, comfortable, like this is how I was supposed to look all along.  When I saw myself in the mirror as newly thin, I wasn't surprised, and I didn't do a double-take, but I did (and still do) feel satisfied and, again, "right" somehow.  Like I've corrected a colossal lifelong error.  Very strange.

When I was fat, I lived with this daily, all-consuming, shaming humiliation, even though I was fat from about age 10.  It's not like I got fat after spending some of my adult years thin - I was always fat! But totally shamed by it, and I spent a lot of time cocooning at home (and eating) to avoid the world's judgment (which was really my own). And thankfully, that's now gone, replaced by this "all is OK" sense - and a lot more presence in the world, haha!  I think the memory of all that is a large part of what keeps me on the straight and narrow in maintenance.

Congratulations on your loss so far.  You've asked a good question, because maintenance isn't only about managing food.

Yes - you may eventually see yourself as you are and not fat and not even as formerly fat.  (I'm not being negative about being formerly fat, it's just that "That was then and this is now.")  When you look in the mirror, you will see who you are.  You will learn to live in the moment with who you are at that instant and make the most of it without wanting to be something else.  

I am just making this transition and it is wonderful. 

I'm off to see the stars at a local's astronomy club's public viewing night with all their cool telescopes.  Maybe I'll discover a comet.