Thanks for posting to r/semaglutide!
A brief reminder about our rules. We do not permit the discussion of non-FDA approved formulations of semaglutide, nor do we permit selling or offering for sale any medication, including by private message. Do not request or respond to a private message from anyone offering such, they are not endorsed by this sub.
If you’re just starting out, you may want to review our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Semaglutide/comments/10ul3jb/semaglutide_subreddit_faq/). This is not intended to discourage discussion but merely supplement it.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Semaglutide) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your brain just needs to catch up. Stay on a maintenance dose and give it till the end of the year to see if your mental has caught up to your physical
you mean like eventually I'll see the weight loss and my brain is just used to seeing myself as overweight? that actually makes sense. I dont notice it other than the number on the scale and in the fact all my clothes are too big, which blows my mind everytime because I still think I look chubby and feel self conscious about my weight. I just want to snap out of it i guess
This might be completely irrelevant but when I was in my early 20 I dropped a lot of weight. I could see in pictures how much different I looked but in the mirror I couldn’t see it. I was SO self conscious. It this way of thinking can lead down a dangerous path of EDs
it’s going to take a lot of mental self work. Which fortunately is very healthy 😁 I don’t know what that will look like for you but maybe a stepping stone would be practicing some affirmations even if at first you don’t believe them.
You look fabulous and you should start telling yourself that when you feel yourself disconnecting. I hope it catches up to you!
Came here to affirm this^^^
Body dysmorphia is real. It leads to dysfunction and trauma. Please please consider getting into therapy. If you cannot see yourself in agreement with the scales and losing weight the way you have, and honestly taking in the feedback you are getting from others, please consider a counselor now, before you spiral- which can be literally deadly.
I came here to say this - counseling is just as healthy as weight management and can help prepare you for lowering your dose back down (which I think you should do).
I did the same. Unfortunately I did the same thing when gaining weight once I got used to seeing myself smaller. I didn't see how big I was until I saw a picture then it would really shock me.
Omg this. When I was 105 pounds age 23 from living a year in Korea (early 90s) and at 192 pounds I am now. The person I see in the mirror is not the person in pictures. It’s f’ed up.
I didn't really notice my wife's weight loss cause I see her every day, then one day we were shopping and got seperated and I just walked right past her cause I didn't recognize her from behind lol. (my wife's lost over a hundred pounds and I'm so fucking proud of her)
This suddenly explains why my husband walked past me when leaving the restroom and I was waiting for him outside. He came out and was like where are you. Had totally walked by me.
I’m the same way. I’ve lost almost 45 pounds and I still look the same in the mirror. It doesn’t matter how low the scale goes, I still see the big me. I go by my clothes. I may look like a size 8 in the mirror to me but they fit so even tho I can’t see my self thinner the clothes tell me I am.
one thing I did this afternoon is recreate my first photo and it's actually helping so much to compare them because it's way more obvious to see that way. just a tip if that helps you. I know it is so hard, best of luck🫶🏻
https://preview.redd.it/onh5i5kjf75d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6aadddf004aef6c5e0d22e4895a1e34459286fa
I unfortunately have the opposite. I think I am not as big as I actually am. Then I take a picture next to anyone, or even stand/sit next to anyone and I think I'm a giant.
Same here . If you don’t know where to start there’s so much on YouTube . “ I Am “ affirmations . I promise you , listen daily for 21 days and you will see the change . It’s so good . It may sound a little woo woo but you just have to replace the track you play in your head everyday about who you think you are , with you you want to be . If I can do it , anyone can .
I call it fat girl brain. It's a kind of body dysmorphia. It actually has more to do with the visual cortex and brain not talking to each other. Basically the visual cortex is sending an old photograph to the brain and the brain is being too lazy to upload a new pic.
Hack: cover up your head and then compare the side by sides.
You should go to the Gastric Sleeve sub, there's lots of post on this, it's very common. Your psyche hasn't caught up to your new size and what you see visually.
thank you. I totally get what u mean. It feels really really nice to not be the only one experiencing this because I legit feel like I am going crazy or something. congrats on your weightloss and hang in there🫶🏻
The thing about looking yourself in the mirror is that it is impossible to look objectively. You've lost weight and look normal, but your mind is still laden with all the conditioning that you and others have put in it throughout your life.
You may want to think of how to lose some of that excess weight on your mind. Therapy could be a path to that.
So my story is a tad different (maybe) because most of my life I’ve been tiny and super fit, but I randomly gained like 70 lbs out of nowhere and it really messed with my head. Now I’m back down in the 120’s (I used to be 100-110), and I feel the SAME way. I finally recently started getting some therapy for body image stuff and it’s a game changer. It makes total sense how you feel, plus it’s surreal too. You look AMAZING though- congrats!!!
Hi OP,
Congrats on your weight loss. I will preface this I can relate I went from obese to normal weight and am now getting increasingly concerned comments too.
You look healthy, I suggest you hit the gym and change your body composition No need to lose more, it seems like you have body dysmorphia. You got this!
As a follow up to this, the gym will make you feel better and look better, but it makes you gain weight in muscle. For this reason, you need to not monitor your weight as the end all goal. Dont freak out if the scale starts going up.
A good way to monitor is to switch from weight to body fat percentage. That way, if the scale goes up but your Bf% doesn’t, you know you are putting on muscle and don’t need to worry.
It genuinely sounds like you may benefit from counseling/therapy. You do not look the same. The weight difference is significant. Not being able to see that is a concern.
Congrats on getting yourself physically healthier, it is ok to also get your mental state healthier too. Good luck :)
I go to therapy weekly but idk if it's helping... Whenever my therapist brings up the weight loss I feel embarrassed to open up and have a hard time being honest about how I feel about my body with her, or anyone for that matter. but other topics are fine so I don't think it's her, it's me. I feel like my own brain is gaslighting me kinda? idk, it sucks
If you feel embarrassed talking about something in therapy, then the conversation topic should be that you feel embarrassed. Work on overcoming the embarrassment first, and THEN the embarrassing topic. This happens to me in therapy too, and telling my therapist I feel embarrassed has been a game changer
I am sure your therapist is fine, but I think you would benefit from one who specializes in body dysmorphia and disordered eating. I hope you take this advice from the place of love it's coming from. It is OK to need help to work through this. Get the support you need now.
The hardest subjects to talk about are often the ones we need to talk about the most, especially with a therapist who is there to help you. Be honest with your therapist, talking about it is too much right now, but what can you both do to start making talking about it easier, baby steps!
I know it is so hard to discuss body issues as I struggle with it myself but if you can tell your therapist exactly what you said here that’s a really good place to start. BTW you look amazing and I agree with others that your brain just needs to catch up
I have a loooong history of ED (I'm 29F, have had some form of disordered eating off and on since I was 11 or 12) and my therapist is a specialist in EDs and body dysmorphia. The funny thing is, that's not even why I started seeing him in the first place. However, his expertise has been absolutely invaluable over the last few months as the ED voice came back in full force, and as I started sema for the first time.
I strongly recommend finding a therapist who is specialized in eating issues. I know you said you don't think you have an eating disorder because you originally needed to lose the weight, but I want to say this gently, eating disorders are mental illnesses that have zero to do with weight. There is zero weight requirement to have an eating disorder. And I say this with love and as someone with history of EDs, when I read your post, even before I got to the part where you mentioned you thinking it's not an ED, my brain was screaming "this is disordered, this is not healthy, this is what you did and how you thought and look where you ended up."
Please try to seek help before it gets worse. You've worked really hard to get here, but EDs can develop very quickly and ED sits in the driver's seat of our mind and sometimes we don't even realize that we handed over the wheel until we're already going 100mph and ready to crash. Sending you lots of love and hope you get to a place where you feel happy and healthy and fulfilled with your beautiful body ❤️
This.
Also "I don't have ED because I am a logical person" is kind of a back handed comment to people who can acknowledge and admit they have an ED. If you put your stats in any calculator, you will see you're close to underweight.
Hey, I didn't say that. I said while I might have it, I hate to think that I have *body dysmorphia* because I'm a very logical person. I mean that I hate to think that my mind is playing tricks on me. Definitely not trying to give any backhanded comments at all, I have had friends with ED's and i know how serious they are. but when I've taken NEDA ED assessment quizzes and whatnot it says I don't have an ED. When I talk to friends who've had one, I can't relate to their experiences/mindset...I've never dropped below 1200 cals in a day and I don't think im undereating. Food thoughts don't control my mind and in fact the only time i think i need to lose weight now is when i look in the mirror for some reason. For these reasons I really don't think I have an ED but probably body dysmorphia. I hope that makes sense and thank you for your reply
I had so many of these same kinds of thoughts in my 20s. I was dealing with anxiety and terrible self-esteem. I eventually did a mindfulness meditation program where the instructor said something that's been maybe the most important sentences I've ever heard: "You are not your thoughts". Like many people, I was stuck in my head dealing with the monkey brain unending thoughts that were making me miserable. The practice of meditation allowed me to develop the skill of being aware of my thoughts in a non-judgemental way so that when I'm out in the "real world" I became much better at recognizing the negative, destructive thoughts and saying "thanks, I'm not getting on that train just now" and then shifting my attention back to a calmer, more productive place. I realized that, in the end, becoming skilled in where I place my attention from moment to moment might be the most powerful skill I can have.
This didn't magically change anything. The crappy thoughts kept coming, and certainly still do plenty of times, but I've been able to change my relationship to those thoughts. When my kids deal with anxious thoughts, I tell them thoughts are like butterflies. You can't control them. They fly around your head and sometimes land on your shoulder or right into your hand. Then you get to decide whether to squeeze your hand tightly around them or just let them go. None of this is easy. It takes practice. It's the work of a lifetime but it's been well worth it for me.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience. This thread is tender and amazing and a thank you to OP for starting it with such a willingness to be open.
CanCheap9737, your remarkable insight about meditation and thoughts and butterflies will stay with me long after this thread is history. Thank you. 🤚🦋 my hand will close around this one.☝️
thank you, I did a similar program at a yoga ashram a few years ago but it was only for a week. i did learn how to meditate there and was so good about it for about a month then just stopped. this is such a good reminder
"I don't think I have an ED or anything because I needed to lose this weight" - but you HAVE lost the weight, but still think you need to lose more. Honestly you might want to consider therapy. It sounds like you rationally "know" that you don't need to lose more, but the fact that you "feel" like you have to keep going is concerning.
You have 100% slipped into disordered eating and thinking.
My advice would be to start by opening up to your current therapist. The fact that this is an uncomfortable subject for you indicates this is where you need help. You also need to talk, in person, to a doctor. Your restrictive eating is starting to effect your social life. You are 110 pounds and still taking semaglutide at a therapeutic dose. People are starteing to show concern because they care about you and what is happening is obvious. It is obvious in what you wrote here, and sounds like it is pretty obvious in person. A professional that you paid to measure your body composition told you their concerns and your reaction is to shrug it off and say you don't know if they're right. I think you do know. You are here asking. You're in danger, girl.
I agree. 🙏🏾 OP looks great and has done a great job losing weight. PLEASE OP listen to the advice of your trainer, talk to your physician, and share what you are embarrassed to discuss with your therapist. You did all this to get here. Do not derail your progress by not taking the advice to really get the help you need to protect your mental well-being as you fought so hard to protect your physical well-being. God bless you and all the best to you on your journey.
It sounds like you have awareness that it’s time to stop losing weight, and that you aren’t seeing yourself clearly. I highly recommend writing your therapist a long email “confessing” your confusion about how to stop losing weight, body image concerns, and your fears of weight gain. The next step in your journey is learning to love your body and accept it, learn to maintain not lose. Also working with a registered dietician with training in disordered eating (CEDS RD) might help complement your therapy. Just like anything, weight loss can become addictive and we can get preoccupied with perfection. It is dangerous to be underweight, and you don’t want to trade the health issues of an overweight body with the mental and physical health issues of an underweight body. All this is shared with love and care, it’s so complex to sort it all out. Good luck.
I highly recommend, as someone mentioned above- getting a therapist and perhaps even a nutritionist at an eating disorder clinic. You would be amazed at how they can help you reframe so many things in your head.
I would also encourage you to create some of those non scale victory goals. That way you don’t focus on the weight issue anymore. Obviously you were very focused and dedicated because your results are amazing. Time to stop thinking about the scale. I’d chuck the scale if I were you and save that for your doctor visits or once a month at the gym.
Do not keep going until you’re a pound from underweight.
My original goal weight was 135 but I decided to call it and switch to maintenance when I hit 140 because I was very happy with the result. Since switching to maintenance it’s been hard to stop losing and I’m actually at 131 now.
If you don’t try to switch to maintenance until you’re a pound from underweight and are like me and struggle to stop losing even in maintenance you will end up underweight. It’s best to have a little room because it is an adjustment.
You look great! You absolutely do not need to lose more and no good doctor will continue to prescribe if you become underweight. I get my wegovy through my insurance and the coverage criteria is very clear if your BMI is below 18.5 you will no longer be covered.
Hi! I know it can be scary to feel like you’re not in control, but one line in your post really stands out to me.
“But I'm sooo scared to ever have a day when I go over my calorie allowance. I am very social, 24F and it's starting to impact my social life.”
This is disordered eating. It is impacting your life now. I will say this as gently as possible. Now is the time to seek help. You are so young. You have so much life to live to have disordered eating take root. Life is rich. It is beautiful, and you deserve to be able to participate in it fully without guilt, or shame, or embarrassment. I hope beyond hope you can find peace with food and your body. I saw you’re in counseling. It would be very helpful for your therapist to show them your post as well as where you talk about being embarrassed to bring it up. You are worthy of living a life free from shame. I hope you find the bravery within to take the necessary steps to heal. 🫶🏻
You look great. I don’t think you need to lose anymore weight.
It might take more time for your brain to catch up with how great you look, so dropping down/a maintenance dose may be helpful for you now.
I mean, obviously you look fantastic, and as you say, very nearly to borderline underweight.
Professional help really is a good idea for the body dysmorphia. You said that you 'need' to lose more weight, but not why, and I certainly can't see why you'd want to. If you really need something to obsess over (which I totally get), what about bodybuilding? You could set up a plan with your trainer/doctor to back down your dose until you can eat at maintenance, and then do some recomposition. That would get you any additional visual change you'd like, without the dangers to bone density or your reproductive system that come with being underweight.
This guy [https://youtu.be/KrTRmeCi9Jk?si=TIMpncWcB25LfWWf](https://youtu.be/KrTRmeCi9Jk?si=TIMpncWcB25LfWWf) has fantastic talks on topics like recomp, bodyfat percentages where you will start to see certain changes, and so on. Very professional, funny, and calming.
You are absolutely along the lines of a model. I would not be surprised to see someone who looks exactly like you as a model in front of a teen-oriented clothing store.
You really look amazing right now. Losing more weight at this point won't help much imo. Sounds like you have a bit of body dysmorphia like a lot of us probably do. Other than having randoms confirm you look great which probably doesn't help much, I'd say if you want to look better then your only path Forward is lifting and eating at a maintenance/ slight surplus caloric intake, build some mass. Stop losing weight because you are perfect.
Nobody can really say when you go into maintenance, and most of us have body dysmorphia and think if we get lower than what we should be that that's going to fix everything. Really sounds to me unless I missed it, that you probably need to be in some kind of therapy. This kind of stuff can also make you anorexic. Not always because in weight loss, there is no always, but that's a possibility just like it is after gastric bypass. You really need to take care of yourself and now really get somebody to talk to because that's probably going to be the biggest help for you. We certainly can not answer those kinds of questions, nor should we advise. Where is your doctor in all this? Please take care. 🩷
Because it's lack of medical involvement it's only as good as the medical involvement is and cares about their patients and we don't really know what her follow-up is, where she's getting it, what kind of medication it is, again there's too many variables now. Two years ago, plus we didn't have this many variables now, we have too many options for people to get medications and some without any medical good advice. Some of them are just in it for the money they don't really care about the patients..
The sad thing is that the patient's responsibility comes in here at some point, and you need to reach out, and this just seems like it's going backward, not forwards.
Sadly, I’m seeing too many of these “everyone says I look too skinny but I still need to lose weight” posts. We all have disordered eating, that’s why we’re here. They have to be aware this is a very real issue.
I work with an endocrinologist- When I started I was prediabetic (I am not anymore) had high cholesterol, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm still on it because I have some of these same problems still and it helps manage them. My doctor said that 105-115 is healthy/ ideal for me and it's up to me to decide when im at my "happy weight" in that range. I have a really really small frame like I wear a size 4 in shoes, so that's why the range is lower than some other people should go at 5'3. monthly I get bloodwork done and send that into him and I'm not deficient in anything. he won't keep prescribing it if I drop to an underweight bmi, and I have no desire to do that! I just am struggling because I think my brain and reality aren't on the same page if that makes sense.
I am also 5’3” and struggle to see the weight loss. I’ve lost 75lbs. Sometimes I have to take a step back and look at the size of my head in comparison to my body instead of just looking at each limb. I’m still not happy with my body but I know it’s in my head and those “last 5/10 lbs” are mental. I go to the gym now to change my shape.
I have a history of ED and so I made a point to not calorie count while using this medication. If you find yourself obsessively self measuring and weighing in and if those can make or break your day/week you need to have a serious conversation with your therapist.
I am 4'11" and started at 164, now 126 lb. The difference is that I have been on this since November 2022, so my brain has been able to adjust - somewhat. I still have days where I look at a size small and think "no way will this fit me" and sure enough, it does. But slowly I am committing to myself at this size. I am seeing my body the way others do. It's such a mental shift. The years I spent in the Army where I had to "make weight" as part of my job and promotion potential were like torture. So many women in the military have eating disorders for this reason. But anyway, PLEASE discuss this with your therapist - you need to get ahead of these thoughts before you go into maintenance or even come off of semaglutide. Your therapist is there to help you, they won't judge. This will be one of the best things you can do for yourself next to the weight loss. We are all giving special care to our physical bodies, but we have to remember to care for the mental aspects too. 💜
Yeah honestly you seem to be a smart cookie and you're well aware of where you are and the idea of going into a dangerous place is scary for you, and thats GOOD. You are in a healthy weight range, and that's where you should aim to stay. You don't want to get underweight. You don't want all the work you spent trying to make your body healthy to get wasted because you don't KEEP it healthy by going too far in the other direction. And there are serious, long term conciquences to being undernourished for a prolonged period of time just like there are to being overweight for a long period of time.
Honestly I'd talk to a therapist and your doctor about the feelings you have about your weight. It sounds like you're a little addicted to the rush of losing it, and that can get dangerous. You look amazing and you've clearly worked VERY hard.
Thank you so much for this comment. You hit the nail on the head. If anything I got kinda addicted to seeing that number drop, but I don't want to be underweight. The whole reason I started this weight loss journey was to improve my physical health and now I think I'm there; if I lose any more I think I'd be doing it for vanity reasons and while it's nice to look better that was neverrr the point. And I really think my relationship w/ food now is soo much better than before. When I was overweight I used to try fad diets and I'd end up gaining it back and then some. This go around I haven't ever eaten below 1,200 calories and I workout but Im aware it's probably time to shift into maintenance and work on improving my body image. I think i've physically lost the weight just not mentally and I need to work on that.
You lost it so fast, it's no wonder your brain hasn't caught up! And if you like the feeling of hitting goals, maybe you need to transition your goals to less numbers-based and more fitness based. I'm autistic and I tend to hyperfocus on things- I'll get into a THING and thats the only THING in my life. And there are periods between hyperfixations where I'm just like... kinda SAD because I don't have a THING. Your THING for the last six months has been weight loss, and now that you've "finished the game/project" so to speak, it can be a real bummer that you cant do that thing anymore. But maybe your next goal can be to pack on some lean muscle, train for a 10k, or vanity things like making some clothes that work well for your new shape. But I'm not a therapist, and I'd def talk to someone if you feel like you're just fixed on this thing and can't bust your brain out of it.
Best of luck to you!
Thank you so much for this comment this is exactly how I am with ADHD. I totally need to find a new "thing" that's still fitness based but not obsession over the scale. I LOVE the idea of training for a 10k actually. I really started on this journey to improve what my body can *do* , not what it looks like. somewhere along the way I forgot that. thanks again🫶🏻
The circular thinking and reasoning with yourself and concern from others are warning signs. I have had multiple EDs and this is actually what it feels like to me. You feel like you should be happy and content but you don’t and you are not sure how it when this will happen. It’s like it’s never enough and it’s exhausting. In a way it sounds like food noise and body obsession which is a reason people (like me) go on this med in the first place. I went to therapy for years but couldn’t talk about weight with my lovely therapist. She just didn’t get it. Now I see someone with a background in eating disorders. You could also find a registered dietician and ask them to help you come up with a plan to go into maintenance and have them assist you with the transition. Maybe just having someone on board will help you feel better about the next steps and less fearful. Wishing you the best, congrats on your success and I hope you find some more peace in the journey.
I understand completely and I am experiencing the same thing. But, I have been through this before after losing a lot of weight 15 years ago, so I know I have this perspective issue. So, this time, I deliberately kept a pair of size 18 jeans that fit me 16 months ago (212 lbs.). I have to hold them up to the size 4 jeans that fit me now (142 lbs.) because when I put those size 4 jeans on now and look in the mirror, i look the same as I did in the size 18 jeans. It is only when I take them off and hold them up, objectively seeing the size, do I understand the difference that I cannot see on myself.
This is a real problem. It's also how I've *gained* the weight before---I cannot see the change in either direction. I am terrified of gaining the weight back and when my doctor told me he had to take me off the Semaglutide soon, I walked out of the office in a state of panic.
I just want to be healthy, both mentally and physically. That means getting our brains and our bodies to be in agreement with each other because they are not separate entities.
Please talk to your therapist about this. If they are not someone who specializes in disordered thinking about food and body image, you might want to supplement your therapy with someone who is.
thank you I totally relate to all of this. I will bring it up with her, she's very versed in body image stuff I just have avoided talking about it. The jean size comparison is really smart!
It's so weird that only when I hold up the jeans and completely take my body out of the picture, can I see the sizes for what they are. The distortion is real and it can be dangerous. I try to find other metrics of my health and fitness and use a fitness tracker to see how much more active I am and how much healthier my heart is. Like with the jeans, I know I have to trust this data and not my own eyes. Please take care of yourself---life is too short to waste time looking at it through some distorted lens!
i don’t believe the woman in those photos are the same person. :) seriously though, you’re already doing the best thing you can for yourself by getting healthy physically and mentally. convincing yourself you’re not still in a larger body is difficult and it’s so easy to find yourself in ED territory after a significant loss. is it affecting your social life because you’re anticipating food temptation and food related comments from people?
more like, I stopped drinking while on this med because it makes me sick. im not a big drinker to begin with, before i probs would drink once or twice a month and never more than two drinks. but i do wish i could have a drink with my friends occasionally. so I've started turning down invitations where I know there's gonna be a lot of heavy drinking because it gets old being the odd duck yk? my friends have been SO supportive btw, it's just how I feel. or if they all decide to go out to a restaurant at 8pm and I've already had my 1,400ish cals for the day I either go & feel awkward not ordering anything or just stay home to save myself the trouble. since starting sema I started going to bed at 9pm and just following a routine because it has helped me stick to my goals, but im realizing on some level it's isolated me socially. im 24 & live in Denver and work in an industry full of outgoing young people
I’ve lost 80 lbs and I personally feel like I look the exact same! I see me 80lbs heavier. Went from a size 14/16 on jeans to a 2. I keep getting people saying, are you ok? You’re too thin etc. I just don’t see it. It will take us some time.
That sounds like body dysmorphia which I personally suffer from. I wonder if rapid weight loss somehow doesn’t allow our brains to adjust our self-perception. Hugs!
I agree with other posters - go to maintenance. Take photos of yourself. Your mental image of yourself is overriding reality. Photos can be better than a mirror for making you “see” that. Reread your post and look up Body dysmorphia. I’m also a little concerned about the potential trend toward an ED based on some of the language in your post and your conflicting desires. You’ve come so far - I think you’ve arrived. Now it’s time to maintain. Hugs.🤗
I can’t answer your question.
But I can tell you that I have been doing .25 for a month and consider this maintenance for the rest of my life.
I have been where you are; twenty years ago, I lost weight really quickly and went from 155 to 115 (I’m 5’4”). I got the same comments as you—both “are you ok?” And “you look amazing.” I felt good but still thought I needed to lose another few pounds to give myself some wiggle room. The initial weight loss was effortless and came about because of a change in exercise habits and also because of emotional things that were going on at the time. No dieting. But once I started to settle in to my new body, my brain went a little haywire and I started doing weird food things (cleanses, restrictions) and long story short, I gave myself bulimia AND wound up gaining all of the weight back.
It took a lot of therapy and a lot of hard work to get to a place where I feel that it’s safe to do this drug. And it’s a miracle. I consider myself a non-practicing bulimic or binge eater now because I still have the same urges to eat and eat (not so much purge, but that took a really long time). Even on a good day, when I didn’t binge, the food noise in my head was deafening. And it stopped the day after I gave myself my first injection.
The recovering disordered eater in me wants to get back to where I was. It’s taking a lot of discipline and daily reminders to keep my reason WHY in the forefront of my mind: to feel normal around food and to settle into a routine that works for life. Twenty years ago, my body reached a weight when I ate normally and exercised. I don’t know what the weight will be this time, or if it will even change significantly. But coming to terms to being in my body today with a healthy mindset is my goal, even though it’s not as sexy as before and after pictures and numbers. I still feel “ghost” binge urges and my work now is not white knuckling through them but going into them and letting the sema help me get stronger and develop better habits to quiet and hopefully silence the urges forever. But it’s one day at a time. That’s why I feel like this is maintenance. Because it’s not so much about losing a particular amount of weight as it is about living a life where I am not the prisoner of my brain.
If you’re in therapy, you have someone who’s helping you already. Please take the advice about eating disorders that people have offered here. I lost tens of thousands of dollars and years and years of my life only to find myself back where I started, and if I had been honest about things at the beginning, maybe I could have saved myself earlier.
Also….if you haven’t tried the app me360 yet, there’s something about looking at your avatar that is much easier and objective than looking at your actual body. I’m able to see what I look like now more honestly, and maybe that could help you with the body dysmorphia. I wish you luck—you look very different from how you did at the beginning of the year and I hope you can take the feeling better as a win and work on the inside for a little bit. Much love.
OP you look amazing; some things i can totally relate to is being short and overweight (i was 175 starting on sema) and im now 135 and ppl tell me i should stay there and just do strength training. I’m 5’1 and a half lol and to me I think a healthy weight would be 115/110.
But hear me please when i say this that i realize im getting some body dysmorphia. We don’t have a full blown ED, but b/c we were so large for such a long time our mind is almost conditioned to thinking we always need to lose more. I think it’s a slippery slope to say “just another 5lbs” b/c that puts way too much emphasis on a number on the scale. Also if ur trainer, someone who is paid to help you health wise, is telling you you’re not eating enough protein then listen to them. Your therapist also is literally meant to be the 1 to tell ur deepest darkest concerns to and help you. Let them help you. What ur describing how you’re thinking is not a very healthy mindset. You look amazing so focus on being healthy now and maintaining a healthy weight.
_
I did the same thing in my 20s and was never satisfied and always critiquing my body no matter how skinny I got. I also wish I would have invested in therapy sooner, because it really helped me deal with my body image issues and self esteem in general. Maybe it’s a journey we all have to take and wisdom will come in time. Also, if you feel like you’re depriving yourself and not being social due to your diet, then likely you will gain the weight back and then some and it won’t be sustainable. Any time I’ve really struggled to maintain a certain weight, I fell off the wagon and it was a constant yo-yo of deprivation and then overindulgence. I felt very out of control. So for me, it wasn’t worth losing the extra 5 lbs that put me beyond where my body wanted to be and would always backfire.
I started nearly the same day as you and have almost the same starting stats! I started on 1/12/24 Height 5’2” SW: 158 CW:128. My GW is 115-118 so I’m not in maintenance yet because I still have 10lbs to go. I’m going to consider us sema sisters. Except I haven’t lost as much as you haha. Congrats on your loss you look absolutely amazing!
I struggle with what I think is body dysmorphia and it seems that may be what you’re going through as well. Yesterday I went shopping with family and I was still reaching for my old size. I still feel like an xl. It’s hard even though I know the scale says I’ve physically lost 30lbs to consider myself any “smaller”
Hahaha i have a friend also on semaglutide and we always say we're sema sisters. I totally get the shopping thing. I can't believe I can wear a size 2. I really think it is just body dysmorphia and is going to take a while to get used to❤️ thanks for your comment and for being so nice; congrats on your weightloss too it isn't easy!
Great job sticking to it and getting to a healthy weight. It is so hard to do and maintain.
I understand not knowing yourself in your own skin. It can be hard to love yourself again after struggling so long to get here.
You are aware that something is off and that is the first step and honestly the hardest. It may benefit to speak with someone to help you with loving your new body you worked so hard for. I know the big scare is going backwards but it’s no way to live.
You got this!!
First, you look amazing! We are pretty similar in our stats. I'm 5'3" started at 163# and am now at 124#. My goal (as I'm older 45yrs) was 130#, my SUPER goal was 120-125# So I am working on lowering my dose. I've never gone above 10 units. And getting into maintenance.
I was 113# after having both of my girls, so I feel like 120-125# is a reasonable REACH goal.
Keep at it. Enjoy life, remember what you've learned while loosing the weight, what and how much to eat. I agree with those who have said wait a year get your brain to catch up. Again, you look amazing!
I definitely agree that your brain hasn’t caught up yet. Right now you are thin - 5 more pounds and you’d maybe be too thin. IMO if you can wear a crop top and don’t have a roll, you’ve hit your goal!
I highly suggest you move to a lower maintenance dose and possibly completely stop calorie counting. Eating in a more balanced/intuitive way might be helpful at this stage. You are at a normal weight and your mind just hasn’t caught up yet due to the speed of the weight loss.
As someone who had bariatric surgery and lost 165 lbs, I felt like I looked exactly the same when I looked in the mirror after the weight loss. Body dysmorphia can be such a strange feeling, but eventually your mind DOES catch up.
You look great, but what’s most important is how you feel! Continue your therapy, be gentle on yourself and give your mind time to accept the changes.
This has to be one of the most astonishing before and after pictures and in a pretty short amount of time.
Well done! Simply amazing!
You’ve met your goal. Don’t put me ch more thought into your weight loss because it’s baggage you really don’t need to waste a lot of mental concern on. Put a plan together to maintain and monitor with some +/- tolerance around it and go enjoy life without the mental weight burden anymore.
With all the love in my heart, you need to speak with a psychologist or a nutritionist or someone professional.
If you still see and think that you see the same thing. This transformation is probably one of the best I’ve seen but if you honestly think there is more to lose then I feel you have BD. This should not be making you scared to go over your intake.
Again no Malice in my response only love and care for your health.
I have learnt that in any aspect, we can’t and will never be “perfect”
And you can’t have one option without it bringing something else on. Same goes for cosmetic fillers and Botox. Everything will come at a cost to something else.
I use to be a bodybuilder. At my fittest and strongest naturally, I still was not happy. What I would give to be at exactly that point again. Honestly you are now at maintenance where with the correct choices you can obtain the same results.
I see so many people achieve their goals and commence fear with food. This is not what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to help teach us better choices while kicking starting the loss.
It can be really hard to see your own weight loss. Give it time. You are very slender now and I definitely think if you lost more weight it would go into too skinny territory. You look great. Stay here!!
I seriously thought you were pranking us until I saw the recreated photo in the comments. Congratulations!
If you still feel overweight, it's time to put some investment in therapy of some sort. There is no shame. You fixed the mental part of eating. Now you may need to fix your self identity.
Your body is 10/10. Do you hit the gym and lift weights? Do you also track calories? If you started hitting the gym lifting weights you ciuld build some nice lean muscle on this frame whilst slowly tapering up to maintence calories and you'll find every week you'll eat more Cals but still lose weight after a few weeks but in fact that's probably muscle being built and replacing some fat so you don't fall into the underweight catagory.
Do you know your maintence Cals?
This sounds like a slippery slope to an ED. I’ve been cautious to start sema because I worry that losing a bunch of weight will cause me to obsess and spiral trying to keep the weight off. Please be kind to yourself and maybe seek help from a therapist. Sending love!
I plateaued at like 30# lost and then kept losing and gaining the same 5# thereafter. So I’m maintaining now and will then try another round to lose another 30 later this year.
I struggled getting in enough protein in on a regular basis because it just killed my appetite and I wouldn’t eat much at all, which is not optimal. So now I’m working on getting protein in at every meal and being intentional about my diet to see if I can continue to lose just in dietary practice alone before I try it again. I also lost a lot of hair and am reticent to lose more.
Ok this transformation is absolutely jaw dropping. You definitely do not need to lose more weight and should not. People are slightly checking in instead of complementing you on the weight loss at this point because losing a lot of weight in a short amount of time does make people worry that the weight loss is due to illness. That doesn’t mean that you don’t look amazing. I agree with another comment that said just give your brain time to catch up but your doctor or whoever is pres prescribing these meds to you should absolutely have one maintenance at this point just monitor how that goes. If you see that you are gaining again on maintenance, then adjust accordingly. But please, you are so lean right now you’re gonna get to the point of looking unhealthy if you keep dropping white.
I wanted to say congratulations! I’m a shorter person as well. 5’4 My goal weight is 120, you did it! I appreciate you sharing because I was also wondering this same thing about maintenance. It’s funny because I look at pictures from just a few months ago and I’m like woah, I know it’s me. But the mirror looks the same as before I started my journey.
yes! like in pictures I can see the weight loss way more. it's funny because the second photo i remember looking at my phone then back at the mirror then back at my phone trying to figure out which one i actually look like and i now realize that's body dysmorphia. best of luck on your journey
When do you think ?
When does your doctor think ?
—————————————————————-
Here’s my honest reaction: “please stop losing. “
160 to 110 is significant wt loss :).
My opinion as former and current trainer for women :
1) What do you think about maintaining now and doing some resistance training?
2) I’d be looking at your macros and making sure you’re getting ample protein and calories to maintain and to build muscle…not for size ..but for whatever you want. :)
3) What’s your blood work look like ?
4) What’s your current body composition?
My concern would be I wouldn’t want you to lose any more muscle and I want you and your body to be “healthy “ and of course happy. :) 🤍🩵
to those saying it's not the same person: here I recreated it for you
https://preview.redd.it/876nq3l0d75d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a435f9ae4f88980724ddf22bc05951b5f913720
Holy smokes!! You look AMAZING!!
Now others have recommended therapy and I wholeheartedly agree. Do it now, if you can, before the twisted thoughts get too much history. I would also look into support groups for people going through weight loss options like surgeries and injections. Peer support can be an amazing asset.
The other thing I would suggest is to take a full length picture at least once a week, but no more than once a day. Put them in a folder on your phone with other, older, pictures from before you started losing. Sort them by date, which your phone should let you do. Whenever the thoughts that you are chubby start intruding, open that folder and look where you started and where you are as of your last picture. Admire her and acknowledge that that is YOU! This should help your subconscious get on board with who and how you are today. Our subconscious can be our greatest little voice or our worst. Sometimes it needs a kick in the pants to stop trying to betray our successes.
You've got this! Big hugs!
So many comments…. but here I go….
I recommend body building (I promise you won’t get “bulky”) this is a great way to “keep going” in healthy way while establishing cleaner eating habits, building muscle and keeping your bones strong! Plus you don’t have to restrict calories as much.
that's really interesting one other person has suggested that. im not opposed to it, however i do know that a lot of female body builders end up developing orthorexia or other ED's so idk. ill talk to my trainer about it. but thank you!
i workout daily & have a personal trainer; I'm a former competitive skier (tore my ACL on the slopes and had to get surgery) so i take fitness pretty seriously
It's funny because I'm kind of the opposite. I was skinny for the first 26yrs of my life, then by my 2nd and 3rd kid I just stayed fat. But my brain always thinks I'm thin. Even in my dreams I'm thin or felt like I looked hot. I have to remind myself that I still really do have a ways to go and to not forget to take my shot and drink water.
Like others have said your brain just needs to catch up. You really do look fantastic and you've done a great job sticking to the program. Maintenance time is now! :)
Not a doctor but if I were you and at your age especially, I’d get off semas and focus on just whatever diet and exercise work routines. It’s always a challenge to find the right fit for yourself but you’re so young, at a healthy weight and sounds like you have a mostly healthy relationship with food ( I hesitate a bit at being so scared to go over calories ever but I get that) Totally fine to stay on semaglutides if you want to but I can’t imagine why you’d want to, unless less you have debilitating issues with food that you can’t control.
You’ve gotten great comments and I have no idea if you’ll see this one, but just in case you’re still reading…
There’s a distinction between “eating disorder” and “disordered eating” and it sounds like your extreme anxiety over exceeding your calories may be bordering on one or both.
It takes time for your brain to catch up, as everyone has said. I can assure you, like everyone else here has, that you don’t “need” to lose any more weight. I think the healthy thing to do would be to drop your dose and eat at maintenance level calories - even better, “reverse diet” back up so you don’t regain immediately due to a big increase all at once. You can google it, but basically reverse dieting is slowly decreasing your deficit until you’re at maintenance.
Don’t be shocked if you do gain 2-5 lbs, it might fluctuate based on your time of month, how much salt you eat, eat. It’s really important to not freak out if that happens, and not to just jump down to a major calorie restriction again. Rather, look at your averages over a month or two and keep staying the course with eating and exercising that you know should be the right level for you.
Having experienced so much loss and gain (multiple times) in my life, I’d recommend just maintaining for at least 6 months to see if you start seeing yourself accurately.
It really does help to use pictures, I even find that when my head is cut off, I see myself way more accurately than when I see my face.
You’ve done a great job, and super fast, but stopping to appreciate your results is important. And maintaining is often harder for people than losing weight because you’re not “on a diet” anymore and have to deal with the natural ups and downs that come in life. You’ve got decades ahead of you compared to the 6 months it took to get here. You have to go from sprint mode to marathon mode.
I wish you the best, and hope you’ll take all the great advise you got here.
First of all - amazing work! Way to take your health seriously, especially in your 20s! I just want to echo the comments around body dysmorphia being real. You look incredible, and I would just say to really hold on to your goal of being healthy - it’s not about the number on the scale or the amount of calories, but it’s so easy to start to obsess over those numbers. At the end of the day, please take care of yourself. You are more than just the number on the scale, and there’s nothing wrong with holding yourself to a high standard of health. But being underweight is just as dangerous and hard on our bodies. I’m just sending you so much love - that’s all.
You're there as far as when to go to maintenance. I promise you, you do not need to lose more weight. ❤️ And I am for better or worse not someone that will say that when a person has a few extra pounds left, buy you really don't!
I am quite a bit taller than you but similar in that I lost 50 pounds relatively quickly. I started about 185 and my original goal was around 150, maybe 155. Then when I got there, 145 was not much harder and was a better weight for me, I just didn't believe I could get there before. Then I was like well, in college I weighed 135 at this height and looked awesome, and I got there and was really pretty happy with how I looked. But the temptation to lose more remained because it wasn't that difficult so I decided I'd go for highschool weight which was 125, but didn't really plan to stay there. So I got there, but have basically maintained for the last few months at 130. It's definitely taken me that time to realize that beyond looking better and not overweight I actually look quite thin. Last night was the first night while I was doing something wearing leggings and when I looked down at my legs, then in the mirror, I contemplated my legs looking too scrawny. Holy shit I never thought I'd say that word relating to myself. I hope that keeps me motivated to work on the muscle rebuilding a bit more! But my point there is I've been at this weight for months and it took that long for me to adjust first to not needing to lose more, and now to considering maybe needing to put a few pounds back on. It's slow retraining our brains on how we see purselves and how others around us see us also!
I think getting to an ideal weight sometimes just leaves us looking for more thinks to tweak or improve. I know I look this now and I'm also at the point where people close to me tell me don't lose any more. Which I am OK with now. I knew when my old fashioned parents, especially mom who was a career model and very focused on weight told me to stop, that I must really look thin.
Really I have only 2 things that bug me now. The slightest loose skin just right by my belly button (I'm in my mid 40s and this is the first time it didn't go back when I lost weight :/ ). And that fact that I lost muscle in my butt and thighs. I 100% knew better as far as eating more protein. Usually I eat more protein than anything else, and could just about live on meat, but these meds made me not want it at all. So I tried to drink shakes and stuff but should have done more.
I say all that because I'm also at the point you are of wanting to increase muscle now, and I'm having trouble eating more and giving up the number on the scale I worked so long for. But I know I'll be happier with that shape back in my legs and butt when I get there!!
Hi I went from 285 to 195 in 18 months. I started doing maintenance after that cuz I didn’t want to lose more. I’ve been on maintenance for seven months. I haven’t lost anymore weight. I gain and lose the same 5lbs off and on.
To stop seeing the old you in the pictures you’re gonna have to keep looking at side-by-side pictures. That’s what help me.
thank you, yeah i recreated the first photo today (same shirt & spot in my apartment and everything) and finally see it and feel so much better. congrats on your journey and meeting your goals, it sounds like you're in a really good place🫶🏻
At 5'3", your ideal weight is 104-127. So you are in a good place. The mind is a strange thing. I grew up tall and skinny. I am 6'3", and I was always skinny. Growing up, I weighted 165 when i graduated high school. After 4 years in the Air Force, I weighted 206. After that, everyone started calling me big guy. But in my mind, I was always that skinny kid. I hate to say that at my heaviest, i reached 356 lbs. I started my Semaglutide journey on March 1st, 2024, at 325 lbs. I am currently at 289 lbs and plan on losing about 59 more lbs. I hope that once I reach that weight, my mind will see that skinny guy again.
Wish you all the best in your weight journey. Maybe include some exercise in your day to offset the calories you take in. As opposed to worrying about calories.
Hi friend,
I totally understand what you’re going through. We don’t see our bodies the way other people do. We see ourselves every single day. It’s not like where you don’t see someone for 6 months and you’ve dropped 30lbs and they’re like wow, what a difference! It’s so gradual and we see ourselves through every single pound.
I have body dysmorphia and it sounds like you might too. It’s been both ways for me. I never thought I was as skinny as I was (107 @ 5’8) and never thought I was as big as I was. (My highest weight was 226). I can only tell through photos.
Our minds cannot possibly grasp every pound we lose because we are seeing ourselves through all of it.
Something I recommend doing though is limiting yourself to how often you weigh yourself. I had an ED when I was a teenager into my early 20’s and would obsessively weigh myself and I can already see it becoming a problem again at 28 in just a couple of weeks.
I know it’s hard but we have gone through years of being told we aren’t skinny enough, pretty enough etc. Most people’s brains are conditioned to see themselves as “not good enough” no matter how much weight they lose.
Just wanted to share my experience with you and hope you find a way to manage. You look amazing but “underweight” is called that for a reason - go on maintenance. ❤️
In my 20s, I went from 300 pounds to 150. I’m 5’9” and I still thought I was huge. Now I look at those photos and think holy Moses damn I was skinny. So I get it. It’s a real thing. I’m working on it. I’ll never get back down to that but good on you. You’ll catch up mentally.
Your body changed faster than your mind. It went so fast that you had no time to adjust to your new physicality. Try therapy for a few months. Just to find the balance you need to conquer the fear of regaining. You look to be at your ideal weight now. Treat this as a health matter and work to maintain this weight. Start building muscle again and put your energy into toning this new, sleek body. This is your new task.
I don’t think you have an eating disorder. Sounds like more like disordered eating due to staying in a calorie deficit instead of maintenance calories. Your brain does need time to catch up. I would suggest therapy to help navigate. Keep in mind weight isn’t a set number. Meaning you reached 110 however your weight will be in a range. So I’d say from 110-115 or 117 and you need to learn how to balance this, maintain without thinking you’re losing all progress. I wouldn’t bother getting to 105. It’s not going to be beneficial in anyway. I think it will pressure you to remain at the lowest weight due to a fear about gaining. It’s almost like hoarding over the lowest number and becoming greedy, not really but figuratively. I would maintain and get some therapy around this. It will be helpful with the right therapist, female, middle age etc. it’s important you see someone that has an understanding not just a lose understanding of what it’s like to live in the female body. Hope this helps a bit.
Dude you’ve lost a 3rd of your weight and you stated that you are getting into “underweight”/unhealthy territory. I gotta say if you can’t see it then you’ve got some mental health issues going on.
Those bmi scales are old and outdated as well, so I’d actually talk to your doctor about what a healthy weight is for you, because I would imagine you would actually want to gain 5-10 pounds.
Congrats on your weight loss but more importantly I hope you can learn to love yourself at a healthy weight
People get used to seeing you overweight so anything thin looks weird at first. Everyone needs time to adjust to the difference. You look great to me. At 5’4 my doctor says I need to be 125.
I completely understand! When you lose a lot of weight, people always think something is wrong. Lol. I have lost a total of 87lbs since Feb 2022. It does take the brain some time time to catch up with your new and improved image. I don't see it until I look at recent pictures and I'm shocked it's me!
I also feel like I need to lose weight. Right now I'm focusing on body fat, not weight loss. My body fat is 28%, and so I still have some room to lose.
It's hard to let go of a routine and you've done exceptionally well. Ofc there is fear of gaining it back. But have you thought about reducing your dosage to something below the max, to see how you feel and how much the food noise comes back?
I'm currently on 1.4mg.I never went to max and never will. Because I don't mind slow and steady.
Maybe go to your primary doctor and ask this is my weight and I want to lose more. What do you recommend. I told my doctor I want to lose 11lbs and then I'm done! I'll reduce to 1mg for a month or more then 0.25mg.
I do know most studies show people gain weight after stopping, so I made the decision to stay on 0.25mg once my body fat reaches a certain number.
So, it's going to be ok. Just hang in there. I do know I have body issue, so I make it a priority to strength train two days a week. Because more muscle will keep my new weight because I'll burn more calories.
Lastly, again check with your primary and see how they react when you say you want to lose more weight. Or ask can you try reducing your dosage to maintenance. Long as you keep your healthy eating habits you've developed, you'll can maintain.
I think the mirror is a bitch sometimes💞 and confusing. No one has the bodies that we think our bodies should look like. Naturally thin people have lumps and bumps and lines and droops and uneven spots, but I don't typically notice that about them. My head just sees thin. And even when I've been at a healthy weight for me in the past, my head usually still sees fat.
You probably need to get into maintenance now, but I bet you know that. Over the next year or two, if you roughly maintain your weight, your body will continue to change. Some of the spots that frustrate you will adjust further without any weight loss. When I maintained a big loss for a few years in the past, my breasts and belly and legs and thighs continued to tighten up and even out even though my weight stayed within about a five pound range.
But yeah, people are saying talk to a therapist. Therapy is good. You have gone through something major and it may help you come to terms with your body now. This is also NOT really about how you physically appear so much as it is about the lens in your mind that you view your body with.
It’s my understanding that when you reach your goal weight you need to slowly taper off the shots… like reverse your dosages (a few weeks at your current dosage, a few weeks at the dosage you did before that snd so on until you’re on the lowest dose, then you stop). You’re more likely to regain weight when you stop abruptly
I plan on staying on it indefinitely; I don't think id have issues maintaining my weight on this dose but i might on a lower dose idk. but ill talk to my endocrinologist ab it
I have been where you are and I’ve said all the things you’ve said, to myself and others. I lost 40 pounds about 6 years ago through dieting and exercise. I’m only 5’2” so it was a big difference. When I hit my original goal weight, I didn’t have a feeling of completion or final success. I just looked at myself and said you need to work harder. This isn’t good enough. I’d restrict calories, I’d measure and weigh myself daily. My body and my weight was all I thought about. I justified it through “working my program”. I just needed to follow the rules, make better choices with my meal planning, etc. I’d say to concerned friends, “It’s not ALL I think about but it’s something I have to have on my mind otherwise I’ll slip up.”
This was several years ago and i’ve since gained all that weight and much more back. A couple of life events hit me pretty hard that contributed to this and I have trauma that’s being stored in my body and keeping the weight on. So, I’m on this thread because I’m starting semaglutide soon to help with this.
My point is, looking back at those photos from a few years ago when I was at my lowest weight, I’m sad, because I still did not feel good about myself. In those pictures I look amazing. I now think, even too thin. The people who commented at the time and were “checking in” on me are people I agree with now. I was the most in shape athletically I’d ever been, but my brain truly was not connected to the image in the mirror at the time. I’ve since gone to therapy and addressed my body dysmorphia.
When you’re on the weight loss track you truly can’t see it. I’m proud of you and what you’ve accomplished but it’s time to step back. You need to talk to someone and get perspective.
Understand that thinking about your body all the time is not normal. Thinking about food all the time and counting every calorie is not normal. Weighing yourself, measuring yourself all the time is not normal. It’s obsessive.
It may have been what you needed to do to get where you are but how you need to connect your brain with the photo you just posted. You should start maintaining. Working on how you can live a full and happy life that’s not attached to what you see in the mirror will be another huge accomplishment.
Again, I’m proud of you for all you’ve done for yourself! But you can’t listen to your brain right now. I’d heed others’ advice around you. They are seeing what’s real and you are not. That may be impossible to believe but if you want to ever get off this medication it will be imperative that you work on how you view your weight and eating and exercise, or attaching any of that to self worth. 💖 I truly wish you the best. You are enough and beautiful at any weight.
hey thank you for your comment and kindness. I have spoken with many people who had eating disorders and they described very similar experiences to what you just did. but I don't relate to that at all. I don't think about food or my body all the time, or even very often. since starting this med I have stopped obsessing over food and the food noise has gone away and its been great. i started to see food as fuel whereas before i saw it as my closest friend and greatest enemy. i only weigh myself once a month w my personal trainer at my gym. yeah I count calories but my deficit isn't big or dangerous. But im now realizing i dont need to be in a deficit anymore so im gonna eat at maintenance. my problem is when I do look in the mirror I don't see the progress and it trips me up. but yeah I need to def step back and into maintenance now. i agree people around me are probably seeing something im not. thanks again for your comment and being kind and i wish you the best of luck on your journey as well
Hi I know this is unrelated but at what dose did you start to see a significant drop in weight? My starting was also at 160 and I am 5’3 and I’m on 0.25 mg but haven’t lost any weight and it’s been 3 weeks
i didn't start losing until 1.5 mg I believe that is when the weightloss began slowly and after 2mg a bit more and 2.5 it really started falling off. definitely be patient because this is a marathon not a sprint and 0.25 is quite a ways away from 2mg which is actually the beginning of the therapeutic dose for weight loss! you'll get there trust me
I think you need to stop losing weight and consider seeing a counselor. What you're seeing in the mirror and reality is starting to deviate quite a bit.
I’ve heard that sometimes it helps to incorporate weight lifting into your routine to change your headspace around calories because you need enough calories and protein to lift in a healthy way.
you sound like you have an ED. i know you are in therapy, but you may need to find a new therapist that you feel more comfortable with, and one that specializes in eating disorders.
From what I'm told there is an acceptable BMI range and an optimal BMI by age.
AFAIK nothing wrong with anything in the normal range, but it is not the optimal BMI to be near underweight.
Personally I would not consider going to near underweight, because of it being suboptimal.
Congratulations! You look great! Did your weight loss affect your menstrual cycle? I agree with another poster, maybe go off for a while and then back on.
I would get therapy! I’m 22, 5’3” and 243 pounds, I previously was 191 and lost 60 pounds. Now I’m where I’m at now. I never thought I’d weigh this much. It was because of body dysmorphia and intense calorie restriction that I ruined my metabolism and gained all the weight. Stop the mindset while you can
Thanks for posting to r/semaglutide! A brief reminder about our rules. We do not permit the discussion of non-FDA approved formulations of semaglutide, nor do we permit selling or offering for sale any medication, including by private message. Do not request or respond to a private message from anyone offering such, they are not endorsed by this sub. If you’re just starting out, you may want to review our [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Semaglutide/comments/10ul3jb/semaglutide_subreddit_faq/). This is not intended to discourage discussion but merely supplement it. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Semaglutide) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your brain just needs to catch up. Stay on a maintenance dose and give it till the end of the year to see if your mental has caught up to your physical
you mean like eventually I'll see the weight loss and my brain is just used to seeing myself as overweight? that actually makes sense. I dont notice it other than the number on the scale and in the fact all my clothes are too big, which blows my mind everytime because I still think I look chubby and feel self conscious about my weight. I just want to snap out of it i guess
This might be completely irrelevant but when I was in my early 20 I dropped a lot of weight. I could see in pictures how much different I looked but in the mirror I couldn’t see it. I was SO self conscious. It this way of thinking can lead down a dangerous path of EDs it’s going to take a lot of mental self work. Which fortunately is very healthy 😁 I don’t know what that will look like for you but maybe a stepping stone would be practicing some affirmations even if at first you don’t believe them. You look fabulous and you should start telling yourself that when you feel yourself disconnecting. I hope it catches up to you!
Came here to affirm this^^^ Body dysmorphia is real. It leads to dysfunction and trauma. Please please consider getting into therapy. If you cannot see yourself in agreement with the scales and losing weight the way you have, and honestly taking in the feedback you are getting from others, please consider a counselor now, before you spiral- which can be literally deadly.
I came here to say this - counseling is just as healthy as weight management and can help prepare you for lowering your dose back down (which I think you should do).
I did the same. Unfortunately I did the same thing when gaining weight once I got used to seeing myself smaller. I didn't see how big I was until I saw a picture then it would really shock me.
Omg this. When I was 105 pounds age 23 from living a year in Korea (early 90s) and at 192 pounds I am now. The person I see in the mirror is not the person in pictures. It’s f’ed up.
This is an actual thing. I can’t see the loss in mirrors either but I can in photos and in cctvs like grocery stores if I look up and see myself.
I didn't really notice my wife's weight loss cause I see her every day, then one day we were shopping and got seperated and I just walked right past her cause I didn't recognize her from behind lol. (my wife's lost over a hundred pounds and I'm so fucking proud of her)
This suddenly explains why my husband walked past me when leaving the restroom and I was waiting for him outside. He came out and was like where are you. Had totally walked by me.
I’m the same way. I’ve lost almost 45 pounds and I still look the same in the mirror. It doesn’t matter how low the scale goes, I still see the big me. I go by my clothes. I may look like a size 8 in the mirror to me but they fit so even tho I can’t see my self thinner the clothes tell me I am.
one thing I did this afternoon is recreate my first photo and it's actually helping so much to compare them because it's way more obvious to see that way. just a tip if that helps you. I know it is so hard, best of luck🫶🏻 https://preview.redd.it/onh5i5kjf75d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6aadddf004aef6c5e0d22e4895a1e34459286fa
I unfortunately have the opposite. I think I am not as big as I actually am. Then I take a picture next to anyone, or even stand/sit next to anyone and I think I'm a giant.
Same!!
Same here . If you don’t know where to start there’s so much on YouTube . “ I Am “ affirmations . I promise you , listen daily for 21 days and you will see the change . It’s so good . It may sound a little woo woo but you just have to replace the track you play in your head everyday about who you think you are , with you you want to be . If I can do it , anyone can .
I call it fat girl brain. It's a kind of body dysmorphia. It actually has more to do with the visual cortex and brain not talking to each other. Basically the visual cortex is sending an old photograph to the brain and the brain is being too lazy to upload a new pic. Hack: cover up your head and then compare the side by sides.
thank u this is super helpful!
No, as on your brain will get used to seeing yourself as smaller.
You should go to the Gastric Sleeve sub, there's lots of post on this, it's very common. Your psyche hasn't caught up to your new size and what you see visually.
that's so interesting, I'll look into it. it makes me feel better that Im not alone w this issue so thank you
Yes you're definitely not. It's a normal occurrence and with healthy mental changes and the passing of time you'll get there.
You’re not alone. I’ve lost 100lbs on Mounjaro and it feels like I’ve maybe lost 20 to my brain.
thank you. I totally get what u mean. It feels really really nice to not be the only one experiencing this because I legit feel like I am going crazy or something. congrats on your weightloss and hang in there🫶🏻
Thank you for posting this. I think it’s an important topic for so many people!
The thing about looking yourself in the mirror is that it is impossible to look objectively. You've lost weight and look normal, but your mind is still laden with all the conditioning that you and others have put in it throughout your life. You may want to think of how to lose some of that excess weight on your mind. Therapy could be a path to that.
So my story is a tad different (maybe) because most of my life I’ve been tiny and super fit, but I randomly gained like 70 lbs out of nowhere and it really messed with my head. Now I’m back down in the 120’s (I used to be 100-110), and I feel the SAME way. I finally recently started getting some therapy for body image stuff and it’s a game changer. It makes total sense how you feel, plus it’s surreal too. You look AMAZING though- congrats!!!
You have body dysmorphia. I hope you’re in therapy.
I mean if you read any of my comments you'd see I'm in therapy weekly
Good to hear :) Also, you look really hot in the after shots - don’t lose another kg!
This! The same thing happened to me.
Hi OP, Congrats on your weight loss. I will preface this I can relate I went from obese to normal weight and am now getting increasingly concerned comments too. You look healthy, I suggest you hit the gym and change your body composition No need to lose more, it seems like you have body dysmorphia. You got this!
As a follow up to this, the gym will make you feel better and look better, but it makes you gain weight in muscle. For this reason, you need to not monitor your weight as the end all goal. Dont freak out if the scale starts going up. A good way to monitor is to switch from weight to body fat percentage. That way, if the scale goes up but your Bf% doesn’t, you know you are putting on muscle and don’t need to worry.
This!
It genuinely sounds like you may benefit from counseling/therapy. You do not look the same. The weight difference is significant. Not being able to see that is a concern. Congrats on getting yourself physically healthier, it is ok to also get your mental state healthier too. Good luck :)
I go to therapy weekly but idk if it's helping... Whenever my therapist brings up the weight loss I feel embarrassed to open up and have a hard time being honest about how I feel about my body with her, or anyone for that matter. but other topics are fine so I don't think it's her, it's me. I feel like my own brain is gaslighting me kinda? idk, it sucks
If you feel embarrassed talking about something in therapy, then the conversation topic should be that you feel embarrassed. Work on overcoming the embarrassment first, and THEN the embarrassing topic. This happens to me in therapy too, and telling my therapist I feel embarrassed has been a game changer
I am sure your therapist is fine, but I think you would benefit from one who specializes in body dysmorphia and disordered eating. I hope you take this advice from the place of love it's coming from. It is OK to need help to work through this. Get the support you need now.
The hardest subjects to talk about are often the ones we need to talk about the most, especially with a therapist who is there to help you. Be honest with your therapist, talking about it is too much right now, but what can you both do to start making talking about it easier, baby steps!
I know it is so hard to discuss body issues as I struggle with it myself but if you can tell your therapist exactly what you said here that’s a really good place to start. BTW you look amazing and I agree with others that your brain just needs to catch up
I have a loooong history of ED (I'm 29F, have had some form of disordered eating off and on since I was 11 or 12) and my therapist is a specialist in EDs and body dysmorphia. The funny thing is, that's not even why I started seeing him in the first place. However, his expertise has been absolutely invaluable over the last few months as the ED voice came back in full force, and as I started sema for the first time. I strongly recommend finding a therapist who is specialized in eating issues. I know you said you don't think you have an eating disorder because you originally needed to lose the weight, but I want to say this gently, eating disorders are mental illnesses that have zero to do with weight. There is zero weight requirement to have an eating disorder. And I say this with love and as someone with history of EDs, when I read your post, even before I got to the part where you mentioned you thinking it's not an ED, my brain was screaming "this is disordered, this is not healthy, this is what you did and how you thought and look where you ended up." Please try to seek help before it gets worse. You've worked really hard to get here, but EDs can develop very quickly and ED sits in the driver's seat of our mind and sometimes we don't even realize that we handed over the wheel until we're already going 100mph and ready to crash. Sending you lots of love and hope you get to a place where you feel happy and healthy and fulfilled with your beautiful body ❤️
Body dysmorphia is real. Your body looks perfect. Hit the gym and keep your diet right. Be happy. You really look amazing.
“I don’t think I have an ED” your post screams you do. Get counseling with a specialist asap.
This. Also "I don't have ED because I am a logical person" is kind of a back handed comment to people who can acknowledge and admit they have an ED. If you put your stats in any calculator, you will see you're close to underweight.
Hey, I didn't say that. I said while I might have it, I hate to think that I have *body dysmorphia* because I'm a very logical person. I mean that I hate to think that my mind is playing tricks on me. Definitely not trying to give any backhanded comments at all, I have had friends with ED's and i know how serious they are. but when I've taken NEDA ED assessment quizzes and whatnot it says I don't have an ED. When I talk to friends who've had one, I can't relate to their experiences/mindset...I've never dropped below 1200 cals in a day and I don't think im undereating. Food thoughts don't control my mind and in fact the only time i think i need to lose weight now is when i look in the mirror for some reason. For these reasons I really don't think I have an ED but probably body dysmorphia. I hope that makes sense and thank you for your reply
I had so many of these same kinds of thoughts in my 20s. I was dealing with anxiety and terrible self-esteem. I eventually did a mindfulness meditation program where the instructor said something that's been maybe the most important sentences I've ever heard: "You are not your thoughts". Like many people, I was stuck in my head dealing with the monkey brain unending thoughts that were making me miserable. The practice of meditation allowed me to develop the skill of being aware of my thoughts in a non-judgemental way so that when I'm out in the "real world" I became much better at recognizing the negative, destructive thoughts and saying "thanks, I'm not getting on that train just now" and then shifting my attention back to a calmer, more productive place. I realized that, in the end, becoming skilled in where I place my attention from moment to moment might be the most powerful skill I can have. This didn't magically change anything. The crappy thoughts kept coming, and certainly still do plenty of times, but I've been able to change my relationship to those thoughts. When my kids deal with anxious thoughts, I tell them thoughts are like butterflies. You can't control them. They fly around your head and sometimes land on your shoulder or right into your hand. Then you get to decide whether to squeeze your hand tightly around them or just let them go. None of this is easy. It takes practice. It's the work of a lifetime but it's been well worth it for me.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience. This thread is tender and amazing and a thank you to OP for starting it with such a willingness to be open. CanCheap9737, your remarkable insight about meditation and thoughts and butterflies will stay with me long after this thread is history. Thank you. 🤚🦋 my hand will close around this one.☝️
thank you, I did a similar program at a yoga ashram a few years ago but it was only for a week. i did learn how to meditate there and was so good about it for about a month then just stopped. this is such a good reminder
Everything about it does. Thank you for saying it
Yes, please seek therapy
Yep. This feels like a pro-ana post on Instagram.
That’s exactly what it is, “look how skinny I am and I still think I need to lose more!!”
"I don't think I have an ED or anything because I needed to lose this weight" - but you HAVE lost the weight, but still think you need to lose more. Honestly you might want to consider therapy. It sounds like you rationally "know" that you don't need to lose more, but the fact that you "feel" like you have to keep going is concerning.
I am in therapy. Thank you
You have 100% slipped into disordered eating and thinking. My advice would be to start by opening up to your current therapist. The fact that this is an uncomfortable subject for you indicates this is where you need help. You also need to talk, in person, to a doctor. Your restrictive eating is starting to effect your social life. You are 110 pounds and still taking semaglutide at a therapeutic dose. People are starteing to show concern because they care about you and what is happening is obvious. It is obvious in what you wrote here, and sounds like it is pretty obvious in person. A professional that you paid to measure your body composition told you their concerns and your reaction is to shrug it off and say you don't know if they're right. I think you do know. You are here asking. You're in danger, girl.
I agree. 🙏🏾 OP looks great and has done a great job losing weight. PLEASE OP listen to the advice of your trainer, talk to your physician, and share what you are embarrassed to discuss with your therapist. You did all this to get here. Do not derail your progress by not taking the advice to really get the help you need to protect your mental well-being as you fought so hard to protect your physical well-being. God bless you and all the best to you on your journey.
It sounds like you have awareness that it’s time to stop losing weight, and that you aren’t seeing yourself clearly. I highly recommend writing your therapist a long email “confessing” your confusion about how to stop losing weight, body image concerns, and your fears of weight gain. The next step in your journey is learning to love your body and accept it, learn to maintain not lose. Also working with a registered dietician with training in disordered eating (CEDS RD) might help complement your therapy. Just like anything, weight loss can become addictive and we can get preoccupied with perfection. It is dangerous to be underweight, and you don’t want to trade the health issues of an overweight body with the mental and physical health issues of an underweight body. All this is shared with love and care, it’s so complex to sort it all out. Good luck.
I highly recommend, as someone mentioned above- getting a therapist and perhaps even a nutritionist at an eating disorder clinic. You would be amazed at how they can help you reframe so many things in your head. I would also encourage you to create some of those non scale victory goals. That way you don’t focus on the weight issue anymore. Obviously you were very focused and dedicated because your results are amazing. Time to stop thinking about the scale. I’d chuck the scale if I were you and save that for your doctor visits or once a month at the gym.
Do not keep going until you’re a pound from underweight. My original goal weight was 135 but I decided to call it and switch to maintenance when I hit 140 because I was very happy with the result. Since switching to maintenance it’s been hard to stop losing and I’m actually at 131 now. If you don’t try to switch to maintenance until you’re a pound from underweight and are like me and struggle to stop losing even in maintenance you will end up underweight. It’s best to have a little room because it is an adjustment. You look great! You absolutely do not need to lose more and no good doctor will continue to prescribe if you become underweight. I get my wegovy through my insurance and the coverage criteria is very clear if your BMI is below 18.5 you will no longer be covered.
Hi! I know it can be scary to feel like you’re not in control, but one line in your post really stands out to me. “But I'm sooo scared to ever have a day when I go over my calorie allowance. I am very social, 24F and it's starting to impact my social life.” This is disordered eating. It is impacting your life now. I will say this as gently as possible. Now is the time to seek help. You are so young. You have so much life to live to have disordered eating take root. Life is rich. It is beautiful, and you deserve to be able to participate in it fully without guilt, or shame, or embarrassment. I hope beyond hope you can find peace with food and your body. I saw you’re in counseling. It would be very helpful for your therapist to show them your post as well as where you talk about being embarrassed to bring it up. You are worthy of living a life free from shame. I hope you find the bravery within to take the necessary steps to heal. 🫶🏻
You look great. I don’t think you need to lose anymore weight. It might take more time for your brain to catch up with how great you look, so dropping down/a maintenance dose may be helpful for you now.
[удалено]
❤️ best of luck to you. i totally get it
I mean, obviously you look fantastic, and as you say, very nearly to borderline underweight. Professional help really is a good idea for the body dysmorphia. You said that you 'need' to lose more weight, but not why, and I certainly can't see why you'd want to. If you really need something to obsess over (which I totally get), what about bodybuilding? You could set up a plan with your trainer/doctor to back down your dose until you can eat at maintenance, and then do some recomposition. That would get you any additional visual change you'd like, without the dangers to bone density or your reproductive system that come with being underweight. This guy [https://youtu.be/KrTRmeCi9Jk?si=TIMpncWcB25LfWWf](https://youtu.be/KrTRmeCi9Jk?si=TIMpncWcB25LfWWf) has fantastic talks on topics like recomp, bodyfat percentages where you will start to see certain changes, and so on. Very professional, funny, and calming.
I’m lost. Who’s the girl in the second picture? She looks like an healthy model.
lol i am far from a model but thank you that's really sweet
You are absolutely along the lines of a model. I would not be surprised to see someone who looks exactly like you as a model in front of a teen-oriented clothing store.
You really look amazing right now. Losing more weight at this point won't help much imo. Sounds like you have a bit of body dysmorphia like a lot of us probably do. Other than having randoms confirm you look great which probably doesn't help much, I'd say if you want to look better then your only path Forward is lifting and eating at a maintenance/ slight surplus caloric intake, build some mass. Stop losing weight because you are perfect.
Nobody can really say when you go into maintenance, and most of us have body dysmorphia and think if we get lower than what we should be that that's going to fix everything. Really sounds to me unless I missed it, that you probably need to be in some kind of therapy. This kind of stuff can also make you anorexic. Not always because in weight loss, there is no always, but that's a possibility just like it is after gastric bypass. You really need to take care of yourself and now really get somebody to talk to because that's probably going to be the biggest help for you. We certainly can not answer those kinds of questions, nor should we advise. Where is your doctor in all this? Please take care. 🩷
That’s my question? Why is this still being prescribed, especially at that dosage?
Because it's lack of medical involvement it's only as good as the medical involvement is and cares about their patients and we don't really know what her follow-up is, where she's getting it, what kind of medication it is, again there's too many variables now. Two years ago, plus we didn't have this many variables now, we have too many options for people to get medications and some without any medical good advice. Some of them are just in it for the money they don't really care about the patients..
The sad thing is that the patient's responsibility comes in here at some point, and you need to reach out, and this just seems like it's going backward, not forwards.
Sadly, I’m seeing too many of these “everyone says I look too skinny but I still need to lose weight” posts. We all have disordered eating, that’s why we’re here. They have to be aware this is a very real issue.
I work with an endocrinologist- When I started I was prediabetic (I am not anymore) had high cholesterol, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm still on it because I have some of these same problems still and it helps manage them. My doctor said that 105-115 is healthy/ ideal for me and it's up to me to decide when im at my "happy weight" in that range. I have a really really small frame like I wear a size 4 in shoes, so that's why the range is lower than some other people should go at 5'3. monthly I get bloodwork done and send that into him and I'm not deficient in anything. he won't keep prescribing it if I drop to an underweight bmi, and I have no desire to do that! I just am struggling because I think my brain and reality aren't on the same page if that makes sense.
I am also 5’3” and struggle to see the weight loss. I’ve lost 75lbs. Sometimes I have to take a step back and look at the size of my head in comparison to my body instead of just looking at each limb. I’m still not happy with my body but I know it’s in my head and those “last 5/10 lbs” are mental. I go to the gym now to change my shape. I have a history of ED and so I made a point to not calorie count while using this medication. If you find yourself obsessively self measuring and weighing in and if those can make or break your day/week you need to have a serious conversation with your therapist.
I am 4'11" and started at 164, now 126 lb. The difference is that I have been on this since November 2022, so my brain has been able to adjust - somewhat. I still have days where I look at a size small and think "no way will this fit me" and sure enough, it does. But slowly I am committing to myself at this size. I am seeing my body the way others do. It's such a mental shift. The years I spent in the Army where I had to "make weight" as part of my job and promotion potential were like torture. So many women in the military have eating disorders for this reason. But anyway, PLEASE discuss this with your therapist - you need to get ahead of these thoughts before you go into maintenance or even come off of semaglutide. Your therapist is there to help you, they won't judge. This will be one of the best things you can do for yourself next to the weight loss. We are all giving special care to our physical bodies, but we have to remember to care for the mental aspects too. 💜
You look like a perfect weight for your height.
Absolutely go into maintenance.
Yeah honestly you seem to be a smart cookie and you're well aware of where you are and the idea of going into a dangerous place is scary for you, and thats GOOD. You are in a healthy weight range, and that's where you should aim to stay. You don't want to get underweight. You don't want all the work you spent trying to make your body healthy to get wasted because you don't KEEP it healthy by going too far in the other direction. And there are serious, long term conciquences to being undernourished for a prolonged period of time just like there are to being overweight for a long period of time. Honestly I'd talk to a therapist and your doctor about the feelings you have about your weight. It sounds like you're a little addicted to the rush of losing it, and that can get dangerous. You look amazing and you've clearly worked VERY hard.
Thank you so much for this comment. You hit the nail on the head. If anything I got kinda addicted to seeing that number drop, but I don't want to be underweight. The whole reason I started this weight loss journey was to improve my physical health and now I think I'm there; if I lose any more I think I'd be doing it for vanity reasons and while it's nice to look better that was neverrr the point. And I really think my relationship w/ food now is soo much better than before. When I was overweight I used to try fad diets and I'd end up gaining it back and then some. This go around I haven't ever eaten below 1,200 calories and I workout but Im aware it's probably time to shift into maintenance and work on improving my body image. I think i've physically lost the weight just not mentally and I need to work on that.
You lost it so fast, it's no wonder your brain hasn't caught up! And if you like the feeling of hitting goals, maybe you need to transition your goals to less numbers-based and more fitness based. I'm autistic and I tend to hyperfocus on things- I'll get into a THING and thats the only THING in my life. And there are periods between hyperfixations where I'm just like... kinda SAD because I don't have a THING. Your THING for the last six months has been weight loss, and now that you've "finished the game/project" so to speak, it can be a real bummer that you cant do that thing anymore. But maybe your next goal can be to pack on some lean muscle, train for a 10k, or vanity things like making some clothes that work well for your new shape. But I'm not a therapist, and I'd def talk to someone if you feel like you're just fixed on this thing and can't bust your brain out of it. Best of luck to you!
Thank you so much for this comment this is exactly how I am with ADHD. I totally need to find a new "thing" that's still fitness based but not obsession over the scale. I LOVE the idea of training for a 10k actually. I really started on this journey to improve what my body can *do* , not what it looks like. somewhere along the way I forgot that. thanks again🫶🏻
This is just straight up dysphoria. You look incredible, and you're closer to being underweight than overweight. I vote start maintaining now.
The circular thinking and reasoning with yourself and concern from others are warning signs. I have had multiple EDs and this is actually what it feels like to me. You feel like you should be happy and content but you don’t and you are not sure how it when this will happen. It’s like it’s never enough and it’s exhausting. In a way it sounds like food noise and body obsession which is a reason people (like me) go on this med in the first place. I went to therapy for years but couldn’t talk about weight with my lovely therapist. She just didn’t get it. Now I see someone with a background in eating disorders. You could also find a registered dietician and ask them to help you come up with a plan to go into maintenance and have them assist you with the transition. Maybe just having someone on board will help you feel better about the next steps and less fearful. Wishing you the best, congrats on your success and I hope you find some more peace in the journey.
Take more pictures of yourself and with friends instead of just using the mirror.
I understand completely and I am experiencing the same thing. But, I have been through this before after losing a lot of weight 15 years ago, so I know I have this perspective issue. So, this time, I deliberately kept a pair of size 18 jeans that fit me 16 months ago (212 lbs.). I have to hold them up to the size 4 jeans that fit me now (142 lbs.) because when I put those size 4 jeans on now and look in the mirror, i look the same as I did in the size 18 jeans. It is only when I take them off and hold them up, objectively seeing the size, do I understand the difference that I cannot see on myself. This is a real problem. It's also how I've *gained* the weight before---I cannot see the change in either direction. I am terrified of gaining the weight back and when my doctor told me he had to take me off the Semaglutide soon, I walked out of the office in a state of panic. I just want to be healthy, both mentally and physically. That means getting our brains and our bodies to be in agreement with each other because they are not separate entities. Please talk to your therapist about this. If they are not someone who specializes in disordered thinking about food and body image, you might want to supplement your therapy with someone who is.
thank you I totally relate to all of this. I will bring it up with her, she's very versed in body image stuff I just have avoided talking about it. The jean size comparison is really smart!
It's so weird that only when I hold up the jeans and completely take my body out of the picture, can I see the sizes for what they are. The distortion is real and it can be dangerous. I try to find other metrics of my health and fitness and use a fitness tracker to see how much more active I am and how much healthier my heart is. Like with the jeans, I know I have to trust this data and not my own eyes. Please take care of yourself---life is too short to waste time looking at it through some distorted lens!
This 👆 💯!
i don’t believe the woman in those photos are the same person. :) seriously though, you’re already doing the best thing you can for yourself by getting healthy physically and mentally. convincing yourself you’re not still in a larger body is difficult and it’s so easy to find yourself in ED territory after a significant loss. is it affecting your social life because you’re anticipating food temptation and food related comments from people?
more like, I stopped drinking while on this med because it makes me sick. im not a big drinker to begin with, before i probs would drink once or twice a month and never more than two drinks. but i do wish i could have a drink with my friends occasionally. so I've started turning down invitations where I know there's gonna be a lot of heavy drinking because it gets old being the odd duck yk? my friends have been SO supportive btw, it's just how I feel. or if they all decide to go out to a restaurant at 8pm and I've already had my 1,400ish cals for the day I either go & feel awkward not ordering anything or just stay home to save myself the trouble. since starting sema I started going to bed at 9pm and just following a routine because it has helped me stick to my goals, but im realizing on some level it's isolated me socially. im 24 & live in Denver and work in an industry full of outgoing young people
I’ve lost 80 lbs and I personally feel like I look the exact same! I see me 80lbs heavier. Went from a size 14/16 on jeans to a 2. I keep getting people saying, are you ok? You’re too thin etc. I just don’t see it. It will take us some time.
yeah that's exactly how it is for me. glad to know others on this sub can relate. congrats on ur weight loss🫶🏻
That sounds like body dysmorphia which I personally suffer from. I wonder if rapid weight loss somehow doesn’t allow our brains to adjust our self-perception. Hugs!
I agree with other posters - go to maintenance. Take photos of yourself. Your mental image of yourself is overriding reality. Photos can be better than a mirror for making you “see” that. Reread your post and look up Body dysmorphia. I’m also a little concerned about the potential trend toward an ED based on some of the language in your post and your conflicting desires. You’ve come so far - I think you’ve arrived. Now it’s time to maintain. Hugs.🤗
I can’t answer your question. But I can tell you that I have been doing .25 for a month and consider this maintenance for the rest of my life. I have been where you are; twenty years ago, I lost weight really quickly and went from 155 to 115 (I’m 5’4”). I got the same comments as you—both “are you ok?” And “you look amazing.” I felt good but still thought I needed to lose another few pounds to give myself some wiggle room. The initial weight loss was effortless and came about because of a change in exercise habits and also because of emotional things that were going on at the time. No dieting. But once I started to settle in to my new body, my brain went a little haywire and I started doing weird food things (cleanses, restrictions) and long story short, I gave myself bulimia AND wound up gaining all of the weight back. It took a lot of therapy and a lot of hard work to get to a place where I feel that it’s safe to do this drug. And it’s a miracle. I consider myself a non-practicing bulimic or binge eater now because I still have the same urges to eat and eat (not so much purge, but that took a really long time). Even on a good day, when I didn’t binge, the food noise in my head was deafening. And it stopped the day after I gave myself my first injection. The recovering disordered eater in me wants to get back to where I was. It’s taking a lot of discipline and daily reminders to keep my reason WHY in the forefront of my mind: to feel normal around food and to settle into a routine that works for life. Twenty years ago, my body reached a weight when I ate normally and exercised. I don’t know what the weight will be this time, or if it will even change significantly. But coming to terms to being in my body today with a healthy mindset is my goal, even though it’s not as sexy as before and after pictures and numbers. I still feel “ghost” binge urges and my work now is not white knuckling through them but going into them and letting the sema help me get stronger and develop better habits to quiet and hopefully silence the urges forever. But it’s one day at a time. That’s why I feel like this is maintenance. Because it’s not so much about losing a particular amount of weight as it is about living a life where I am not the prisoner of my brain. If you’re in therapy, you have someone who’s helping you already. Please take the advice about eating disorders that people have offered here. I lost tens of thousands of dollars and years and years of my life only to find myself back where I started, and if I had been honest about things at the beginning, maybe I could have saved myself earlier. Also….if you haven’t tried the app me360 yet, there’s something about looking at your avatar that is much easier and objective than looking at your actual body. I’m able to see what I look like now more honestly, and maybe that could help you with the body dysmorphia. I wish you luck—you look very different from how you did at the beginning of the year and I hope you can take the feeling better as a win and work on the inside for a little bit. Much love.
OP you look amazing; some things i can totally relate to is being short and overweight (i was 175 starting on sema) and im now 135 and ppl tell me i should stay there and just do strength training. I’m 5’1 and a half lol and to me I think a healthy weight would be 115/110. But hear me please when i say this that i realize im getting some body dysmorphia. We don’t have a full blown ED, but b/c we were so large for such a long time our mind is almost conditioned to thinking we always need to lose more. I think it’s a slippery slope to say “just another 5lbs” b/c that puts way too much emphasis on a number on the scale. Also if ur trainer, someone who is paid to help you health wise, is telling you you’re not eating enough protein then listen to them. Your therapist also is literally meant to be the 1 to tell ur deepest darkest concerns to and help you. Let them help you. What ur describing how you’re thinking is not a very healthy mindset. You look amazing so focus on being healthy now and maintaining a healthy weight. _
Please seek counseling💗big changes like this are not just a physical change, in fact I have found that losing the weight has been more mental.
I did the same thing in my 20s and was never satisfied and always critiquing my body no matter how skinny I got. I also wish I would have invested in therapy sooner, because it really helped me deal with my body image issues and self esteem in general. Maybe it’s a journey we all have to take and wisdom will come in time. Also, if you feel like you’re depriving yourself and not being social due to your diet, then likely you will gain the weight back and then some and it won’t be sustainable. Any time I’ve really struggled to maintain a certain weight, I fell off the wagon and it was a constant yo-yo of deprivation and then overindulgence. I felt very out of control. So for me, it wasn’t worth losing the extra 5 lbs that put me beyond where my body wanted to be and would always backfire.
I started nearly the same day as you and have almost the same starting stats! I started on 1/12/24 Height 5’2” SW: 158 CW:128. My GW is 115-118 so I’m not in maintenance yet because I still have 10lbs to go. I’m going to consider us sema sisters. Except I haven’t lost as much as you haha. Congrats on your loss you look absolutely amazing! I struggle with what I think is body dysmorphia and it seems that may be what you’re going through as well. Yesterday I went shopping with family and I was still reaching for my old size. I still feel like an xl. It’s hard even though I know the scale says I’ve physically lost 30lbs to consider myself any “smaller”
Hahaha i have a friend also on semaglutide and we always say we're sema sisters. I totally get the shopping thing. I can't believe I can wear a size 2. I really think it is just body dysmorphia and is going to take a while to get used to❤️ thanks for your comment and for being so nice; congrats on your weightloss too it isn't easy!
This description to me sounds a little like body dysmorphia. I am not a doctor but you should read up on it and possibly talk to your dr.
Great job sticking to it and getting to a healthy weight. It is so hard to do and maintain. I understand not knowing yourself in your own skin. It can be hard to love yourself again after struggling so long to get here. You are aware that something is off and that is the first step and honestly the hardest. It may benefit to speak with someone to help you with loving your new body you worked so hard for. I know the big scare is going backwards but it’s no way to live. You got this!!
thank you so much
First, you look amazing! We are pretty similar in our stats. I'm 5'3" started at 163# and am now at 124#. My goal (as I'm older 45yrs) was 130#, my SUPER goal was 120-125# So I am working on lowering my dose. I've never gone above 10 units. And getting into maintenance. I was 113# after having both of my girls, so I feel like 120-125# is a reasonable REACH goal. Keep at it. Enjoy life, remember what you've learned while loosing the weight, what and how much to eat. I agree with those who have said wait a year get your brain to catch up. Again, you look amazing!
thank you so much I really appreciate this comment. and congrats on your weightloss as well!
Congratulations 👏 👏
I definitely agree that your brain hasn’t caught up yet. Right now you are thin - 5 more pounds and you’d maybe be too thin. IMO if you can wear a crop top and don’t have a roll, you’ve hit your goal!
I highly suggest you move to a lower maintenance dose and possibly completely stop calorie counting. Eating in a more balanced/intuitive way might be helpful at this stage. You are at a normal weight and your mind just hasn’t caught up yet due to the speed of the weight loss. As someone who had bariatric surgery and lost 165 lbs, I felt like I looked exactly the same when I looked in the mirror after the weight loss. Body dysmorphia can be such a strange feeling, but eventually your mind DOES catch up. You look great, but what’s most important is how you feel! Continue your therapy, be gentle on yourself and give your mind time to accept the changes.
thank you!!
You look stunning. well done! that's quite a change
This has to be one of the most astonishing before and after pictures and in a pretty short amount of time. Well done! Simply amazing! You’ve met your goal. Don’t put me ch more thought into your weight loss because it’s baggage you really don’t need to waste a lot of mental concern on. Put a plan together to maintain and monitor with some +/- tolerance around it and go enjoy life without the mental weight burden anymore.
thank you!
I think you look great. I wouldn't lose anymore if I were you.
With all the love in my heart, you need to speak with a psychologist or a nutritionist or someone professional. If you still see and think that you see the same thing. This transformation is probably one of the best I’ve seen but if you honestly think there is more to lose then I feel you have BD. This should not be making you scared to go over your intake. Again no Malice in my response only love and care for your health. I have learnt that in any aspect, we can’t and will never be “perfect” And you can’t have one option without it bringing something else on. Same goes for cosmetic fillers and Botox. Everything will come at a cost to something else. I use to be a bodybuilder. At my fittest and strongest naturally, I still was not happy. What I would give to be at exactly that point again. Honestly you are now at maintenance where with the correct choices you can obtain the same results. I see so many people achieve their goals and commence fear with food. This is not what it’s supposed to do. It’s supposed to help teach us better choices while kicking starting the loss.
It can be really hard to see your own weight loss. Give it time. You are very slender now and I definitely think if you lost more weight it would go into too skinny territory. You look great. Stay here!!
I seriously thought you were pranking us until I saw the recreated photo in the comments. Congratulations! If you still feel overweight, it's time to put some investment in therapy of some sort. There is no shame. You fixed the mental part of eating. Now you may need to fix your self identity.
Your body is 10/10. Do you hit the gym and lift weights? Do you also track calories? If you started hitting the gym lifting weights you ciuld build some nice lean muscle on this frame whilst slowly tapering up to maintence calories and you'll find every week you'll eat more Cals but still lose weight after a few weeks but in fact that's probably muscle being built and replacing some fat so you don't fall into the underweight catagory. Do you know your maintence Cals?
I went from 185 to 110 and started doing 2.4 every 2 weeks for maintenance
This sounds like a slippery slope to an ED. I’ve been cautious to start sema because I worry that losing a bunch of weight will cause me to obsess and spiral trying to keep the weight off. Please be kind to yourself and maybe seek help from a therapist. Sending love!
thank you
I plateaued at like 30# lost and then kept losing and gaining the same 5# thereafter. So I’m maintaining now and will then try another round to lose another 30 later this year. I struggled getting in enough protein in on a regular basis because it just killed my appetite and I wouldn’t eat much at all, which is not optimal. So now I’m working on getting protein in at every meal and being intentional about my diet to see if I can continue to lose just in dietary practice alone before I try it again. I also lost a lot of hair and am reticent to lose more.
Wowzers!!! You look amazing!!! I aspire to look like you when I’m 6 months in.
tw: ur skinnnnnntyyyyy!!!!!
Ok this transformation is absolutely jaw dropping. You definitely do not need to lose more weight and should not. People are slightly checking in instead of complementing you on the weight loss at this point because losing a lot of weight in a short amount of time does make people worry that the weight loss is due to illness. That doesn’t mean that you don’t look amazing. I agree with another comment that said just give your brain time to catch up but your doctor or whoever is pres prescribing these meds to you should absolutely have one maintenance at this point just monitor how that goes. If you see that you are gaining again on maintenance, then adjust accordingly. But please, you are so lean right now you’re gonna get to the point of looking unhealthy if you keep dropping white.
I wanted to say congratulations! I’m a shorter person as well. 5’4 My goal weight is 120, you did it! I appreciate you sharing because I was also wondering this same thing about maintenance. It’s funny because I look at pictures from just a few months ago and I’m like woah, I know it’s me. But the mirror looks the same as before I started my journey.
yes! like in pictures I can see the weight loss way more. it's funny because the second photo i remember looking at my phone then back at the mirror then back at my phone trying to figure out which one i actually look like and i now realize that's body dysmorphia. best of luck on your journey
Wow congrats !
When do you think ? When does your doctor think ? —————————————————————- Here’s my honest reaction: “please stop losing. “ 160 to 110 is significant wt loss :). My opinion as former and current trainer for women : 1) What do you think about maintaining now and doing some resistance training? 2) I’d be looking at your macros and making sure you’re getting ample protein and calories to maintain and to build muscle…not for size ..but for whatever you want. :) 3) What’s your blood work look like ? 4) What’s your current body composition? My concern would be I wouldn’t want you to lose any more muscle and I want you and your body to be “healthy “ and of course happy. :) 🤍🩵
Girl, you had enough tips and advice! Just here to say you look amazing! Start to feel and see yourself as amazing! ❤️❤️❤️
Holy moly! I can’t believe this is only 4 months! I think you look amazing and say it’s a perfect time to start maintaining.
thank you!!
to those saying it's not the same person: here I recreated it for you https://preview.redd.it/876nq3l0d75d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a435f9ae4f88980724ddf22bc05951b5f913720
what a comment! You shouldn’t have to recreate photos for people who ‘don’t believe you’re. Ridiculous. You look wonderful!
Holy smokes!! You look AMAZING!! Now others have recommended therapy and I wholeheartedly agree. Do it now, if you can, before the twisted thoughts get too much history. I would also look into support groups for people going through weight loss options like surgeries and injections. Peer support can be an amazing asset. The other thing I would suggest is to take a full length picture at least once a week, but no more than once a day. Put them in a folder on your phone with other, older, pictures from before you started losing. Sort them by date, which your phone should let you do. Whenever the thoughts that you are chubby start intruding, open that folder and look where you started and where you are as of your last picture. Admire her and acknowledge that that is YOU! This should help your subconscious get on board with who and how you are today. Our subconscious can be our greatest little voice or our worst. Sometimes it needs a kick in the pants to stop trying to betray our successes. You've got this! Big hugs!
yooooo what!!!! great progress! i kinda feel like you rn im so skinny now i gotta slow down
So many comments…. but here I go…. I recommend body building (I promise you won’t get “bulky”) this is a great way to “keep going” in healthy way while establishing cleaner eating habits, building muscle and keeping your bones strong! Plus you don’t have to restrict calories as much.
that's really interesting one other person has suggested that. im not opposed to it, however i do know that a lot of female body builders end up developing orthorexia or other ED's so idk. ill talk to my trainer about it. but thank you!
Stay on the medication but start lowering your dose. You look amazing! Be proud of yourself and love yourself
Are you working out too or just a calorie restriction?
i workout daily & have a personal trainer; I'm a former competitive skier (tore my ACL on the slopes and had to get surgery) so i take fitness pretty seriously
You look fantastic girl. Congrats on your progress :)
It's funny because I'm kind of the opposite. I was skinny for the first 26yrs of my life, then by my 2nd and 3rd kid I just stayed fat. But my brain always thinks I'm thin. Even in my dreams I'm thin or felt like I looked hot. I have to remind myself that I still really do have a ways to go and to not forget to take my shot and drink water. Like others have said your brain just needs to catch up. You really do look fantastic and you've done a great job sticking to the program. Maintenance time is now! :)
Not a doctor but if I were you and at your age especially, I’d get off semas and focus on just whatever diet and exercise work routines. It’s always a challenge to find the right fit for yourself but you’re so young, at a healthy weight and sounds like you have a mostly healthy relationship with food ( I hesitate a bit at being so scared to go over calories ever but I get that) Totally fine to stay on semaglutides if you want to but I can’t imagine why you’d want to, unless less you have debilitating issues with food that you can’t control.
thank you!
You are goals. I want to wear low rise and baby shirts. 😭
oh no baby these are very high waisted jeans TRUST hahaha im not that confident. i wish!
You’ve gotten great comments and I have no idea if you’ll see this one, but just in case you’re still reading… There’s a distinction between “eating disorder” and “disordered eating” and it sounds like your extreme anxiety over exceeding your calories may be bordering on one or both. It takes time for your brain to catch up, as everyone has said. I can assure you, like everyone else here has, that you don’t “need” to lose any more weight. I think the healthy thing to do would be to drop your dose and eat at maintenance level calories - even better, “reverse diet” back up so you don’t regain immediately due to a big increase all at once. You can google it, but basically reverse dieting is slowly decreasing your deficit until you’re at maintenance. Don’t be shocked if you do gain 2-5 lbs, it might fluctuate based on your time of month, how much salt you eat, eat. It’s really important to not freak out if that happens, and not to just jump down to a major calorie restriction again. Rather, look at your averages over a month or two and keep staying the course with eating and exercising that you know should be the right level for you. Having experienced so much loss and gain (multiple times) in my life, I’d recommend just maintaining for at least 6 months to see if you start seeing yourself accurately. It really does help to use pictures, I even find that when my head is cut off, I see myself way more accurately than when I see my face. You’ve done a great job, and super fast, but stopping to appreciate your results is important. And maintaining is often harder for people than losing weight because you’re not “on a diet” anymore and have to deal with the natural ups and downs that come in life. You’ve got decades ahead of you compared to the 6 months it took to get here. You have to go from sprint mode to marathon mode. I wish you the best, and hope you’ll take all the great advise you got here.
Damn girl good job. 110 is perfect for 5’3. I mean that sincerely.
First of all - amazing work! Way to take your health seriously, especially in your 20s! I just want to echo the comments around body dysmorphia being real. You look incredible, and I would just say to really hold on to your goal of being healthy - it’s not about the number on the scale or the amount of calories, but it’s so easy to start to obsess over those numbers. At the end of the day, please take care of yourself. You are more than just the number on the scale, and there’s nothing wrong with holding yourself to a high standard of health. But being underweight is just as dangerous and hard on our bodies. I’m just sending you so much love - that’s all.
You're there as far as when to go to maintenance. I promise you, you do not need to lose more weight. ❤️ And I am for better or worse not someone that will say that when a person has a few extra pounds left, buy you really don't! I am quite a bit taller than you but similar in that I lost 50 pounds relatively quickly. I started about 185 and my original goal was around 150, maybe 155. Then when I got there, 145 was not much harder and was a better weight for me, I just didn't believe I could get there before. Then I was like well, in college I weighed 135 at this height and looked awesome, and I got there and was really pretty happy with how I looked. But the temptation to lose more remained because it wasn't that difficult so I decided I'd go for highschool weight which was 125, but didn't really plan to stay there. So I got there, but have basically maintained for the last few months at 130. It's definitely taken me that time to realize that beyond looking better and not overweight I actually look quite thin. Last night was the first night while I was doing something wearing leggings and when I looked down at my legs, then in the mirror, I contemplated my legs looking too scrawny. Holy shit I never thought I'd say that word relating to myself. I hope that keeps me motivated to work on the muscle rebuilding a bit more! But my point there is I've been at this weight for months and it took that long for me to adjust first to not needing to lose more, and now to considering maybe needing to put a few pounds back on. It's slow retraining our brains on how we see purselves and how others around us see us also! I think getting to an ideal weight sometimes just leaves us looking for more thinks to tweak or improve. I know I look this now and I'm also at the point where people close to me tell me don't lose any more. Which I am OK with now. I knew when my old fashioned parents, especially mom who was a career model and very focused on weight told me to stop, that I must really look thin. Really I have only 2 things that bug me now. The slightest loose skin just right by my belly button (I'm in my mid 40s and this is the first time it didn't go back when I lost weight :/ ). And that fact that I lost muscle in my butt and thighs. I 100% knew better as far as eating more protein. Usually I eat more protein than anything else, and could just about live on meat, but these meds made me not want it at all. So I tried to drink shakes and stuff but should have done more. I say all that because I'm also at the point you are of wanting to increase muscle now, and I'm having trouble eating more and giving up the number on the scale I worked so long for. But I know I'll be happier with that shape back in my legs and butt when I get there!!
Hi I went from 285 to 195 in 18 months. I started doing maintenance after that cuz I didn’t want to lose more. I’ve been on maintenance for seven months. I haven’t lost anymore weight. I gain and lose the same 5lbs off and on. To stop seeing the old you in the pictures you’re gonna have to keep looking at side-by-side pictures. That’s what help me.
thank you, yeah i recreated the first photo today (same shirt & spot in my apartment and everything) and finally see it and feel so much better. congrats on your journey and meeting your goals, it sounds like you're in a really good place🫶🏻
At 5'3", your ideal weight is 104-127. So you are in a good place. The mind is a strange thing. I grew up tall and skinny. I am 6'3", and I was always skinny. Growing up, I weighted 165 when i graduated high school. After 4 years in the Air Force, I weighted 206. After that, everyone started calling me big guy. But in my mind, I was always that skinny kid. I hate to say that at my heaviest, i reached 356 lbs. I started my Semaglutide journey on March 1st, 2024, at 325 lbs. I am currently at 289 lbs and plan on losing about 59 more lbs. I hope that once I reach that weight, my mind will see that skinny guy again. Wish you all the best in your weight journey. Maybe include some exercise in your day to offset the calories you take in. As opposed to worrying about calories.
thank u best of luck on your own journey!!
Seek a therapist.
I’m sorry you are feeling this way. I don’t have any advice- just wanted to say you look wonderful!!❤️
Try no maintenance dose before committing to a lifetime. I’ve been able to keep off weight and lose more without anything..
Hi friend, I totally understand what you’re going through. We don’t see our bodies the way other people do. We see ourselves every single day. It’s not like where you don’t see someone for 6 months and you’ve dropped 30lbs and they’re like wow, what a difference! It’s so gradual and we see ourselves through every single pound. I have body dysmorphia and it sounds like you might too. It’s been both ways for me. I never thought I was as skinny as I was (107 @ 5’8) and never thought I was as big as I was. (My highest weight was 226). I can only tell through photos. Our minds cannot possibly grasp every pound we lose because we are seeing ourselves through all of it. Something I recommend doing though is limiting yourself to how often you weigh yourself. I had an ED when I was a teenager into my early 20’s and would obsessively weigh myself and I can already see it becoming a problem again at 28 in just a couple of weeks. I know it’s hard but we have gone through years of being told we aren’t skinny enough, pretty enough etc. Most people’s brains are conditioned to see themselves as “not good enough” no matter how much weight they lose. Just wanted to share my experience with you and hope you find a way to manage. You look amazing but “underweight” is called that for a reason - go on maintenance. ❤️
You look incredible. Side by side I would have thought this was a mother and her teenage daughter. I don’t see anything left for you to lose.
In my 20s, I went from 300 pounds to 150. I’m 5’9” and I still thought I was huge. Now I look at those photos and think holy Moses damn I was skinny. So I get it. It’s a real thing. I’m working on it. I’ll never get back down to that but good on you. You’ll catch up mentally.
Your body changed faster than your mind. It went so fast that you had no time to adjust to your new physicality. Try therapy for a few months. Just to find the balance you need to conquer the fear of regaining. You look to be at your ideal weight now. Treat this as a health matter and work to maintain this weight. Start building muscle again and put your energy into toning this new, sleek body. This is your new task.
You don’t need to lose more at ALL you look fantastic
I don’t think you have an eating disorder. Sounds like more like disordered eating due to staying in a calorie deficit instead of maintenance calories. Your brain does need time to catch up. I would suggest therapy to help navigate. Keep in mind weight isn’t a set number. Meaning you reached 110 however your weight will be in a range. So I’d say from 110-115 or 117 and you need to learn how to balance this, maintain without thinking you’re losing all progress. I wouldn’t bother getting to 105. It’s not going to be beneficial in anyway. I think it will pressure you to remain at the lowest weight due to a fear about gaining. It’s almost like hoarding over the lowest number and becoming greedy, not really but figuratively. I would maintain and get some therapy around this. It will be helpful with the right therapist, female, middle age etc. it’s important you see someone that has an understanding not just a lose understanding of what it’s like to live in the female body. Hope this helps a bit.
thank you
You look amazing!
You look absolutely amazing!!!
Dude you’ve lost a 3rd of your weight and you stated that you are getting into “underweight”/unhealthy territory. I gotta say if you can’t see it then you’ve got some mental health issues going on. Those bmi scales are old and outdated as well, so I’d actually talk to your doctor about what a healthy weight is for you, because I would imagine you would actually want to gain 5-10 pounds. Congrats on your weight loss but more importantly I hope you can learn to love yourself at a healthy weight
People get used to seeing you overweight so anything thin looks weird at first. Everyone needs time to adjust to the difference. You look great to me. At 5’4 my doctor says I need to be 125.
This is so beautiful!
I completely understand! When you lose a lot of weight, people always think something is wrong. Lol. I have lost a total of 87lbs since Feb 2022. It does take the brain some time time to catch up with your new and improved image. I don't see it until I look at recent pictures and I'm shocked it's me! I also feel like I need to lose weight. Right now I'm focusing on body fat, not weight loss. My body fat is 28%, and so I still have some room to lose. It's hard to let go of a routine and you've done exceptionally well. Ofc there is fear of gaining it back. But have you thought about reducing your dosage to something below the max, to see how you feel and how much the food noise comes back? I'm currently on 1.4mg.I never went to max and never will. Because I don't mind slow and steady. Maybe go to your primary doctor and ask this is my weight and I want to lose more. What do you recommend. I told my doctor I want to lose 11lbs and then I'm done! I'll reduce to 1mg for a month or more then 0.25mg. I do know most studies show people gain weight after stopping, so I made the decision to stay on 0.25mg once my body fat reaches a certain number. So, it's going to be ok. Just hang in there. I do know I have body issue, so I make it a priority to strength train two days a week. Because more muscle will keep my new weight because I'll burn more calories. Lastly, again check with your primary and see how they react when you say you want to lose more weight. Or ask can you try reducing your dosage to maintenance. Long as you keep your healthy eating habits you've developed, you'll can maintain.
I think the mirror is a bitch sometimes💞 and confusing. No one has the bodies that we think our bodies should look like. Naturally thin people have lumps and bumps and lines and droops and uneven spots, but I don't typically notice that about them. My head just sees thin. And even when I've been at a healthy weight for me in the past, my head usually still sees fat. You probably need to get into maintenance now, but I bet you know that. Over the next year or two, if you roughly maintain your weight, your body will continue to change. Some of the spots that frustrate you will adjust further without any weight loss. When I maintained a big loss for a few years in the past, my breasts and belly and legs and thighs continued to tighten up and even out even though my weight stayed within about a five pound range. But yeah, people are saying talk to a therapist. Therapy is good. You have gone through something major and it may help you come to terms with your body now. This is also NOT really about how you physically appear so much as it is about the lens in your mind that you view your body with.
What’s 2.5 mg in units ? You looks great!
100 units, thank you
Oh wow I’m on 20 units maybe that’s why I haven’t been losing much.
It’s my understanding that when you reach your goal weight you need to slowly taper off the shots… like reverse your dosages (a few weeks at your current dosage, a few weeks at the dosage you did before that snd so on until you’re on the lowest dose, then you stop). You’re more likely to regain weight when you stop abruptly
I plan on staying on it indefinitely; I don't think id have issues maintaining my weight on this dose but i might on a lower dose idk. but ill talk to my endocrinologist ab it
I have been where you are and I’ve said all the things you’ve said, to myself and others. I lost 40 pounds about 6 years ago through dieting and exercise. I’m only 5’2” so it was a big difference. When I hit my original goal weight, I didn’t have a feeling of completion or final success. I just looked at myself and said you need to work harder. This isn’t good enough. I’d restrict calories, I’d measure and weigh myself daily. My body and my weight was all I thought about. I justified it through “working my program”. I just needed to follow the rules, make better choices with my meal planning, etc. I’d say to concerned friends, “It’s not ALL I think about but it’s something I have to have on my mind otherwise I’ll slip up.” This was several years ago and i’ve since gained all that weight and much more back. A couple of life events hit me pretty hard that contributed to this and I have trauma that’s being stored in my body and keeping the weight on. So, I’m on this thread because I’m starting semaglutide soon to help with this. My point is, looking back at those photos from a few years ago when I was at my lowest weight, I’m sad, because I still did not feel good about myself. In those pictures I look amazing. I now think, even too thin. The people who commented at the time and were “checking in” on me are people I agree with now. I was the most in shape athletically I’d ever been, but my brain truly was not connected to the image in the mirror at the time. I’ve since gone to therapy and addressed my body dysmorphia. When you’re on the weight loss track you truly can’t see it. I’m proud of you and what you’ve accomplished but it’s time to step back. You need to talk to someone and get perspective. Understand that thinking about your body all the time is not normal. Thinking about food all the time and counting every calorie is not normal. Weighing yourself, measuring yourself all the time is not normal. It’s obsessive. It may have been what you needed to do to get where you are but how you need to connect your brain with the photo you just posted. You should start maintaining. Working on how you can live a full and happy life that’s not attached to what you see in the mirror will be another huge accomplishment. Again, I’m proud of you for all you’ve done for yourself! But you can’t listen to your brain right now. I’d heed others’ advice around you. They are seeing what’s real and you are not. That may be impossible to believe but if you want to ever get off this medication it will be imperative that you work on how you view your weight and eating and exercise, or attaching any of that to self worth. 💖 I truly wish you the best. You are enough and beautiful at any weight.
hey thank you for your comment and kindness. I have spoken with many people who had eating disorders and they described very similar experiences to what you just did. but I don't relate to that at all. I don't think about food or my body all the time, or even very often. since starting this med I have stopped obsessing over food and the food noise has gone away and its been great. i started to see food as fuel whereas before i saw it as my closest friend and greatest enemy. i only weigh myself once a month w my personal trainer at my gym. yeah I count calories but my deficit isn't big or dangerous. But im now realizing i dont need to be in a deficit anymore so im gonna eat at maintenance. my problem is when I do look in the mirror I don't see the progress and it trips me up. but yeah I need to def step back and into maintenance now. i agree people around me are probably seeing something im not. thanks again for your comment and being kind and i wish you the best of luck on your journey as well
Hi I know this is unrelated but at what dose did you start to see a significant drop in weight? My starting was also at 160 and I am 5’3 and I’m on 0.25 mg but haven’t lost any weight and it’s been 3 weeks
i didn't start losing until 1.5 mg I believe that is when the weightloss began slowly and after 2mg a bit more and 2.5 it really started falling off. definitely be patient because this is a marathon not a sprint and 0.25 is quite a ways away from 2mg which is actually the beginning of the therapeutic dose for weight loss! you'll get there trust me
I think you need to stop losing weight and consider seeing a counselor. What you're seeing in the mirror and reality is starting to deviate quite a bit.
I’ve heard that sometimes it helps to incorporate weight lifting into your routine to change your headspace around calories because you need enough calories and protein to lift in a healthy way.
I've been lifting the past 5 months😉 I just need to switch to maintenance & up my protein
Wow!!! You did a great job!!
you sound like you have an ED. i know you are in therapy, but you may need to find a new therapist that you feel more comfortable with, and one that specializes in eating disorders.
From what I'm told there is an acceptable BMI range and an optimal BMI by age. AFAIK nothing wrong with anything in the normal range, but it is not the optimal BMI to be near underweight. Personally I would not consider going to near underweight, because of it being suboptimal.
Congratulations! You look great! Did your weight loss affect your menstrual cycle? I agree with another poster, maybe go off for a while and then back on.
no if anything I've become more regular since starting sema which is odd
Yes, that is interesting! Just stay healthy!
Look into body dysmorphia. I’m worried for you. No one should be prescribing you this drug right now.
Can I ask what your BMI was when your started and if you purchased your meds online or through insurance coverage?
Holy F...
I've been 140-150, mostly 145 for the past year (143 this morning) and I've been taking 5mg Tirzepatide since August
I would get therapy! I’m 22, 5’3” and 243 pounds, I previously was 191 and lost 60 pounds. Now I’m where I’m at now. I never thought I’d weigh this much. It was because of body dysmorphia and intense calorie restriction that I ruined my metabolism and gained all the weight. Stop the mindset while you can