She enters the office walking confidently towards us. She is cheerful and happy, and when she sees me, tells me how she barely recognized me, I’m so thin! She pulls a chair to sit down next to us.
– Tell me, what’s your secret to going from “chubby” to thin? – she doesn’t even wait for my answer, she continues – I bet you worked out. I can’t work out, I tried, but I hate it.
I open my mouth to tell her about how you need to find the right type of workout that is fun, motivating and challenging at the same time, but my other work colleague interrupts:
– She changed her whole lifestyle! She eats differently, and works out 5 times a week! It happened slowly, it took her years to lose all that weight!
I want to start speaking, but I am yet again silenced by my female colleagues before saying even a sentence. All I am left with is nodding my head in a “yes” motion.
– Oh, I can’t diet, I just hate them. I love cake too much! What do you eat? You surely don’t eat bread!
Finally, my chance to speak up! Quickly, I must make a sound: – I don’t eat bread and pastries from the bakery, but I eat whole grain flowerless bread with various seeds.
– But do you eat meat? – she asks.
– Of course I eat meat – I answer. I try to continue because I want her to know how protein is important for muscle growth and recovery, but I am silenced again.
– I eat meat too, and I don’t eat much. Yesterday I made a delicious cake and we ate it. Then I cried to my husband that I want to eat that special chocolate cake from the bakery. He told me how I can’t have a chocolate cake, because I am always complaining how I am way too fat. But I really wanted to eat that chocolate cake, so finally we drove to the bakery to get the chocolate cake.
We were all left speechless and continued listening to her story unwind.
– I think I am fat, because the scale said so. I am way over 100 kg/220 lbs, but I can’t see it. I am just not that fat in reality. When I gain weight, it all goes to my thighs. – she touches her left thigh making her point across. And I can’t help not to notice her muffin top spilling over when she leans over like that. She is not a small woman that is sure! She sees herself slightly overweight, when in fact she is obese.
– I mean I am gaining weight for sure, but I don’t see it. I can’t wear my pants anymore because I can’t button them, so I choose to wear pants with elastic waistbands. I also have a problem to find the right sized blouses, the ones they sell have tiny armholes so my arms don’t fit through. But I am not going into those obnoxious stores for fat people! Those clothes are ugly!
We keep listening to her story and I can’t help but notice how she is struggling with body image issues exactly like I was. The only difference is that I was struggling to see my smaller fit body after I’ve lost significant weight. She is struggling to see her bigger obese body after she’s gained significant weight. I was wondering if the steps I’ve took to help me see my smaller body would help her see her bigger body. But I never got the chance to speak up after she went on and on about her life. And she clearly wasn’t interested in what I had to say – she just needed to get things that bothered her about her body and lifestyle off her mind.
If you are losing weight and are unable to see your fit body after weight loss it’s called phantom fat. Never would have imagined that there is the opposite of this condition: you are gaining weight, becoming fat, going obese and you can’t see it.
I’ve discussed the struggles regarding my fat body image I have in my head while not being able to see a fit body image reflection staring back at me from the mirror many times before:
Are you suffering from phantom phat?
Having fit body but being unable to see it: how to accept new fit body
15 things I wish I knew before I started losing weight while I was obese
I have discussed the problem of not being able to see the fit body in the mirror after significant weight loss in the past.
I still can’t get over the fact how serious conditions with body image problems such as negative body image issues are taken seriously, but body image issues that come with significant weight loss or significant weight gain do not get the attention they deserve.
To help myself after my weight loss with having a fat body image while actually being in a fit body, I had to browse through tons of self help books for low self esteem and serious negative body image issues to scan for tips that I would work in my case. I tried many of the advices that I have came across about body image issues, and what worked for me was a quick 10 minute exercise. Click here to find out about Exercise A and Exercise B >>>
Are you struggling with fat body image issues? Click here to find out!
If you want to read more about how to deal with issues related to fat body image click here >>
Please feel free to share your own story in the comments section below!
Remember how I’ve had problems 
As it feels awesome to be able to carry my own groceries, it feels strange to look in the mirror at the gym to see muscles on my body where there used to be fat. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have manly muscles, because a woman can’t just get muscular like that with no additional work. I have nice, visible muscles, that give my whole fit body a more feminine look. I look like a girl-beast only when I flex my muscles (joking). My tummy is flat and my abs are visible for the first time in my life! So it’s pretty fun to look at my new fit body in the mirror, but yet again I feel like my mind has not caught up to the fit body I have in reality. I see myself in the mirror, I know it’s me, but that fit body that is looking back at me from the mirror surely isn’t my body, because I am not so fit and muscular.
