Photos Don’t Lie

This week I have been collecting a lot of old and new photos to make a timeline of my weight loss.  It has been surprisingly difficult. Photos of my body at my heaviest weight, DO NOT EXIST.  I feel like I keep using the same 5 pictures of examples of how heavy I was over and over.  So I spent a few hours going through old photos both digital and in print.  Now I have maybe 10.  All the photos I can find, only show my face.  The reason for this is obvious.  I didn’t want people to see it!  It’s bad enough to have to walk around in a body like that but seeing it in a concrete photo makes it even worse.

There are definitely times when, even when I was huge, I felt beautiful and sexy.  Here’s an example! Then: While this wasn’t my actual Wedding Day, this is a day that I felt beautiful.  I felt sexy and confident in my wedding dress. This was a great day and I think the smile on my face shows it all.

Now: When I look at this photo now, I still think I look beautiful.  I do think I look huge in my size 22 wedding dress but all my happiness outshines my size.  True love really does conquer all, even making you look past how heavy I am.

 

However, my beautiful and confident days were few and far between.  Here’s another example:

Then: This is a hot summer day in Las Vegas on my Honeymoon.  I had bought new clothes just for the Las Vegas sun.  I remember wanting to feel cute in this photo and being totally grossed about about my belly.  I think I might have even cried right there on the Las Vegas Strip.  Is that what I really looked like? Photos don’t lie and I wanted this photo to lie sooooo bad.

Now: Gross.  Fat.  Unhappy. This should have been another photo where my smile and happiness distract you from how I look, but it doesn’t.  I was uncomfortable with how I looked that day and you can tell.

 

The beautiful and gross days still continue to this day.  There are days I feel confident, sexy and ready to take on the world.  This is how I feel most days now.  BUT I do still have days that I feel gross and unattractive.  Even after losing the weight, some days I feel fat.  Even after losing the weight, there are things I don’t like about my body.  Even after losing the weight, I’m still not always happy.

Here’s an example: Then: I remember feeling gross this day.  This was the weekend I hit my goal weight.  Even though I should have been over the moon, I just wasn’t.  I wasn’t confident about how I looked and I was feeling really weird about the whole thing.

Now: Get over yourself. To everyone else, this picture is totally normal.

But there ARE days I feel SUPER hot.  Then: I feel cute today.  Let’s take some pics!

Now: Look at all that extra skin.  Gross

 

People think losing weight just makes all your other problems go away.  Thin=Happy right?

Sexy=No gross days right?

Confidence=Never feeling fat right?

No!  To most people these last two photos probably look the same, but how I was feeling in both photos is totally different.  YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR VISION.

The farther I get from my heaviest weight, the fatter I think I was.  It’s so easy to lie to yourself and tell yourself it’s not that bad.  It’s so easy to think, ‘it’s just a bad photo’.  Bad photos exist and I think the lens that you view photos through depends on how you were feeling at that time.  But photos can not lie.  That is how you looked at that moment no matter what.  It’s your emotions that change the way the photo seems.