I’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would call me skinny. I weigh 207 pounds and at 5’2″ that classifies me as severely obese (or obese class II) with my 37.86 BMI. I wear a size 14 or 16 depending on the brand, and I’m nowhere near my goal weight. But despite all that, I feel skinny.
I do. I feel skinny.
I didn’t say that I am skinny. I’m obviously not, considering the circumstances. But I feel skinny. I’ve lost a chunk of weight and my body shape is different from the shape it began in. And because of all those changes, I feel skinny.
It’s a strange feeling to feel skinny when you are not. I’m aware that I’m not actually skinny. I’m aware that some people are horrified to find themselves at my current weight, or even my goal weight for that matter. I’m aware that most people wouldn’t look at me and think skinny. Gorgeous, maybe, but not skinny. And even knowing all this my brain still tells me that I look and feel skinny. I am lighter and smaller than I once was, and in my head this translates to skinny.
I know I’m not alone in this thinking. I think a lot of us that have lost weight eventually feel this feeling before we have reached our goal weight, before we have completely changed. Perspective is a very strange thing. We can feel skinny but still be obese. We can feel fat but actually be skinny. We can feel a lot of things that aren’t necessarily true.
The mind has the ability to think many things, and I think it’s our job to train it to think the things we want. For example, I want to think and feel skinny after all of my hard work losing weight and because of that desire and the actions I take to make it a reality I often do feel that way. I want to feel beautiful which is why I often look in the mirror and think that about myself. These aren’t things that I have to think or that come naturally (far from it). I could just as easily take the attitude that I’m still fat. I could easily think about how far I have to go. I could easily think about how my face isn’t perfect, or how my hair is not so great, and a million other little flaws could be amplified in my mind to the point where I can’t see my overall beauty. I could easily tear myself down and allow myself to think and feel negatively about my body. But I refuse to do that. Instead I latch on to these positive feelings. I encourage them. I take days where I don’t feel positively as an opportunity to train my brain and make it focus on the positive. It might seem silly to repeat things to yourself over and over again, like “I’m thin and healthy” or “I’m beautiful”, but the more you tell yourself these things the more naturally they will feel to you. You will believe them, think them, feel them.
So I’m not skinny yet. But I feel skinny. I think I’m skinny. I tell myself that I am skinny. I’m going to act like I am that, because it feels like a very good thing to be and I know that eventually it will be true. My body just keeps feeling better and better the lighter that I am. Maybe people who pass me on the street don’t have the same assessment of my body, but for me? I’m feeling skinny now. ;)
How about you? Do you/have you felt skinny before actually being skinny?
i’m so with you! i have days where i feel skinny and fabulous! It’s a great day because you start the day off loving yourself, feeling positive and just pure amazing. And if you give off those vibes, you will find other people seeing you in that way and attracting good things!
I love that feeling! I still have days even at my current weight where I feel thin and gorgeous! And it’s those days that everyone tells me how great I look! If I could keep my head in that happy place I just know that my body will follow along and find its happy place as well!
I hear ya! I just said something about this to my husband last night. We have a pool party this weekend and for once I’m excited to wear a bathing suit. No, I know I won’t look great beside the skinny minnies that will be there, but I will look good for ME. After all the days I have felt heavy and fat, it’s nice to finally FEEL skinny! :)
Without being the nasty one, the opposite is also true.
I mean, I remembered hitting under 200 for the first time in my life since my teens and I felt so damn good ans skinny!
Now, if I just go over 175, yuk! I feel fat.
Perspective IS a funny thing. It’s just sad to lose that skinny feeling because you get so caught up in this “I need to lose more weight” bonanza.
I mentioned that the opposite is true in the post (“We can feel fat but actually be skinny.”) but it’s not something I wanted to dwell on. But yes, perspective is the point and it’s different for everyone. It’s weird how much of our self worth and self confidence is tied up in how much we weigh and related to that how we think we look.
Oh my God! I thought I was the only one!
I totally feel skinny! I started feeling that way after I lost the first hundred pounds (and still weighed over 220 lbs). I remember going on vacation and being a size 16 and just feeling like, tiny. It’s a nice feeling and I try to hold on to it on the days when I’m feeling gigantic (it still happens, even though I’m pretty close to a normal BMI these days).
I think it is great that you feel this way. Skinny and beautiful! I am probably one who is opposite. When I am skinny, I don’t feel it. I am not sure what it would mean to feel thin. I wish I had your body image and need to take a lesson from this and love myself more:)
Try to learn how to love yourself and body whether it’s thin or fat or in between or whatever. I mean, feeling skinny isn’t the reason why I’m happy and love my body. That was true before.
I don’t feel skinny right now but I did early last week.
I “feel skinny and beautiful” when I know I’m taking good care of myself.
This was a really awesome and beautiful post. I’m bookmarking it. I really love your attitude and outlook. Thanks!
I’m the same way. If I’m working out and eating right then I feel skinny all the time because I know my body is really happy. If not, I feel like a blob.
Taking care of yourself is a huge component. When you take care of yourself it’s because you feel like you are worth the effort, so it’s easy to think good things about yourself. When you don’t? Slippery slope to negative land. I think not taking care of ourselves is a huge reason many of us find ourselves in situations where we are really unhappy with our bodies and lives.
I have never felt skinny in my life! Because I’m tall and large-boned I’ve just always felt huge. That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel beautiful sometimes or that I hate my body. In fact, I think I’m much more appreciative of my body now than when I was younger and I have no doubt that in time, I will actually feel skinny.
Good for you for embracing those feelings! Reading there for a second, I thought you were ignoring them and my brain was screaming “NO!” But then I kept reading. :)
I was one of those girls who was morbidly obese, and refused to believe that I was anything BUT skinny. I took an “ignorance is bliss” approach to my body, and had myself so diluded into thinking that I was skinny that my whole earth was rocked when I saw any picture of myself. This was before I made a committment to live a healthier lifestyle. Now, I don’t think of myself necessarily as skinny, but as healthy, a work in progress, and happy with my body the way it is–imperfect. :)
Hehe, I know that mindset too because I had that one for a while. I didn’t want to do anything about my weight so I deluded myself into thinking it wasn’t that bad and I really felt great (I didn’t). It’s easy to ignore the obvious if it’s something we don’t want to think about.
There’s nothing quite like spending 10 days with 2 women who are 10 years younger than you are and 10 times prettier. My ego’s taken a hell of a bashing recently.
Most of the time, i don’t feel thin.
On the other hand, I do always think I have nice legs ;-)
DON’T COMPARE! DON’T COMPARE! DON’T COMPARE!!!!!
Seriously. The thing that’s the hardest but most necessary thing to learn how to do is not compare yourself. Like I said, I feel skinny for ME. Not compared to other people. If I sat around comparing myself thinking everyone was younger, skinnier, prettier I would crush my self esteem. Please don’t do that. You have nice legs and nice everything!
I feel good. I don’t feel skinny and don’t think I ever will. But I feel healthy and attractive. I am trying to not put qualifiers on it all. I am the queen of saying I feel healthy(er) or attractive (for me) and I think that just discounts how I actually feel. I feel like I’m winning and that I’m worth this. kinda nice right?
That is awesome. You have to do what works for you. You feel like you are worth it and honestly that’s the only thing that matters. All these other words are fleeting and just descriptions to try to describe the outside, not the inside where it counts. Congrats. Keep feeling that way. ;)
That’s awesome, girl!
I’ve done a complete 180. When I lost weight from 190 to 142 (with my goal weight of 120), I stopped losing because at 142 I fit into a size 6 and felt great! Then I got to 120 after regaining a lot of weight and thought, “142 is so big!” NOW I’m…more than 142…and I’d LOVE to be 142 again, I think it’d be a great weight on me. So for some people at 5’3, 142 is not an okay weight…and like you, that’s my goal weight whether others agree with it or not :)
I wouldn’t say that I feel skinny, although my husband has taken to calling me Skinny as a nickname lately. At 225 it is laughable to describe me as skinny, but it is true that in comparison to over 300, I’m a lot smaller these days. I’ll admit, I like the new nickname.
Oh I just hate it when I read something cool on someone’s site and then I can’t give them credit because I can’t remember where I read it. Sigh. Anywho, someone was talking about the real-life disorder call Fatorexic. I have that. I’m always fatter than I think I am. That said, when I read your post, I don’t think about the power of denial, I think about embracing my successes. Yes, I most definately have skinny days. And I love them. I want more. Cheers!
Yes! Embrace success. Embrace the good feelings and knowing that you’ve worked hard.
That’s awesome. By THINKING ourselves healthy or thin or whatever, I think that we then BECOME that.
I’m trying hard to change my thinking… I keep waffling between negative and positive thoughts. But that’s why I try to spend a good amount of time in front of the year, getting to know myself, appreciating how I look. And I think it helps a lot.
…I’ve also hidden the scale from myself for a little while. It seems to be really helping me with focusing more on how I feel and look, rather than focusing on a precise number.
I understand that feeling! As a teen, I always felt fat, even though my bones were showing through. Yes – anorexia was part of my teen years.
And ironically, now that I’m fat, I have my feeling-skinny days.
The brain is a very strange organ.
i’m backwards. I weigh 133lbs and feel obese. It’s horrible and weird and i cannot shake it. i know the feeling you describe though – when i was bigger (190lbs ish) i was frequently amazed at how just one day of good eating and exercsie would make me ‘feel’ thinner even tho i technically wasnt. so good for you – keep on keepin on. You’ve really hit home with me today x
Well, if it helps you most definitely are not obese. You are healthy and awesome. Try to remember that. ;)
Thanks Mary :-) xo
It’s funny…as I lost weight I started to feel skinny and while the scale still said I had 50 pounds ( or 25) to go, I felt better and happier. I dressed more provocatively to show off that I had lost weight. It was a great feeling!
I can definitely relate and have often wondered how I could go from feeling skinny to feeling fat and awful in the space of 24 hours. One thing I’ve noticed as I get older is that “bloat” happens more easily, whether due to hormones, water or gas. And there’s nothing like a little bloat to make me feel fat!
But I am FINALLY seeing some positive changes in my body and I know I’m losing weight. I don’t weigh myself, but do measure my waist. It’s down 4 inches!! And I am wearing clothes that didn’t use to fit me. I think some of it’s due to the kettlebell workouts, but a lot of it has to do with having finally made peace with food (and that has to do with a whole host of other things…)
I love that feeling of skinny BUT and this is a huge BUT, I think my feeling so good about all of my weight loss and feeling so skinny has contributed to my major plateau since November :( Its hard because I know I feel good but I am still way off a ‘healthy’ BMI/weight, I still have 35lbs to go…I have lost 70lbs so far though so I am 66% of the way there. Perspective is key, and I wouldnt want to discourage the feeling because I personally love it too, I just wish my mind set could also remember that I have 35lbs to go! Not sure this makes too much sense but hope you know what I mean :o}
For me it is all about how my stomach looks and feels – if I am not bloated, my stomach is relatively flat (comparatively speaking) then I feel skinny. But if I am bloated, I feel like the biggest person in the world, no matter what the scale says.
I love feeling skinny! I think it’s relative to each person — it may just be losing a few pounds or not losing any weight but lifting weights for a few weeks. And same with feeling fat — the scale may be barely up, or not up at all, and sometimes I just feel fat. My weight hasn’t changed by more than 6 pounds in either direction in years, so it’s funny that so little change can shape perception. I’d echo 2 comments above — that just a day or so of eating great and working out can make me feel skinny, and that my skinny/fat feelings are shaped largely by my belly — if it seems flat (ish), or if it seems bloated and big. But even when I feel skinny, I try not to dress skinny — even if I’m at a perfectly healthy/normal bmi, I don’t need to wear a shirt that hugs my love handles!
Skinny isn’t the word I’d use, but I totally get this feeling. I’m now 70 pounds lighter than I was at my heaviest and I feel AMAZING compared to before. I feel healthy and strong, and since that’s what I want to be at my goal weight, I think my experience compares to yours.
And I agree that SEEING yourself at your goal is super helpful – my “visualization” post today is just a different way of saying this same thing. :)
I’m not crazy about the word skinny. I like lean instead. :-)
I get this feeling but with “strong”. There are days I feel STRONG. Strong like a beast even though I know in reality I’m not nearly as strong as I feel.
I think part of my weight loss issue is that I’ve never really felt fat. I know I’ve been able to lift it and pull it, and pinch it and jiggle it, but I just always figured as long as I could still touch my toes, I couldn’t be that big. My body, I’m coming to realize, is so much more capable than I’ve let it be, and now that I’m trying out the things that it might be capable of, I feel anything put fat.
But no. I’ve never felt skinny either.
Yay im glad youre feeling so good about yourself! :) congrats on that!!
I am skinny but I hardly ever feel skinny. Not that I feel fat, either. I just don’t think of myself as skinny. Some days I think of myself as chubby or pooffy (even though I’m not) and some days I don’t think of myself as any weight at all. It is extremely rare that I ever have a concious thought of oh I am skinny today. But, I do feel tall some days, and im actually short. But sometimes, in my head, I picture myself as tall. Tall days are days I feel cute.
I do feel skinny but weighing 196 for the first time since middle school is weird. I look at myself in the mirror and I say man I look pretty good and other times I’m like, I still have a belly on me. I wear medium sized t shirts, doesnt that automatically make you skinny? I’ve never worn a medium before in my life. Any way, I know I feel it, but I still need to lose 20 more pounds. It’s interesting how losing weight makes you feel about your self image.
I don’t feel skinny – feel “skinnier” because my clothes are getting baggy. Always a good feeling
Mary, at 289 pounds (down from 310), I look forward to the day when I hit 207 pounds. You might as well change my name to Tyra Banks.
Sometimes I feel skinny (although I am not there yet), and sometimes I feel bigger than I am. It just depends on my mood.
Mary I loved this post.. And I know EXACTLY what you mean. Thank you!! xo.
Honestly, I don’t feel skinny and I don’t think I will. Sadly for me I still get hung up on the things I don’t like about my body shape. BUT, I do feel healthy and fit and i love that feeling a lot!
Mary, I am so happy you are feeling so good about yourself! What a way to live this journey! Many can learn from you!
Like Diane, I don’t feel skinny nor do I think I am. I feel fit, muscular… in good shape, not skinny though.
I remember when I first lost all my weight, I went back to visit friends where I used to live. I had gone from a size 14 to a size 6/8. My friend’s sister still called me fat. I don’t know whay that still sticks with me. It upset me so.. BUT in general, I feel good now about what I have accomplished in terms of my fitness goals.
Mary.. you are doing great!
I have those moments and even days of feeling skinny. I just love them while they’re here. It’s funny, I’ll have one day I feel skinny, then the next day I actually feel fat. Still dealing with all that nonsense.
Yay for feeling skinny!
I totally know what you mean!! There are days I feel so fit and trim that when I look in the mirror I have forgotten that’s what I actually look like!
skinny? no.
skinny? that would make me sad and did even BEFORE I SHED A POUND.
I longed for powerful strong and TAKING UP SPACE IN THE WORLD.
to this misfit skinny is small ignored and overlooked.
I dont feel skinny.
Yeah, my ultimate goal is NOT skinny. Not at all in any way shape or form. Promise. But I have to acknowledge the fact that any time I lose a bit more weight and take up less space, that’s what it feels like until my mind and body adjust to the new reality of me. My ultimate goal is to be healthy and strong!
I go with you, my goal is to be strong and healthy but isn’t is a plus that you too are in good shape and when i say it I mean having the right curves at the right places. Can you or anyone here give me some tips on how to put on weight a bit cozI have to say i feel and think I am skinny.
No, I don’t feel skinny and I don’t feel fat, either. Neither of those words describe feelings at all. My favorite saying is that fat is not a feeling, actually.
I know what you are saying, though, I get it, I used to label my feelings with those words too. But, what I have found to be more rewarding for me is to just feel my feelings instead of trying to label them. I feel self confident, proud, beautiful, strong, empowered, enlightened, light, happy, airy.
No matter what I call it, it feels good.
And on those “fat” days, those are signals that something is off. What is going on to tear down my self confidence in this way? If I am the same person I was yesterday with the same body and the same closet full of clothes, what is behind that feeling.
What is behind the feeling is so much more important than the feeling itself and then just embracing the feeling for what it is. Signals of what’s really going on.
So, with all that, I am glad you are feeling “skinny” but what does that really feel like?
It feel like skinny. ;P
Yay! You’re exuding confidence. I love it.
Right now I wouldn’t use skinny to describe myself since I’m over 7 months pregnant but I feel beautiful and sexy. It’s a wonderful feeling to be accepting of a belly.
Pregnant is a whole different kind of beautiful. :)
I think it’s amazing that you feel skinny, although I feel like a better word for that is good or healthy. I actually don’t like the word skinny. I don’t think it’s a compliment. When I think of skinny, I think of my frail old 70 pound grammy. I think healthy or in shape is much more of a compliment!
Yeah I have a feeling that will happen to me and has happen to other people too. It seems once you get to your goal weight that feeling doesn’t exist any more. It’s interesting.
I go back and forth from day to day…some days I feel thin and pretty, some days the total opposite. I guess it just depends! I admire your positive self-talk, Mary. I think that’s a crucial element to getting where you want to go! :)
I just realized something and I am not sure if it came across in my comment: I feel “skinny” when I can hold my stomach in easily and naturally, when I don’t feel bloated and gassy. And it’s when I am bloated and gassy that I feel “fat.”
Enjoyed checking out your blog! Would love for you to read my latest post “100 Days.”
Let me know what you think!
Charli
I have lost 10 pounds on my weight loss journey. and I am no where near to feeling skinny. I want to feel that way and I am so happy to hear that you feel skinny yourself. Girls like us need as much support as we can get, and I am proud of you. congratulations. If you have time check out my weight loss journey. Thanks!