I'm overweight, not obese, going by BMI (though pretty close to the borderline). but I still look fat in all the old places I used to look fat. I've gone down a couple clothing sizes, but it's very hard to see the change in a mirror unless other people tell me.
Losing 110 lbs is going to be very obvious even on someone with a very large frame, but, your perspective may be highly warped preventing you from seeing the weight loss. It might be worth talking to a professional trained in body image issues.
Edit: Oh, and I should say congratulations! That is awesome progress!
One thing your comment reminded me of -- I was surprised to see a lot of my sense of weight loss came not from a mirror, but just feeling my old fat body parts. It used to be more dense, due to the fat, now it feels a lot more like excess skin. The skin is almost as big as before, but much lighter and more hollow, if that makes sense.
[edit: added "sense of"]
That’s exactly what it is. When one loses a lot of wait after holding it for a while the skin may not be able to shrink back down. There are various remedies for that from supplements to surgery but you should talk to a medical professional about your options.
So even after four years of being at the lower weight, in reality the only way to get rid of excess skin is surgical. I am not willing to do that, so I have come to accept that even after all my efforts, I am never going to look svelte.
While this has been some time ago and I have not met her for years, an acquaintance confided that the skin reduction gave her the confidence and joy that kept her from relapsing into old bad habits.
My inner thighs always felt chunky, large, - literally, full of fat.
After starting to work out a couple months ago - I felt my inner thighs randomly one evening and I stopped myself because they felt so _different_... Better than looking in the mirror honestly - more tactile feeling of accomplishment rather than visual.
Visually it only occurred to be because a friend sent me a picture from a dinner I had with them and I saw how much smaller I looked.
So once you get the weight off you gotta live the active life and the fit shape will emerge.
Being normal weight is basically easy mode for being active, but it doesn't guarantee fitness if you still don't play the game.
I lost 55 pounds and still felt like a chonker. At the time, I only had about 10 pounds to go to hit the "ideal weight" I'd set for myself (which was still at the high end of the acceptable range, based on BMI). I never did hit that number; I ended up wandering around that plateau for 1-2 years, feeling thoroughly fat the entire time.
A recent injury led to me not being able to lift (for now), and so I've lost about 3-7 pounds of muscle and gained about 14-18 pounds of fat. Now I can definitely notice the difference! For me, it's the little stuff that really drove it home -- my face is noticeably chubbier (to me), and my rings and shoes fit more tightly.
I wouldn't recommend going about it this way, but it definitely drove home a lot of retroactive gratitude for what I had -- and sparked some motivation to get it back.
I know everyone has their weight loss strategy but this is by far the least mentally taxing method I’ve used. It helps to stay motivated when you see results every other day as well.
What weight did you start/end at?
It might be worth your while to talk to someone about body dismorphia.
This goes into a bit more detail:
I guess your must have body must have dumped fat directly out through urine?
Negative side: My parents/doctor thought I was on crack because bones were sticking out.
My back loves the lower weight. I miss the look of the extra weight.
That said, even bottoming out at 6'2" 155lbs, there were still noticeable pockets of fat in the "bad areas" (chest, belly). This was probably due to low muscle mass, but it can be pretty crushing.
All that work and you don't look any better without a shirt on... but cloths fit better and I definitely looked better. That weight makes around a 5-20 year difference in appearance for me.
You could argue this should be a part of the fitness conversation. You probably won't achieve perfection and people with long term weight issues may never really get the desired results. This is definitely an area where body positivity is important.
Can you be specific?
For the first ~70 lbs, I was able to lose 10 lbs in 1-2 weeks by staying on the diet religiously each day. I mainly ate the same exact meal plan every day. (I spent a lot of my day thinking about all the great food I missed.) After that week or two, I would "take a break" and get takeout or other nonsense each day for some weeks following that. Perhaps lucky on my part, I wouldn't generally see much weight come back, maybe only 2 or 3 lbs. In summary, my cycle was diet 1-2wks, break for a while until I convinced myself to get back on the wagon, and repeat. It always helped to see that the first few days of dieting were the ones where I lost the most weight, before it slowed down.
To answer the exercise part, literally all I did was take 1-2 walks a day of 30 min each. Not a brisk walk, just walking around the town or our trails. Occasionally I felt like trying to jog or run, or do some lifting, but never got consistent with it. Sometimes I paced around my apartment thinking about how to solve work problems, but that was about it.
Since I lost that first 70 lb, the rate of weight loss has gradually slowed. These days I sometimes lift weights or do cardio to help see a little more loss each day. If I'm consistent, my weight loss is like 3-4 lbs/week, but I haven't done it lately. Gotta get back on my diet soon.
[1] sidenote, that includes fiber calories which I think technically are not supposed to be included. I'm no nutritionist, even though I came up with a lot of this diet myself using some Internet research and Cronometer.
The most I ever lost in recent years was when I went on Kaiser's medically monitored weight-loss program (a soft prerequisite to be eligible for bariatric surgery through them). Liquid diet, 860 calories a day, frequent blood work, etc. I lost 50 lbs in 3 months. Gained it all back over the following year. Fearing all the side effects, I never ended up doing the bariatric surgery.
This time around I'm not "cheating" my way through it. Keeping track of everything religiously has kept me honest about what I'm eating, and I've been taking a 3+ mile walk most days. Been trying to keep a pace that makes me sweaty even in the cool weather of my area. I'm back down to the weight I was after the Kaiser thing (50 lbs lost), but I'm not craving all the things I did then.
Diet has basically been whole grains, lots of veggies, turkey, fruit, nuts, oats, and the occasional fish. Overnight oats is my go-to breakfast - steel cut oats, chia seeds, soy milk, fruit, nuts. I've been making a bunch of things from the Forks over Knives vegan diet. I can't bring myself to go full vegan, I love fish too much. Either way, mostly keeping it under 1700 calories a day.
I recently joined my friends' gym group and plan to go regularly. Been keeping up with them for the last two weeks so we'll see where that goes. Maybe try to get some muscles to fill in some of the loose skin I'll have.
Congrats!!! Wishing you more success!
Not sure if this will help but I recently purchased an Apple Watch and the Activity rings and notifications for activity, breathing etc has helped me get myself sorted.
I'd also recommend measuring weight loss as percentage of body weight.