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I get this a lot - I've started cutting the bottom off the trousers, cutting the crotch out and filling the gap. Only with really good patterned trousers that I love though Why don't They just make trousers that have thicker material between the thighs?

It might be, but to them that could be anything from 'meh, not for me' to 'dayyyam yea' depending on their tastes. I have tastes that vary wildly from my friends, and often I'll be attracted to something in/on someone that others find really off putting and vice versa (I mean, if someone has really fair/non existent eyebrows, there is pretty much nothing in the rest of their body that will make them attractive to me ) I guess my point is, do you need for everyone to see you to the level your brain aspires for you? (also, brains are super-self-critical because they are annoying but that's a whole other thing)   Also, does Mr H choose you clothes you don't think look good, because he sees things he likes from those that you wouldn't necessarily think about yourself? Either that or he's suggesting you dress frumpy as he's jealous of attention you might get

Wow, almost a year between posting on forums almost feels like a trend for me at this point.   Hi!  I used to be here, and then like so many other times before, I wasn't.  I'll drop the longform version of the last year in spoilers:     Short version, everything imploded and it took the better part of the last year to really get back on my feet again.    But back on my feet I am, and still needing to get this weight off.  I got on the scale at the doctor and was handed a number of 208kg/458lb.  Yay.  When your doctor tells you something has to change or you won't see 50, it's time to knuckle down again.  I've fluctuated everywhere between 170kg/374lbs and here for years, I don't want to do it anymore.   On the plus side, I've finally managed to get my enablers to stop with the enabling.  So far anyway.  I won't hold my breath that it'll continue.     So yeah, back at it again.  This time we're playing for keeps.        

Spoiler alert, none of us are the person we want to be.    That said, you are awesome and an inspiring hero to me

This sounds like a brilliant goal.

Thanks, @Chesire. I have not managed to keep to any of my goals this week. But I'm going home tomorrow and when I do that will make things much easier. I have very little freedom here and there are no boundaries - I have to eat what is in the house, basically - this little village in Hampshire has about two buses a day so without a car there's no way to get anything done. I did bring some salad bits which are in my bedroom, but they're not so good now.   Still, I spent the day with my dad yesterday, and it was a long and surprisingly respectful conversation. He used to be really awful, but is obviously reflecting about the past. The bit I've blanked below is about cancer and is pretty graphic.   Well, that's more than I meant to write. I'm going to put some of this in a spoiler.

I hope you're right. I really was thinking I look pretty good in the mirror.   I'll try. I'm sure I like a couple of things and was already semi consciously dressing for them. But yeah... things I thought looked great from the front I am not so sure about any more. Well, some of them.   I filmed and watched and rewatched videos of many outfits, and my butt is now looking more familiar and less shocking, and there are some outfits where it looks better and some where it looks worse. Tops that are a little longer look better than those that cut off above the half-butt mark (my hips are so large that they are high as well as wide. I look more like an 8 than an X). Mid length skirts and dresses look stumpy, properly long ones look much nicer in my opinion. And I have one form fitting long sweater dress that makes me look outrageously curvy. I recognise that it is objectively very flattering, but I feel somewhat uncomfortable about the curviness, like me merely existing in that shape is sexual. Which is unfair because it's just my human shape and I have to live here.   Anyway I have a lot of wardrobe to replace because stuff has holes in it, is too small, or is stuff that I either talked myself into despite being unsure about, or let Mr Harriet talk me into, or stuff that I now know looks good from the front and terrible from the back. So many wasteful mistakes. But hopefully fewer mistakes from now on. I think I have a formula that works well enough.      Thanks for talking it through. I know discussing body image with an insecure person is not the most fun you can have on a Wednesday. 

No, it's not. And this is going to be blunt, so brace yourself.       You haven't seen that view either. You've seen a video you took of yourself somehow, and you are forgetting that the main reason skilled people get paid huge amounts of money to make professional videos is that it's is extremely difficult to make anyone look good on video. The angle has to be the most flattering one, the light has to be perfect, and then there is hair, makeup, direction, outfit, and camera direction.   In other words, unless you a professional, using professional methods, the video is guaranteed to be unflattering and highly misleading. Whatever others see when they look at you from behind you, as you walk past them, is not what you see on that video. Especially not if those others are attracted to women and are checking you out, because the reason  they're doing that in the first place is because they really like the way your hips sway when you walk, and how that makes your butt bounce just a little bit with every step.       The first step is to stop doing this:     Yes, I know that is incredibly difficult, but if you avoid working on that part, nothing else you do will matter. You could look like young Angelina Jolie at the Oscars, and the only thing you would see would see when you looked at yourself in the mirror would be all the weird things that are wrong and asymmetrical and strangely sized, that makes you so very ugly in your own eyes, and distracts you from the beauty the rest of the world sees.   Look at yourself, and actively look for positive things that you really like. Things that others can see. Then dress to draw attention to those things. That's the first step.  

I mean, I can pose in a fitness-influencer-selfie way and look slim and curvy for a second. But then I look at myself from other angles, or in the videos from behind that I have made of my outfits, and think "Is that how everyone else sees me all the time?" and that's what I feel bad about. I would like to look okay all the time, not just for a second of twisting and sucking in.    I won't argue, but I do wonder about your credentials, you having never seen my figure from behind, which is the view that is currently upsetting me since I discovered it.      That sounds like it would take a lot of energy when my usual instinct is to shrink and cover up. What is the first step?      Well yeah but it seems to me like Homer sucking in his gut for a second. I'd like to feel okay from any angle, you know? 

The exhibition sounds exhausting and amazing, so proud of you for pulling it off, and sober too! Huge achievement. Hope you are proud of yourself too!