Finally hitting my 100 pound step, last week, switched on something on in my brain — something I didn’t expect.

102 pound shrimp!

When I crossed that 100 pound mark, and I sat down to take my latest measurements, I was still in the “nice number, let’s keep going” mindset. (I still am.) But then I decided to make an animated GIF of the profile photos I’ve had since starting my journey. I did it for me. Sometimes, looking from the inside out, my mental picture of myself doesn’t jive with the actual changes taking place; there’s a lag.

I take a new profile pic roughly every twenty pounds; I took a new one at 100, but honestly, I didn’t really think there were evident changes from the last pic. I was wrong. I shocked myself. I’ve reached a point in my weight loss when changes become evident more quickly because a twenty pound loss now is a larger percentage of my total body weight than it was, before. If a couple weeks go by between visits with a friend, they mention changes I don’t see.

Yep, that’s my incredible shrinking face.

I know, from previous experience, that my toughest mental times are ahead; they have arrived. My biggest challenge isn’t in actually losing the weight; it’s in learning how to live — and be comfortable — in my own skin. I’ve hid behind fat; being fat makes me invisible in many ways. It’s amazingly easy for me to dissolve into the shadows, and although I know I come across as a vocal person online, I am quite introverted in real life — I’m more than happy to be the quiet one in the corner.

This is the point I have been preparing for; that turning point where I must force my brain to evolve with my body. Anyone who has been at various weight points in their life knows this truth: people do treat you differently, depending on your weight and their perceptions of you. Sometimes, it’s subtle; a friend who’s suddenly willing to hug you when they didn’t, before, or getting waited on the moment you walk into a store.

Sometimes, it’s blatant. Years ago, when I lost 140 pounds, a friend of mine complimented me on how good I was doing. Her husband piped up and said he liked me better, now that I wasn’t fat, because I wasn’t ugly anymore. I was shocked. (I assure you, his wife unloaded a few choice words in his direction!)

Regardless, my mental issues before weren’t with what I was able to do with my improved body strength and abilities; it was with the changes in how I was perceived. While some might find the last example outrageous (and yes, I did, too), it’s no different than what any number of people might be thinking without verbalizing it. Perception changes how we treat others. Although my circle of friends and my surroundings had not changed, I was living in an alien world that I was uncomfortable with.

This is why I have purposely constructed this mental fortress to deal with these changes as they happen, instead of being shocked into the frightening dissonance I witnessed, before. I know what that dissonance is, now, and I choose to resolve it by learning how to live this new life in increments, rather than sliding back into a familiar comfort zone where I can disappear.

The hardest work — and the best rewards — are still in front of me.