sentiment, this is an entirely dysmorphic thing.
Photographs are far more easily scrutinised because they take a single angle, a single frame which cannot be altered. If you're scrutinising yourself in real life one tends to turn, pinch, twist, you're a lot more tactile and critical of varying factors, whereas in a photograph you fixate on a single element and that's it.
Neither scrutinies with an ED sufferer are justified though. Of course, this statement counts to everyone but ME (the person who makes this statement), because I know it's logically true but I personally view myself in a completely different way and judge my own self by a completely different set of rules.
Cinamon, that is something I really despise about the scales, and this ED - and that's the guilty, awful shameful glee I feel when the number on it... the arbitrary little LCD number on my set of scales - is less than it was previously.
It's strange as in every other capacity (my family telling me how much better I look, people saying I'm getting back to my "handsome self" - haha) I LIKE recovery. But that NUMBER. God, why does a stupid number have to count?
I suppose only that individual sufferer can place a bearing on the importance of it, but I personally find it both stupid and critical to "progress".