We often have a terrible relationship with our weight. We’re too fat, too thin, our weights on the wrong part of our body etc. How much does your weight bother you?
Please don’t post your weight, numbers can be triggering for people with a history of disordered eating
I had some unhealthy eating habits in the first year I had a kid, and I seem to be able to maintain the same size easily but getting smaller is hard. I actually don’t mind what I see in the mirror, I think my shape is nice and I’m healthy enough to do all the things I enjoy, but what really bothers me is I can’t fit into my favorite clothes 😭 I love clothes, I love playing dress up, and in the decade prior to having a baby I had found some amazing second hand finds that brought me joy and delight. I have a panoply of pretty things that helped define my personal style, but now only a small fraction of my wardrobe fits me. I can still wear some pieces, and I’ve found a couple new things for my current size, but I look in my closet with longing to wear my beautiful clothes again.
My biggest issue with my weight is feeling like I can’t talk to anyone about it because I struggle to keep weight on, rather than lose it. I had to see a nutritionist years ago because I was bordering on underweight. Normally I can keep to a specific number, but when I stop paying attention I start loosing it.
I’m “skinny fat”. But I can’t talk to many people about the problems of maintaining weight because from the outside they think I’m fit and healthy and should shut up because gaining is “easy”.
I have cystic fibrosis so gaining weight has been a lifelong struggle for me, I had a feeding tube for ten years because I wasn’t able to stop losing weight when I was really sick. All the “must be nice” sneers are especially obnoxious when your low weight is part of a vicious disease actively killing you. Everyone is incredibly rude about it, accusing me of having an eating disorder, rude remarks, dirty looks… I very much believe all bodies are beautiful bodies and it’s hurtful when larger women shit all over me despite the fact I defend them
I went through a bad period where my life basically imploded a couple years back. My mental health took a beating as a result and between that and the stress i lost a shitton of weight. Mentioned i’d dropped down to the same weight i was at 17.
The number of “congrats” comments i got were sickening. A fucking 45 year old woman should not weigh the same as a 17 year old active gymnast
I’m not thrilled with my weight but mainly just because I want to be fit and healthy.
I don’t want to be strong like man who look pretty. I want to be strong like bitch that fight bears in the forest.
Strong like a bitch that fights bears in the forest? I love that, it’s my new life motto
#ManOrBear?
The two words that did this for me: weight training. Just don’t do exercises for fast-twitch muscles. That will make you look like a mutant. Go for the slow-moving, endurance-building exercises. They barely show, but wow is the difference in your life profound!
In 2020 I hit a dark stretch. (Something I can never understand. I mean why would being locked into a small apartment living in absolute dread for two months possibly impact me negatively!?) During the lockdown I got into eating whether I was hungry or not. It continued afterward and I continued for a good while. Finally in October 2022 a former student of mine who’d just opened a small gym suggested I train under him. By this point I was a good amount over my former weight, and I was feeling it. So had you asked me this in October, I’d have said “a whole lot!”.
After lifting three times a week religiously for two years I was back at my former comfy weight and a whole lot stronger and with a whole lot more endurance than I’d ever had before. So now? Despite occasional fluctuations when I overindulge or slack off on my maintenance training, my weight doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
I know I shouldn’t, but I’ve always had an issue with my weight. I went to an all girls school where anorexia was a way of life and my mother was really controlling about food. I used to restrict horribly as a teenager and was underweight. I wouldn’t eat a lot of foods and sadly used to purge.
Even know it’s ingrained into me that Eating Is Wrong. I don’t weigh myself as it can get obsessive. It’s not helped by being in my 40s, all the weight is on my belly and I can’t lose it easily. I notice the difference with lads at work, they just eat something if they want it. Women at work just don’t.
On the plus side I’m better than I used to be regarding it!
My weight only bothers me when it starts affecting my knees.
ive been off social media except reddit, discord, and lemmy for a decade, and i was genuinely confused at labeling that girl “fat”. (and the guy, too).
i think im healing. i needed that hope today
There’s a general pattern here.
When women are subservient and “in their place” the fashions are women with “some meat on their bones”. You know. “Zaftig.”
When women get a hint of self-reliance and power, suddenly the beauty standard changes. People held up as an icon of beauty are suddenly “fat” and “disgusting”. Only women who look like they’re starving themselves are attractive.
This is a pattern that once you see you can’t unsee.
I was overweight through my teens and into my adult life. I finally got down to a healthy weight by having a partner who would hold me accountable about working out and eating healthy. I am at a healthy weight now (not my ideal) but I have fat in the wrong places that I can’t get rid of (lower belly, thighs). I look good in most clothes, but I hate wearing bathing suits and yoga pants (I love yoga so I still do) because they emphasize those parts. 😭
I guess to answer the question, most of the time I’m good with the way my body looks with clothes on, but I struggle with it still.
Also, anyone who has lost major weight knows it takes a long time for your body to “bounce back” (the saggy skin drawing back) and my body isn’t quite finished with that yet. I will say, it’s so much better than it was for anyone experiencing this. It just takes time.
I’m glad to say I’ve developed a much better relationship with my weight over the last couple of decades. I had just crossed into the “Obese” BMI category before I decided I needed to make a change, and since then I’ve lost just over 1/5th of my total weight. At the rate I’m currently going I’ll reach my old goals in another couple of years, but since starting hormone therapy and developing hips I’m now much more comfortable with carrying a bit of bellyfat and my goals now are less about reaching some arbitrary number as finding a happy equilibrium between my desire to be active and my desire to enjoy sweets.
Holy shit that’s incredible! You did really well that’s a major change and hard work.
All I did was start tracking my weight once or twice a day with an app that averages out the last few weeks to estimate my caloric balance. Turns out that I only needed small changes to diet and exercise to get into a persistent (if somewhat unstable) decline, quitting sodas except for special occasions is probably most of what got me down from my peak weight to the level this graph started at:
(Cropped out all the numbers except for dates, each horizontal line on this chart is 4 lbs)
What’s fun is how you can see my general stress levels and major life events listed out here precisely. You can watch Covid fuck me up, then a bump from moving to a new state that fell off when the old house finally sold. That big spike started on the day I realized I was the only thing left keeping me from starting hormone therapy, and ended the day when I finally talked to my partners about it and got (most of) their blessings 🥰. The actual day I started hormone therapy is buried in that long decline that got me back on track.
Anyways, I guess my point is that life happens and we do our best when we aren’t stressing out about it. Baby steps are usually all it takes to start buulding momentum for real change.
A lot. I am disabled and I have been exercising as much as I possibly can. It’s not much, but I try to still always stay moving so my joints don’t hurt so bad. If I keep up, it only hurts when the weather is changing.
Untreated ADHD, a demanding job, and a broken body is a bad combo.
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It bothers me quite a bit, honestly. Being on hormones kind of makes it difficult to maintain a healthy weight for me at times.
I have been up and down the scale for most of my life. My main issue with my weight is how I’m treated at different sizes. People like and respect thin me, but I’m a pain in the butt and not worth anyone’s time at my high weights. It’s very difficult to not internalize that
I’ll bet… it’s like your worth changes depending on it. I’m sorry you’ve had those experiences
I’m not considered overweight based on my height, but I weigh about 5-10 pounds more than I’d like to, since any excess weight seems to go to my tummy. I was a little mortified when the internet invented a new word to make people feel inadequate – skinny fat – because, yep, that’s me. 😮💨 I can hide my stomach pretty well with clothes, and people say I’m thin, but it can hurt a little looking in the mirror, and swimming is out of the question.
I work out every day, but I just can’t seem to get get the flat tummy I had in my college days.
Skinny fat is kinda me! It’s all in my belly I look pregnant, it’s bizarre and I’m really conscious of it. I’ve found since I hit 40 that’s got worse and the last 12 months it’s been really bad. I’m having to change how I dress cos dresses are more forgiving than trousers
I love high-waisted jeans for the same reasons! I can get into all my old dresses, but they can be a little tight, so those are for special occasions only until I have a flat tummy again 🙃
Ah high waisted jeans… especially in stretchy fabric
Is it peri menopause? My mom gets a really bloated tummy which is very similar to a little pregnant belly. She read it’s very common and can last for like up to ten years, which sucks. None of her normal clothes or styles work on this completely new body type.
I’ve been wondering that, I don’t have any other symptoms though. I know that’s gonna be the next big thing in my life and I’m not looking forward to it!
A lot. But I can’t seem to fix it. I recently got a physical to see if something was in my way, and nope, I’m 100% totally healthy according to my labs. So it’s just willpower, I guess, or lack thereof. I know I can’t wish for an easy fix and I shouldn’t be asking for health problems but it just makes me feel like I’m a failure because I can’t get myself under control.
I too, am according to labs, 100% healthy.
I realized when I lived in a walkable city, with public transportation, within riding distance (bike) to my place of employment it was really easy to keep active day to day. I would walk to the grocery store, ride my bike to my friends house, walk to the corner store, ride to work, constantly outdoors in my city. I kept fit doing nothing else. No gym, no going for a run just for the fuck of it, just daily life.
Since moving to the burbs surrounded by stroads with no walkability, my weight slowly peaked to where I am today.
I still, lol, have bitched about this so many times, including to my doctor, I am still angry that my favorite grocer is .6 miles measured directly from my front door (through wild woods and swamp/river there is no path). Instead, I have to take a highway to get there. There could be a walk way from my trailer park full of old folks and families to the store, a bridge over the river, its more a stream. But there’s not, you must get into a car and drive a highway to the next exit.
Absurd.
I cannot discount this car centric part of our daily life has a massive impact on our weights and activity levels throughout our lives. I dont want to run around my boring neighborhood with no shade or crosswalks, just to get sweaty for “personal gains”. Personally, I need more purpose than self care. I want to have it built into my life.
Thats the easy fix. But it’s not so easy, I can’t move, and my opinion here is in the minority amongst my community.
I’m going to have to start walking/running more in my stupid boring neighborhood because now in year 4 of being a sahm, I never leave my 1/4 arce lot anymore.
I feel like a failure everyday. Just know you’re not alone.
Hugs, I can totally relate to that. My kids are in elementary and I spend soooo much time in my car. In some ways, my car is a bit of an introvert sanctuary; I can always retreat there when I need a break from helping at their school or work or whatever. But I eat so many meals on the go, in my car. I don’t walk enough.
I also don’t like cooking. I don’t like to spend time making food so I find myself reaching for easy things, and often easy = frozen or takeout. I also have a sweet tooth. I know weight is made in the kitchen so a more active lifestyle probably wouldn’t be enough, even though it’d be a huge step in the right direction.
I keep basically no ultra processed food in the house. Sometimes there are cheese its/pretzls or cheap bread for the kid’s peanut butter and jellys. I don’t eat it. Its for the young man and the old man I live with lol
Sweets I have to make myself. I can cook. I only bake once a month or so. Every fucking meal in this house is prepared by me.
Did i make homemade beef and bean empanadas? Did i fucking use 250g of butter in the dough? Did I fry the bitches in grapeseed oil? The fuck i did and I ate two of em for dinner with guac.
I take my coffee black, sometimes with a gram or two of sugar, but not everyday. I drink water. I fry shit in oil like once a year. I make salads with olive oil and lemon juice dressing. We eat mostly chicken, I have beans, a recipe that keeps em vegan, rotating in my house for me. I lay off salt. The only chips you’ll find in my house regularly are toritilla chips for salsa because its a good snack for the boys in my house. I snack if fucking baby carrots. I found keeping an open bag of baby carrots on the top shelf of the fridge makes them an easy target for the snacking urges.
I’ve learned to not shop the middle isles at the store. If I was a dessert I have to spend 1-3 (or more) hours in the kitchen working for it. Mediterranean salads are also really popular in my house. Roasted chicken, roasted broccoli, roasted all the veggies tbh.
Im still fat. I’d have to starve myself to lose weight without activity. That’s not healthy. Active lifestyle is healthy, and for me, plays such a larger role in my weight than food. I am far more muscular than most women I think on average and need to use my body. I watched some landscapers doing some hard labor the other day and I want to do that. Let me get paid to dig dirt, Ill do it, might die, but I’ll do it. Men are favored for these jobs. I’ve worked them before but I have to beg to be hired. And now, fat chance in hell they will give me a shot being an older gal.
But I hate working out to just work out. I miss having a social circle who liked hiking because nature is cool. And I hate that lonelyness keeps me home. People used to be like, “hey come on lets go!” And I could protest, I dont want to and they would say “nonesense lets go!” And we’d go. I need external motivation more now than ever. Maybe I’ll piss myself off enough to make action.
These conversations are helping. I had a goal to get fit again by 40. Im a few months into being 37. Idk man.
I want walkability for myself, and for our future generations so they dont have to own a car if they don’t want to. The US can do better, especially where I live in New England. We have the density to make it worth it. It’s going to take such a long time though, I doubt to see a less carcentric culture form within my lifetime.
Anyway. I followed this woman’s recipe for the empanada dough. I dont speak hardly any Spanish but was able to follow her technique, with only help with google translate to find out how much manteca (butter/fat) to use as I was halving, … halfing… cutting her recipe in half. I was really proud of my empanadas the other day anyway lol empanada recipe
And this is her charros frijoles recipe which I make but skip the meat. I always have some on hand for when I dont want meat. Charros Frijoles
Am I in love with this woman who’s name I don’t even know? About as much as I am in love with her outdoor kitchen, yes.
I cant help but to see all the things she cooks, yet, she’s a healthy weight. Outdoor living man, makes an impact. If you can’t tell I hate diet culture and car culture lol. Its frustrating because we can do better and yet society in the states is not set up to favor humanity as it stands today.
“Your fat because you eat like shit” doesn’t cut it for me. It’s foolish.
Thank you, it helps to hear this perspective, truly. The food thing is really hard for me, but I also know that the only times in my life that I was able to keep to a plan was when I was walking regularly as part of it. That’s when I saw results. I couldn’t keep up with a weight-loss plan unless I was taking regular walks. I’m trying to keep that in mind as I reset lately. Your words make me feel like it’s the thing I should focus on the most and honestly, it’s easier than the food part for me so why not try it? And stop beating myself up over food.
