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.
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.
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.
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!
My weight only bothers me when it starts affecting my knees.
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!
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’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.
I’d honestly love to loose about 20 pounds to get back to my college weight. It bothers me enough that I only eat twice a day now, but my weight has been pretty stagnant for the last few years. Antidepressants didn’t help (with weight or with other issues).
It bothers me quite a bit, honestly. Being on hormones kind of makes it difficult to maintain a healthy weight for me at times.
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.
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!
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
Somewhat. I’m more annoyed that my belly is more man-ish than woman-ish and is bigger than my chest right now. Now, considering how well… endowed… the AFAB women in my family are and the fact that I’ve only been on hrt for about 5 months, that’s gonna change. But… I feel like the “man belly” and lack of boobage contributes to me being misgendered despite all the people who know me saying I’m already basically fem-drogynous. It’s a struggle not to abuse my hrt meds and take more than I’m supposed to.
I’m 30 damn it, if I’d come out 10yrs ago I’d probably be done transitioning.
Oh well.
Edit: something I like about the furry community is how much body-positive art exists. It used to be that the furry community had the same issues with idealizing anorexia; however, nowadays furry art tends to have a wide variety of body types ranging from relatively typical to chubby, stocky, morbidly obese, etc. Very affirming and helped me learn to be okay with my weight, though I’m still kinda annoyed with how my body fat is actually distributed. >.>
Genetics are weird, sometimes we have very different bodies than the women in our family. My mother and her sisters are five cup sizes away from my cup size. It’s bonkers. If you don’t mind, I’ll put a suggestion below in spoiler text for those days when you want to have a little more ooh la la. Also! Five months is such a short time! I had high estrogen into adulthood and it still took several years to grow to my final cup size. It can happen quickly for many people, some of us are just late bloomers :)
Tap for spoiler
There’s two techniques I know to having a large breast size under clothes. The first one is “chicken cutlets”, which are little chicken breast shaped bra inserts. Place in the cup, then scoop your breast over it. Helps to shimmy the bra band a little as you settle into it, too. (edit:) The internet says there are new types of inserts on the market, so if one doesn’t give a profile you like there’s others to try!
The second one is something I learned from a friend who did gogo dancing. Wear two bras! The first one is usually a strapless pushup that gives the silhouette you like. The outer one needs to be more structurally supportive, cute sports bras can work here.
Also, you can kinda emphasize your chest by wearing different styles of clothes. High rise mom jeans and a crop top can shift the focus from your belly to that cute section of midriff and lead the eyes up from there, that’s something that has worked well for me at any size, even when I was above 35 BMI
It’s a struggle not to abuse my hrt meds and take more than I’m supposed to.
If it helps, unless your current dose is too low taking a higher dose of your HRT meds isn’t going to make their effects happen faster. Your body only makes so much SHBG (Sex hormone binding globulin), which it needs to actually use the estrogen you’re taking.
Interesting. Hmm…
