To just not FEEL that overweight??

[TheHouseOnBellSt]

I'm one stone overweight. That's quite a lot...but I look in the mirror and think "I don't look fat!"

But I must be!

I'm a size 14 on the bottom and a 12 on top..5.7 and 13 stones.

Noeuf can I be rude and ask your age and typical diet please?

Try not to worry about the absolute amount you actually weigh. Get along to the gym and have a proper assessment of your fat and muscle ratio worked out. This will tell you whether your body composition needs to change. It's nigh on impossible to tell from looking and the scales what your fat level is. If you have a body fat % of 30 or higher, then you need to shift it and build muscle, no matter what you weigh or what dress size you wear.

I've gone from a size 8/10 with 30% fat to a size 8 with 22% fat. I look a lot leaner but in fact haven't lost weight. My mantra is eat, sleep, lift, repeat.

I always use the example of my 97 year-old nana who died recently to illustrate the clothes size anomalies. She was an avid shopper in jumble sales and charity shops and she liked to buy me gifts. She would send me a parcel in the post and the clothes would all be a size 14. When I would say to her that I'm a size 8 she would give me this look . To her eye, I looked a size 14 because in her day, today's size 8 was a 14 and she was kind of stuck in that groove iyswim.

I wouldn't say you are overweight to be honest.

Im 5.7 and weigh 14st
BMI is 25 so just over weight. Surely if we are the same height yet your a whole stone lighter than me you can't be that overweight at all?

I just lost a stone (another two to lose to return to the weight I am most happy at) and honestly feel fatter and think I look fatter than before. Gah.

And magic, someone who is 5'7" and weighs 14 stone has a bmi of 30.7, just in the 'obese' category apparently, not 25.

Magic, the nhs calculator says your bmi is over 30 with those measurements?

I was just about to post the same as Mamus. Someone who is 5ft7 and 14 stone is obese (BMI of 30.6) according to the NHS calculator.

I think I'm kind of like you OP (and leedy)... I feel like my bones must be made of lead? At 5'4 and 10st3 you can see my abs and some of my ribs. I look quite toned and have a small waist but big muscly thighs
I was 9st5 a few years ago and was positively scrawny--my boobs were like little flaps. I liked being that weight but literally could not maintain it unless I had starvation rations.

LiD at 5ft5 and 10 stone I look like a little baby elephant . Some people are definitely just heavier than others. Even at 9 stone I look slim rather than scrawny. I don't think I have any abs though

I'm 6'2, 13st 9, 6 months pregnant and my bmi is 24.5. Magic, you need to get a new bmi calculator

Magic you must have done a typo there? BMI of 25 at my height but a stone heavier?

A stone isn't that much stretched over 5'7''

I'm 5'8" close to 14st. Wear 16 top and bottom - it's boobs and hips with me. I want to get down to 10st7lbs but I'm starting to think getting to 12st would be more realistic!

I'm 11stone

Blame dd2 who had me up half the night

I'm genuinely confused by my own post in response to OP's

Clearly more coffee is needed on my end

Sorry OP.

BMI is merely a proxy for body fat : hence why its such a range, because we all have different frames.

If my BMI went up to 25 I'd look like a barrel and be in agony most of the time - because I am lightly built.
A same height same age gym friend looks scrawny if her BMI goes below 23.
We have similar levels of body fat because our skeletons are different shapes (not weights mind, shapes)

I'm 5ft 11 and 12 stone, aiming to lose about a half stone. I'm a pear, 12 on top and 14 bottom half, though pretty toned from exercise. My BMI is fine and I'm not 'overweight' but I still feel like I'm a bit hefty when I see photos, but not when I look in the mirror! Ideally I'd like slimmer legs, alas I was born with rugby playing limbs.

I'm 5ft 5, 11.5 stone. I have massive boobs (and not in a good way, think busty matron, rather than curvaceous glamour girl) but I don't think I look too bad. And then, as someone up thread said, someone will post a picture of me on FB and I'll think 'who is that chunky woman who looks like me?'
Starting Weightwatchers (again!) on Thursday....

166cm/67kg here, BMI of 24.3. I carry a hell of a lot of muscle* and have a very small waist (26") and a decent rack (30FF) in relation to everything else and generally wear a size 10, with the odd 12. I know I could probably stand to lose around 5kg overall, but I find it quite difficult to motivate myself to do that at the moment, particularly considering the fact that I'm in fairly good running shape at the moment - ran my second fastest 5k ever last night.

• 12 years of competitive martial arts growing up did a number on my legs, they are HUGE no matter what I do. Swimming as an adult has helped to balance me out a bit.

I feel the pain of the rugby-limbed - my main forms of exercise as a teenager were swimming, cycling, and dancing, which (combined with a natural tendency to the, er, sturdy peasant limb) means I've always had fairly chunky legs, even at my skinniest.

Most of my extra weight goes on my boobs (fine) and my thighs and arse (less fine).

I'm 5 foot 9 and about 13 and a half stone since I had my youngest (he's 15 months now, and I've just finished feeding him, so on past experience I'll drop about a stone in the next six months without trying). I spent most of my life at 11 and a half so I feel it, but I'm loath to try and diet because I think it just fecks everything up for me - I yoyo then and can be a bit obsessive about it (have OCD and definitely had periods of body dysmorphia when I was young), when really it's only cosmetic. I have a resting bp of about 62, perfect blood pressure and don't drive so walk 5-7 miles a day, most of it uphill with a giant double buggy. I know my diet is reasonable - not perfect, but reasonable - and I'm generally healthy so there's just no impetus anymore. When I dieted before to get below 11 and a half I used to really hate myself. I'd rather be a bit podgy as I am now and less fixated on food and body than thin. If one day I can find a way to get thin without getting miserably obsessed in the process, I'll do it.

TheHouse
42
Don't drink coffee (ever) or eat crisps (rarely) or drink alcohol (very rare)

Morning - tea, fruit,
Afternoon - toast and marmite or quorn sandwich and flavoured rice cakes
Dinner - jacket potato or pasta or stir fry
Evening Salted popcorn and icecream and cereal
2000 calories a day (ocd )

I'm about a stone overweight but only 5'2" so you'd think it would show a lot. But I generally feel fine. I'm pretty fiiiine in my head. I've lost a stone already and don't think I look all that different. How am I hiding all this extra on 5'2" I don't know!

But now I'm 14 weeks pregnant, put on 4 pounds all on my middle I feel fat but I suspect it's because it's all gone in one place, whereas I am usually well-proportioned (read: just a bit fat spread all over!).

This is very interesting isn't it? I am 5ft 9" and was always very slim, size 8/10 all through my 20's & 30's. I am 45 now and in March I weight my heaviest ever at 12.4 and I was totally squeezed into size 12 but refused to
buy new stuff in size 14. I hovered at this size for a few weeks as I dithered about it, then towards the end of April we booked a beach holiday for end of August and i just got determined to tackle it.

I weighed in this morning at 11.6 and still in the size 12. Honestly, I thought I would feel way better after almost a stone off but I still feel heavy. I am apple shaped with long slim arms and legs and small boobs (though for the first time ever my legs were looking chunky to me at 12.4). I would like to get to about 10.7 but would probably be ok with 10.13.

I am amazed at some of the weights and heights that can fit into a size 10.......