To think we all have a weight we ‘fall’ at and to change that requires a lot of work

[Oopupsideyourhead]

So, I am 5 foot 8 and 11 stone 11- I am just at healthy weight in BMI terms and a size 12/14. If I do nothing apart from eat healthily and do a bit of exercise (Zumba once a week, a few days of 10,000 steps) this is the weight I stay at and its actually a hell of a lot of work to get to the magic stone lighter for me. I find it really hard to fit the required effort into daily life with a full time job, 2 kids, running a house etc

Aibu to think that everyone has a weight they fall at- a natural weight- and to change that is actually loads of work?

I would like to be a stone lighter- but i am just not sure how easy that is anymore!! I am also 45 and perimenopausal so shifting weight is actually hard. And do I actually need to lose weight?!

YANBU. I think this is right. If you eat healthily do a reasonable amount of exercise you naturally fall around a certain weight. I'm lucky that mine lies right in the middle of the healthy range. Others aren't so lucky.

I just feel like I am constantly trying to lose the magic stone but its really hard- I am not overweight, I am healthy generally- It just feels att to hard these days. Maybe its about accepting myself as I am though! I could do with being toned I guess but thats only for vanity reasons!!

I agree up to a point but you might find the weight that you are happy at, sneaks up as you get older if you don't keep on top of it.

Annoyingly the only way to keep on top of it, seems to be to eat less and less as you get older.

*all too hard

I think if I go above 12 stone tho, I make more of an effort! I guess thats my no go area!!

Could you up your activity levels? 10000 steps a day isn’t actually very much (sorry!) and is nowhere near enough to lose weight.

Maybe do a big hike at the weekends if walking is your thing?

@saucy part of my problem is that I struggle to find any time. I do go on weekend walks/ a Saturday run too when I can- its fitting it in. I also do the occasional dvd at home like Davina etc. It always seems to be exercise that gets sacrificed when life gets busy

I don’t doubt you mate- I have the same problem meself. Modern life isn’t really conducive to calorie burn.

Have you got a late-night shop near you? I’m tracking steps too, and I find even something like popping round to the Co-op for a loaf of bread after the kids are in bed can add another 3,500 steps to my target.

I think we focus too much on weight. Yes bmi is a good indicator of general health but where your weight falls in that range (and probably slightly outside of it) will depend on body shape and composition.

I also believe on the whole that pear shapes generally weigh more than apple shapes but can carry it better. For example I am a stone heavier than my friend who is the same height but carries her weight around her middle yet I look slimmer.

I'm healthier at the upper end of my weight range. I am pear shaped and very muscular. At the bottom of the range (which I tried to maintain for my 20s) I felt generally shit and had no periods so that weight wasn't right for me.

I'm 5.7 and usually weigh around 11 stone and I'm not fat (post partum at the mo so not quite there) and I'm very healthy. Although there's bound to be people on here that tell me that I must be. You sound perfectly fine but fixated on the scale. Why not incorporate a bit more exercise and judge yourself by your clothes and how you look instead?

I agree. I starved myself stupid when I was younger and thought that was why I was slim. Then I decided life was miserable and my eating habits probably weren't healthy and thought I'd just eat whatever I was hungry for (without going overboard). The difference was pretty minimal. I still wore the same clothes and if anything they just looked better on.

I know that makes me really lucky, but it's for that reason I don't look down on anyone, no matter their size. I used to think I was something special for being able to starve myself slim and if everyone just put the effort in that I did they would be too. Realised what a dick I was I found out it was just easy for me, and that's nothing to be proud of.

It's just nature, and I'm lucky that I'm alive at a time when being slim is seen as the ideal. It wasn't always this way, and I'd have been cursing my lot in a time when soft, womanly curves were desirable.

Animals do have a particular weight that their hormones defend by making them satiated/hungry at different times, which is why you rarely see overweight animals in the wild even when there's an abundance of food.

However, being overweight is generally a sign that this system has gone wrong - generally because we use lots of non hunger hormone reasons to eat (emotional / calories that come along with alcohol/caffeine / social etc.) It's possible that the same hormonal control of weight when it's correct can continue to work when overweight and actually defend the higher weight - if it is, then it's one of the reasons why exercise can help to play a bigger role than simply the calorie burns because it also acts on those same hormones.

As long as you don't fuck up your metabolism and attitudes to food by dieting I do think that most people have a "natural" weight they gravitate towards - often not quite as slim as they would like of course.