To ask about your relationship with your weight over the years?

[BeanCalledPickle]

I was looking at my medical records online and I have weighed much the same my entire adult life. This is around 78/80 kgs which, at 5ft7 is a bit overweight but not massively so. I have weighed up to 95kgs and no less than 70kg though always seem to end up back around this point. I’m otherwise fit etc and can knock through thirty miles of running a week.

I’ve alternated between hating my weight, thinking it’s ok, desperately dieting, gaining it back and repeat. I’m not sure if I subscribe to the notion that we all have a weight we are ‘meant’ to be as surely that shouldn’t be overweight?

Anyway my question is really how have you felt about your weight over the years? I’m 40 now and I think I actually look ok most of the time. Will I get to 50 and bitterly regret time spent dieting etc?

I have struggled with my weight since I was around 9, I because very heavy as a pre teen, then lost a lot of weight as a teenager, put some back on and have yoyo'd ever since, right now I'm not over weight but would love to shift a bit and I just cant. I don't think I will ever be as slim as I would like again.

Never worried about my weight until I was late 20's. Lost 3st and spent several years that way. Never felt truly happy or confident but I was size 8.

I'm now almost 40, arthritic, fat (size 18), use food as a comfort and hate myself almost hourly.

I have this eternal fear that I will be diagnosed with something awful and have this awful moment of realisation that I have spent most of my adult life hating my entirely functional and fit body that is capable of so much for no real reason.

When I left home at 21 to do my nurse training I was around 8 and a half stones. I didn't eat particularly well and lost around a stone, over the first year or so.

Once I moved into a shared house and access to cooking was a lot easier I gained it back and continued to gain until I got to 9 and a half stone.

I was that weight until I was 38 and lost a stone then fell pregnant and went back up to 9st 12 when my DD was 2.

Five years ago I decided to lose weight and get fit and now at 46 I've been hovering around 7 stones for over three years now, I can seem to mange to maintain this.

I am very short at 4ft 11.

I remember being told I was fat while shopping for clothes in Mothercare (so God knows what age I would have been, but young) and I recall feeling self-conscious of my fat thighs when I did ballet (which I gave up at 11, so again, quite young). I look back of photos of myself from my childhood and I was a perfectly normal size, albeit curvier than some of my friends.

I don't remember a time that I wasn't worried about my weight, I was constantly trying to 'diet' and being thwarted by my parents who insisted that I ate regular meals and wouldn't indulge my attempts at faddiness, much to my frustration.

Now, I am heavier than I would like to be and am constantly conscious of my weight/size/shape. It is literally always there, no matter what I am doing and I wonder if there is a size at which I would be happy or if I just didn't realise how good I had it when I was younger.

Everyone else in my family is really slim - technically underweight if you looked at their BMI but perfectly healthy, just naturally thin. I was always "the fat one" and I cannot see myself as anything else. I am 5ft 8 and a size 10-12, BMI of 21 and relatively fit. I know I am a healthy weight and I look "normal"... but still see myself as "the fat one" in any group - even when I can see that other people are heavier than me in my heart I cannot comprehend that. It's weird.

I became overweight as a young teenager, and stayed that way, more or less, for the next 30 years - sometimes heavier, something a bit thinner. I didn't feel as though I had any control over my eating. Then for several years I would go through a cycle of losing 20lb, and regaining it. I always loved being thinner and hated putting weight back on. Finally since I got to my late 50s I have managed to keep to a healthy size, and now I do believe I don't have to be fat again. I wish it hadn't taken so long!

I remember when I was 13 I gained puppy weight with puberty (having been a tall beanpole kid) which I really struggled with, I couldn’t really shake it and I have a vivid memory aged 15 of eating sausage rolls in the park with a friend, and a group of boys walked past us and sang ‘who ate all the pies’ which devastated me. Generally I felt quite uncomfortable in myself, hated clothes shopping because always got upset when things didn’t fit, so I wouldn’t buy any fashionable clothes and hid in big jeans and fleeces while my friends wore belly tops. Although looking back, I was nowhere near as big as i felt.

I lost the weight in my late teens, was pretty slim at uni and in my 20s. Gained a bit in my late 20s.

I’m early 30s now and although I’d like to be slimmer I’m pleased to say I’m generally quite happy in my own skin and at peace with my body. I know how to dress for my shape, enjoy fashion now, my DP makes me feel sexy and I’m generally happy with my lot in life.

I used to think ‘when I lose weight I can do X’, or ‘I can’t do that until I lose the weight’, as if a slimmer me would magically transport me to this perfect life with no issues and nothing holding me back. I have learnt now, although it’s been a long road, that I can’t put my life on hold because I may or may not be thinner in future.

It has its ups and downs . . .

I honestly didn’t think I would ever be overweight as I had been slimish my entire life (very skinny child). Had children and then a bereavement in my late 30s and hit my 40th 3.5 stone heavier than I was at 30. Finally starting to see the wood for the trees but I think I may have mucked up my metabolism with a couple of years of yo yo dieting. So now I feel a bit wary about my future.