I'm a size 16 and I think I'm pretty hot

[MermaidApocalypse]

Just to even out the fat shaming on another thread. I'm a size 14-16. I can still fit in jeans I wore in sixth form college, I've always been this way. I have stayed a similar size through physical jobs, sedentary jobs, two pregnancies, breastfeeding, having a personal trainer, driving and sitting at a desk all day. I think that for some of us this is our healthy size.
Despite this I have to acknowledge the science, excess calories minus insufficient exercise does cause weight gain. Saying that my GP isn't worried as I've not gained weight in a short space of time, I've stayed the same for 16 years. I did once get down to a 12 but I had to try so hard, 18 hour fasts, exercise four days a week. I know women who stay at a 12 doing sweet F.A!

The things that I hate hearing are that people who are a size 14 to 18 are unhealthy. My previous job was being the manager of a health food shop. I lifted boxes of dried pulses, nuts, oats all day every day. Twice a week the delivery van used to park two streets down and we would have to carry 40+ boxes back to the shop and up the stairs to the storeroom. Do you know how many skinny people couldn't do that, even once? I can lift 25kg without much effort, if the tits didn't get in the way, I'd make a good weightlifter!

Clothes size is arbitrary because we can’t actually see the clothes on and how they fit. I can fit anything from an 8-14 depending on the shop and depending on how tight/loose I’d like the garment to be.

There are two arguments happening here. One is that large girls can be attractive, sexy, hot in bed. Attraction is arbitrary too. Different people are attracted to different people for different reasons. Different people have differing levels of self confidence and differing ideas about what they would like to look like.

There is a standard for what constitutes a healthy weight though. We, as a nation, have become very confused about what it is ok to eat. We overeat and we’re too used to overeating. I used to have an overweight BMI, I was ‘fit’ in that I did lots of sport and exercise and thought I had lots of energy. I ate too much; lots of healthy, balanced meals, but then too many high calorie snacks and pub lunches squeezed in.

I’ve changed how I eat, lowered the quantity, and I really restrict junk. I’m much slimmer and I have even more energy. This is the bit that people get confused about, they feel that skinny people deny themselves and must be miserable. Pp have said things like ‘I should be a bigger girl because to be smaller requires constant dieting’. The thing is, we don’t actually need the quantity of food most of us eat, we’re just used to it.

70 years ago, we didn’t eat so much processed crap, we had three much smaller meals a day. Nowadays people overeat for various reasons; boredom, comfort, ‘treating themselves’, etc. We’re being marketed at all the time. Many people don’t properly understand nutrition. Our poor relationships with food is a problem that is usually instilled in us in childhood and is complex and poorly understood.

I’ve seen so many social media photos this week of parents posting photos of children hugging Happy Meal boxes this week. It’s so bizarre, we’re celebrating their addiction to high fat, super salty junk food.

Just reread my post, it’s really poorly written. Sorry about that, was multitasking. Hopefully the point gets across though.

Agree goat. Looking at the general public about a third overweight.

I was happy enough at a size 14. Recently lost the weight and even happier and fitter as a size 10.

I often put comments on these threads about how it’s all about health...but they are never received well. I’ve been trying to work out why, because it is an indisputable fact that being overweight Is bad for your health.

It seems to me that fat conversations are just very divisive - you are or you aren’t - and people who are feel very judged. I guess this comes from big underlying cultural stigmas right back to the 7 deadly sins, specifically gluttony.

If you are fat, you blame yourself for some lack of willpower and being gluttonous.

I don’t actually believe that at all.

There is no way on earth that 67% of the UK population have suddenly lost their willpower and become ‘gluttonous’. Something else is going on.

The obesity levels started rising at a population level in the late 70s / early 80s, just as dietary advice changed to say that to lose weight you need to go low fat and count calories. Many other things happened too at that time...the explosion of convenience food, fast food, food marketed as a pleasure. It created a perfect storm.

How I see it, there is no individual who has any sort of moral failing because they are overweight. They don’t have a lack of willpower. But what they do have (in many cases) is a false belief that calories are the only thing that matter, that fat makes you fat (it doesn’t) and a serious addiction to carbs / sugar that makes it biologically impossible to lose weight...and that all comes down to the woefully inaccurate information they receive does not tell them this and it is slowly killing them. I find it pretty scandalous tbh because this require government intervention not shaming of individuals on mumsnet.

Very well said, Goatinthegarden. Our diet is not what it used to be half a century ago. It has far more high sugar/salt/saturated fat and 'fast food'. Most people don't understand proper nutrition - it needs to be taught to everyone, along with how to cook healthily.

Really? I have a friend who is 6ft and she is indeed thin at size 12, but how tall must one be to be 'very thin' as size 16?

Yes, really! I am 177 cm tall and weigh 58 kg. I have very broad shoulders, long arms and long torso (as in, men's jumpers/shirts fit me properly but women's are too narrow/short.). I've never had a small waist, it's just my shape. I do find UK sizing baffling, it isn't consistent between brands either. However I have never been a size 12 in ANY brand, I'm always at least a 14. It's quite funny because everyone thinks I'm smaller (not shorter) than I am. I've had that all my life, people who've given me clothes find they're too small, without exception. Or if asked to guess my size, again, they get it wrong, too small! I'm a bit like a tardis, I look smaller than I am!

I used to weigh 20 kg more than that (due to hypothyroidism developing in my 50s) but now I've lost the weight (very slowly over a couple of years without trying, probably due to dietary changes I made due to hypo and taking thyroid hormone) and then lost even more when I got food intolerances. I am not healthy. I wasn't healthy at my higher weight, and I'm not healthy now. It has never been about the weight, but about health issues.

The obesity levels started rising at a population level in the late 70s / early 80s, just as dietary advice changed to say that to lose weight you need to go low fat and count calories. Many other things happened too at that time...the explosion of convenience food, fast food, food marketed as a pleasure. It created a perfect storm.

Yes, this is true. Also there is a LOT of hypothyroidism about now, especially affecting women. Although not every hypo person gains weight, most do. In that case, if you are hypo you won't be able to shift weight no matter how little you eat. You will keep on gaining. It isn't your fault, but your lack of thyroid hormones that causes the problems. You may in time also develop diabetes due to insulin resistance, and you will certainly have high cholesterol. It's hard enough to deal with the symptoms of hypo without adding in the judgement of people saying one is fat or lazy or not trying hard enough to lose weight.

@crunchycarrot your post just goes to show that clothes size really isn’t a good indicator of anything. I’m 178cm, 66kg and a size 8-10 (sometimes even a 6 on top) and if I were to just guess by your height and weight I’d guess at you being a 6-8. But I have a small bone structure - small shoulders, rib cage etc.

Personally I really don’t care what other people weigh. It does not good to my mental health to be comparing, or theirs to be judged. We all have a personal responsibility to ourselves to be honest, accountable and sensible with regards to our health. I’ve been extremely underweight (anorexia) and at the top of a healthy BMI (post-partum) - never overweight so I don’t have that experience. In both scenarios however I felt like my body wasn’t at its best from a health perspective. That doesn’t mean all underweight people are sick, nor that all heavier people are sedentary. It was my personal experience.

Now, my health goal is to have a decent chance of surviving a zombie apocalypse! I run about 40k a week (mental health and physical health), work on my strength and flexibility, drink very very little alcohol and eat in a way that I truly believe is good for me (Keto). My goal is always to be able to look myself in the eye and honestly say I’m taking good care of myself - because of my history with food that’s really integral, and I have many friends (smaller and larger) who worry about weight, diet etc and I think if they embraced this philosophy a little more it might help. I don’t give out much advice though - I know where the boundaries are! Also my advice would be “eat Keto and run” and that doesn’t work for the majority of the population...

This proves the point that height is very relative .

Sorry , relevant !

Hypothyroidism is a hormonal problem, and as with so many of the health issues associated with obesity, it is caused by bad diet. Most people don’t even associate what they eat with their hormone health...again it’s a scandalous level of misinformation that people receive.

The lethal toxic and deadly combination of high fat / high carbohydrate food (e.g. pizza, pasta dishes, burgers etc) is marketed because it is so ‘moreish’, and sets people up to fail. It literally causes a breakdown in willpower because of hormonal responses, so it is biological not psychological. Food manufacturers know this, the pringles strapline “once you pop you can’t stop” takes a sinister turn if you actually understand what their product does biologically to your body.

Yet we all talk about calories. And willpower.

The conversation needs to move on, we need to be looking deep into the food environment. And it needs government intervention. I’d be furious if I was ill with obesity related conditions because the advice id been given for years was literally incorrect (eat less move more)

@CrunchyCarrot I actually don't agree with the tall thing. There's no way a size 16 would look thin even at 6ft. I'm 5ft 10 and do not look thin even in size 14 clothes. Fat is not exactly the word I would use either. More stocky. You can carry more being tall and still look slim but 16 is pushing it considerably. I looked extremely thin, lollipop head thin at 11st 7 which would be very overweight for some shorter women.

@oohnicevase what is that pic supposed to be saying? All of those women look fairly big including the tall one. I don't think she looks any better than the others

This celebration of unhealthy bodies really needs to stop.

This is a story about my cat, but it sheds light on how we perceive food, so bear with me...

When I got my cat, she was a timid little thing in the cat rescue. I did my homework, bought good quality cat food and a measuring cup. Fed her according to the instructions. But the portions looked meagre and she gobbled them up fast. So I started giving her a ‘tiny bit more’ (literally three or four little biscuits). Every time I fed her.

By the time I took her for her next vet check up, my vet told me she was obese. She looked gorgeous to me. Vet showed me picture of a scrawny looking cat, told me I was aiming for that. It was proper hard work to get her back to size. I weighed out meagre portions, she complained a bit, I felt bad all the time. Eventually, she got used to it and she’s now a perfect weight and is content with her food.

I’ve reassessed my image of what a healthy cat should look like and I look back on photos of her when she was bigger and feel horrified that I thought she was ok. She was never massive, but she was clearly on the chunkier side.

I decided that her portions were too small, so started overfeeding her. She got used to being given that much and had to be weaned off it.

We have looked at restaurant portions and takeaway portions and we have become used to filling ourselves up all the time. Any less and people consider that we are starving ourselves. Those chocolate share bags are a good example. They sell them in the supermarket for £1, I know kids who get a bag each as a ‘Friday Treat’ with a movie. An adult portion is about a fifth of the bag, but they’re having that normalised as an acceptable treat. These kids look a healthy weight, but the damage will appear years from now when their metabolism slows and they have a mindset that they can and should eat that much chocolate.

I would argue that bad diet and malnutrition are not always synonymous with weighing more. I am trying to lose weight so I've been counting calories. Look at my 'normal' day vs a day where I'm trying to stick to create a calorie deficit.
Normal
Breakfast: Porridge with oat milk and berries
Snack; Apple
Lunch: Salmon with rye bread and gherkins
Snack: Rice cakes with houmous
Dinner: beef stew, four new potatoes, greens
Snack: yogurt

Calorie restricted
No meals until 6pm
3 diet cokes
Slimming world ready meal
Apple
Milky Way bar

If health is the optimum then option one is clearly better. Yet option two is going to help me to lose weight.
Yes I really do eat well. Sorry to let you all down as I know so many of you rely on a stereotype of a fatty with a dairy milk constantly to hand. Like I said, I used to work in health food.
The fact is that there is not one type of fat person. There are many. The reason I happen to be losing weight now is being motivated and feeling optimistic about things. I have a new job, I am studying for a second degree, I haven't got time to eat.
Compare that to Sindy who is at home with very little disposable income or opportunities. If she gets £3 per week for treats and spends that on a dairy milk bar and a bottle of full fat coke rather than a £2.99 punnet of grapes, telling her she's fat isn't helping. It's just going to make her feel worse.
Giving her opportunities, helping her to think of some goals, engaging her in some community projects or exercise groups is way way more helpful than finger wagging about her size.

@Floatyboat who's celebrating? I'm simply putting my point across that I don't hate myself. I've explained why in the OP. Sorry that I'm not repulsed by what I see in the mirror. What makes your body so healthy?

@MermaidApocalypse

How many calories are you trying to eat on that restricted diet?

I eat approx 1400 calls a day. I run or cycle a minimum of 30mins each day and I try to get 10-15k steps (harder on lockdown).

Yesterday, for under 1400 cals I had:
Breakfast: Porridge made with water with flax seed added, maple syrup, strawberries and blueberries.
Lunch: Salad, huge bowl of leaves, tomatoes, cucumber and peppers with two boiled eggs, beetroot, olives and dressing.
Dinner: Vegan shawarma ‘kebab’, brown rice, a homemade flatbread, tzatziki, chilli sauce and a chopped tomato salad with parsley and lemon juice.
Snack: cup of tea and a small almond biscotti

All tasty and satisfying.

@Goatinthegarden I've been eating like that for years, I stick to under 1,300. No weight loss. I've currently fasting to try to shift some pounds.

I should say, I often do far more exercise than that, 30mins is the minimum I aim for. Exercise is key to me keeping my weight in check.

@Goatinthegarden I walk to work and back every day. That's 30 minutes at a quick pace. Plus I run between wards for the majority of the day. Then I come home and take the kids to the park (on foot.)

Your point about the boxes is irrelevant, i'm a size 8-10, a proper size 8-10 not a vanity sized one - in probably a size 4 in Asda! I'm 5'8 so according to here skinny (I'm actually not, slim yes but not skinny) I can throw 25 kg bags of horse feed and big hay bales around like they are filled with feathers. Lots of people, skinny or larger couldn't do that and lots could. You could do it because it was part of your job and your body adapts quickly to such things.

This celebration of unhealthy bodies really needs to stop

Agreed.

Do you know how many skinny people couldn't do that, even once? I can lift 25kg without much effort

That's not even a lot of weight. Plenty of " skinny" people could , by skinny do you mean normal sized or just not obese?

My point through all of this is that we need to look at health overall, and not just one aspect such as B.M.I or dress size. I consider myself quite healthy, I can validate that by the fact that my weight has stayed the same throughout my adult life. I've got no health problems yet. I am trying to fix it. My friend is a size 22, cycles to work everyday, eats a vegan, gluten free diet, really watches her nutrition.
Compare us to my dp (drinks, smokes, eats nothing but protein and processed food) and my friend who has lost huge amounts of weight thanks to doing large amounts of MDMA every weekend. Society will still view both of those as healthier than someone who's a size 16.
So if I lost loads of weight through either of those ways, everyone would give me a big pat on the back and say well done, you look great?

@hamstersarse but hashimotos is an autoimmune problem. It's not caused by a bad diet
In my case I already have a couple of autoimmune issues, my mum has hashimotos and my Nan did too, thyroid issues are a family problem

My friend is a size 22,cycles to work everyday, eats a vegan, gluten free diet, really watches her nutrition

Does not compute