To wish I had been thinner when younger?

[Onceiwasfat]

So this is a really stupid thread but I’ll put it out there anyway. It’s not a TAAT but I just saw a post by someone my age (41) who used to cover Miss Sixty clothes.

I started gaining weight at about 16. I was probably around 11/11 and a half stone until I was 18. Then when I went away to university I slammed it on and was over 14 and a half stone. I was nearly 25 before I lost it and got down to 11 and a half.

I’ve only been below 10 and a half twice when I was ill.

It’s stupid really as in the scheme of things it’s not important. I have a lovely life, a job I like (sometimes) gorgeous kids but I do wish I’d been slimmer and more attractive when younger.

OK now flame me

Thank you for informing me of that @coogee. I would never have known without your coming onto the thread to state this.

My job can be pretty stressful. It’s hard, @middleager

@Onceiwasfat

I can’t see the words ‘biggest concern’ in my OP at all. Perhaps you think people only post about the most pressing issue or the worst thing that happens to them on here? But that wouldn’t be correct at all.

On the whole my life is fairly good, I have problems and I have difficulties of course. But it hasn’t always been this way and my past is something I feel a lot of sadness about. That isn’t just linked to weight. But a lot of it is. A general insecurity and feeling of not being good enough.

Of course I can’t change it but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wish I could!

Well clearly 'biggest concern' was a turn of phrase. But its big enough to consume your thoughts enough to you to post about.

As you say, you can't change it. But you can come to terms with it. So that you can fully focus on your life and future. As Edna in the Incredibles says, ' I never look back, darling, it distracts from the now.'
Or as a man who lost his wife young said, ' I got to the stage where I realised that my life with her was a chapter of my life, a good chapter, but now it was time to write a new chapter.'

As someone who has had to come to terms with the utterly traumatic (not using that term lightly either) near total destruction of my past I have had to do the long hard work of learning to stop looking back and building what I have now and starting to find ways to appreciate what I have now and moving forward with it. You can stay sad or you can make another choice about how you approach your life. Your choice. And I genuinely mean that constructively.

But I’m not posting about my traumatic experiences, @JeshusHChr and nor am I suggesting other people should share theirs. I am sorry for what you went through but trying to stop me talking about it because you went through something you perceive to be worse is really unfair.

I've alway been slim. At my "biggest" my bmi went up to around 24 one year when I was on some medication - most of my life it's been closer to 18 or 19.

I say that not to brag somehow, but to say that as a skinny person when I was younger, my life was miserable in different ways. I was ugly, badly dressed, undiagnosed autistic, didn't fit in, and had a terrible time making friends.

So I wonder, if you looked back and had been skinny, would you have had another reason to feel sad maybe? You didn't push yourself enough perhaps or had been unhealthy?

Maybe you could reposition it in your head somehow? Yes you were overweight but you had a good body that looked after you and led to the life you have now.

I don't know, maybe that doesn't help. I know what it's like to look back and wish things had been different though!

And actually I don’t think just moving on, drawing a line, forgetting about it is particularly good advice. Realising how you got to a particular point and understanding how and why problems began is actually key to solving it.

Oh of course it would be nonsense to claim that being slim means being happy any more than being white means you are happy, or of straight sexual orientation. But there are comparisons there, I feel. Someone who is slim may have a thousand problems but their weight won’t be one of them!

I don't think this is really about weight specifically - it's about wishing we could have enjoyed our youth more, for whatever reason. I really identify with this.

As a kid/teen my weight was not an issue - however I was very socially awkward and didn't really know how to relate to my peers. I was bullied through most of school and didn't really have good friendships. In the sixth form and Uni I had some good times and some good friends but I was still geeky and socially awkward. It's taken me a long time but I've learned over the years how to be more comfortable around people and I now have some lovely friends and a lovely partner and I really appreciate both.

However I still look back to my school and Uni days and wish I could have learned some of these things earlier so I could have had a happier youth.

I think you can appreciate what you have and look to the future while still feeling sadness about some elements of the past.

Yes, absolutely @DisappearingGirl

My weight became an issue at around the time most of my friends had boyfriends and so very much got left behind. That followed me into my twenties and thirties.

@5128gap

I got to my slimmest ever at age 51. 52 now and maintaining it and although I say it myself, I've got a great figure. Much nicer than when I was younger. I have better hair and clothes now too. I don't wish i'd been slimmer when younger particularly, as even if I had been, my figure would not have been very fashionable then, so I'd still have felt dissatisfied, and at least I don't have to look sadly back on old photos thinking how great I looked, because objectively I look tonnes better now. I do wish I had my younger face to go with the rest of me, but it could be worse, and overall, I'm very content with myself. Life isn't just lived when you're young, now matters too. I wear what I like (don't care about 'age appropriate') and anything I missed out on when younger, well, I'm not dead yet!

I find this very inspiring; thank you for it.

YANBU in one sense - I'm losing weight now in my early 30s and I regret not liking how I looked in my 20s when I was more overweight. It's a mix of being sad I wasn't healthier and able to look a way I would have been happy with, and also being annoyed at not liking myself regardless because of our obsession with thinness as a moral achievement is bollocks.

BUT. Okay, you regret it. What now? Can't change it, so fuck it. Let go of it: it can't serve you anything other than frustrated regret for something you'll never be able to undo, which is an enormous waste of your time and energy. Channel it into liking how you look now (either by making changes, or letting go of beauty ideals that don't serve you).

Thank you for informing me of that @coogee. I would never have known without your coming onto the thread to state this.

I wasn’t informing you.

Missed you're 41.
Get your trainers on, get the body you want.
You're a young woman plenty of time the alternative will be worse in the longterm.

@Onceiwasfat

I can’t see the words ‘biggest concern’ in my OP at all. Perhaps you think people only post about the most pressing issue or the worst thing that happens to them on here? But that wouldn’t be correct at all.

On the whole my life is fairly good, I have problems and I have difficulties of course. But it hasn’t always been this way and my past is something I feel a lot of sadness about. That isn’t just linked to weight. But a lot of it is. A general insecurity and feeling of not being good enough.

Of course I can’t change it but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wish I could!

I guess it's a bit like grief. It's normal to feel sad about missed opportunities but you can only linger in those thoughts for so long without squandering the opportunities still open to you.

(and i agree with you that if you've bever been there it's hard to imagine how all-consuming it can be to be conscious of one's size. It's really bloody liberating to be slimmer. It's also really bloody liberating to love your body and treat it well regardless).

Thanks @Emerald5hamrock but I’m not really seeking diet advice. This is very much a post where I reminisce.

To be honest @Palavah I don’t think I do linger in it (I don’t mean you were accusing me of this) but I am finding the near constant attempts to tell me that I shouldn’t post about this surprising.

I’ve always been slim & put on weight for a couple of years after having my first child at 33 and then after having my second child at the age of 36 I decided to lose weight so very quickly went back to size 6 from size 10.
Being slim when I was young didn’t make me happier than if I was bigger, I had a complete lack of self confidence, wasted most of youth on men who didn’t really have time for me. I was too skinny to wear certain types of clothes and also wished I wore one item of wardrobe or another but couldn’t because I would look like a hanger stand! Happiness is not based on how you look unfortunately

Happiness is not based on how you look unfortunately

This is true up to a point but if you ask people would they rather be unhappy and attractive or unhappy and unattractive, the response will not be for the latter.

@Onceiwasfat

Happiness is not based on how you look unfortunately

This is true up to a point but if you ask people would they rather be unhappy and attractive or unhappy and unattractive, the response will not be for the latter.

Theres no doubt that being attractive can make life nicer (all other things being equal of course) but even if you were the most attractive young woman alive and had the best time, that period would still be in the past and you wouldn't be living it now. Yes you'd have memories, but that can be a double edged sword, as people who had an amazing past often struggle with a more mediocre present.

You just would have found fault with something else🤷‍♀️ I look back on old photos of me when I was younger and wish id appreciated what I had at the time instead of constantly worrying. I now have a lot of body confidence which is weird really as I’m the biggest I’ve ever been and don’t look half as good as I did!
Youth is Wasted on the young, as they say.

Even when you are slim and attractive, often you don't feel it. The quest for perfection never ends for many young women and the goal posts constantly move!

I look back at old photos and marvel at how slim and good I looked, mainly because I remember how shit I felt about myself at the time. I loved clothes and dressing up for nights out, but there was also an element of stress in not feeling good enough. You'd never have known that's how I felt.

I'm much happier now. Can't claim to be at zero fucks yet, but I'm much more kind and accepting of myself as a whole person.

I know EXACTLY what you mean OP. I'm 53 and just starting (again) to lose the extra couple of stone that take me into the noticeably fat category. It's a constant battle I've been having all my life. Pictures show I was always fat, even before I was aware of it. In school I was so aware of how the 'normal' girls looked like a different, prettier, more acceptable species to me. I couldn't imagine how it would be to have such elegant arms, legs.. I wore extremely different, homemade clothes to try and put a brave face on it but really, I was just sad, all the time. 🥺 I knew no one would ever really fall passionately in love with me, and I would have to 'settle'.
There are no photos with me and the kids. I think literally fewer than half a DOZEN, and Everyone around me knows I don't want to see myself. I'm tall too, so feel mannish and unfeminine.. ..it doesn't help that my DH is smaller than me.
These days things are better. I'm still big but have made peace with and now love myself having realised how a lot of the eating behaviours of my childhood were not my fault.
Maybe spend some time on yourself this year OP and make it a goal to have some nice pictures of yourself, that you control and are happy with, by the end of it.

😂 No idea why 'dozen' is in caps... Soz.

You look back on the last 25 years & “have nothing to show for it” because you weren’t skinny? Honestly that’s the most pathetic thing I’ve heard in a long time. It sounds like in the last 25 years you got married, had at least 2 kids, maybe have bought a home, had a career? But because you weren’t skinny you have “nothing to show for it”? Get a grip.

I know @Cam2020 but can people not see that’s the point? I don’t get to look back and marvel at how slim and attractive I was, because I wasn’t And people coming on the thread to tell me that they were is not really where I saw the thread going, if I’m honest.

@JuicySatsuma85 - which post are you reading?

How did you see the thread going OP? What were you looking for?

You can't change the past. Why not work on your health now?

Then when people post about how much slimmer they used to be in their youth you can congratulate yourself that you are much slimmer now.

I'm 46 and recently hit 11st 6lbs - I also weighed that when I was 16 ( I was actually slimmer in my last teens and 20s but hadn't been anywhere near that weight since before I had DD2 (who is 13)). My heaviest was 14 and a half stone five years ago.

It's not easy when you have to cook for a family and have 101 things to think about but it is possible to lose (a lot) of weight in your 40s. A lot of people find Fast 800/4:3/5:2 helpful. It's also important as you get older as excess weight becomes a greater health concern.