To think of you’re slim and pretty you’ll never “get it”?

[drivetosurvive]

Just to preface by saying I know we all have hang ups and insecurities- especially now with social media and filters etc

I have two close friends. One always asks me what I’m going to wear when we meet up. I hate my body and I’ve gained a lot of weight (size 14 now 20/22 so never been slim) I rarely buy clothes and just wear whet I fit into that day. I’ve been so blunt as to say “I’m fat so whatever I can find that I don’t hate” when I got fed up of that question … yet she still asks even now.

Other friend is very pretty, she gets a lot of attention and always has. I don’t want to date right now due to feeling very down about my looks and weight and she says “well men should like you for you” … which the sentiment is true but I don’t like me for me so why should a man? And it’s not easy to put yourself out there and she’s gorgeous so she’s never really had an issue of men not finding her attractive.

Aibu to think that both of them are slim and pretty and therefore having experienced what I’m going through?

Also, it’s not about clothes for me. It’s about health. I wish I wasn’t worried about my weight. I wish food could actually be made with fewer calories. I’d like to be healthy.

I just find it tiresome how some overweight people are so utterly obsessed with their weight and how people see them. It's very self absorbed. An acquaintance I follow on Twitter has been posting a load of self pitying waffle today about not fitting into a plane seat and someone apparently looking at her with a disgusted expression and I do just think, for fucks sake, either do something about it or find a different way to travel. She posts stuff like this on a regular basis.

We all have problems. I've got multiple hospital appointments this week for something potentially serious and am really stressed out. A close friend has just been diagnosed with a terrible life limiting disease. I'd have little patience with a friend getting upset about me asking what she was wearing....ffs, it's so trivial and ridiculous. Some fat people seem to think that all thin people live in this alternate universe where everything is amazing and works out great and is perfect, and only they are uniquely put upon and disadvantaged. It's so weird.

Self absorbed? Whereas thin people who spend all day obsessing about their health readings on their apple watches are not? We humans are all fairly self absorbed.

Of course other people have serious health issues too. It’s not a zero sum game - one person having an illness does not mean others can’t have problems too.

Unfortunately obesity is a health issue people love to be judgey about. Yet one third of the population will soon be obese. I wish there was serious help out there instead of judgement. Calorie counts on menus is one big step forward.

@TorringtonDean what kind of serious help needs to be out there? It's never been easier to find out what calories are in foods, plan healthy meals/diet plans and make exercise plans. It's all available online, for free. The issue I see is poverty, with the very poorest people unable to eat well because they don't have the cooking facilities to prepare healthy meals and are relying on food banks, but that's not the majority, is it?

I don’t believe it’s just about calories in and calories out. There are other treatments for those who struggle to lose weight - Saxenda is the latest. They are just not offered by the NHS unless you push massively. I don’t even particularly want to go down that route but I’m not sure calorie counting will work any more for me. I think science could come up with more solutions. There’s a jab for Covid - there could be a jab for obesity? Actually, there IS a jab for obesity but medics would rather victim blame.

I’ve been fat all my life. Sometimes I’ve battled it and sometimes I’ve said to hell with it and given up the fight. But I never had a chance really because this seems to be my body type. Or the type my body will revert to given the chance - if I eat more than 1,000 calories a day and don’t do a heap of exercise. That is what I think thin people do not get.

Yes, poverty is an issue but some people use food banks and are also obese and I expect don’t want to be.

Don’t you sound like a peach. You seem to have an awful lot of time to be continuously posting on this thread. Go outside and touch grass. You are not a good person.

On a biological level it is about calories in vs out for the vast majority of people. But it's not that easy, there are often factors that complicate that and make it challenging. Binge eating disorder, food as an emotional crutch etc all need to be addressed to have a proper chance at losing weight long term. It's really hard to access support though as its underfunded, and also many people don't believe these things to exist so there's a stigma. Whilst some people will be overweight simply because they want to eat a load, the majority it's for other reasons. Lack of money, resources and time, lack of understanding about nutrition, trying to change habits built in childhood can take time, BED etc, mental health can play a part too- with depression for example it's hard to be motivated to get out of bed and cook good meals.

If it was that easy people would just wake up and decide to lose weight, many who do put it back on because again the underlying cause hasn't been addressed.

You have a very simplistic, judgemental view of weight loss. Which is very common, unfortunately.

It's really not as simple as just eating less. I eat more now as a size 8 than when I was a size 22.

The obesity issue is a complicated one, and individually those who are obese can struggle to lose weight for many reasons. Factors like: past trauma, lack of education, residential location, parental example, can be real, huge hurdles.

Can they be overcome? With the right therapy, support, education, yes.

But assuming an obese person just needs to eat less highlights that you have a narrow viewpoint of the issue individually and as a whole. This ideology needs to shift.

I'd have little patience with a friend getting upset about me asking what she was wearing....ffs, it's so trivial and ridiculous

Also - remember it's not top trumps in terms of what someone is allowed to be upset about.

You may consider something trivial in your perspective but it is unkind to dismiss someone else's pain.

I really hope you have good news this week RE your hospital appointments.

I believe there is a lot more to what causes obesity. Historically, our ancestors were starving a lot of the time. So it is genetically programmed in for us to maximise calories. We all need to eat! That’s what’s different from quitting smoking or drinking.

We have gone from a world where everyone walked or at best rode everywhere and spent their days doing manual tasks in the cold to now driving and doing sedentary tasks in centrally heated homes and offices. So we need fewer calories but have the same appetites and on top of that food is abundant. It’s not surprising so many of us struggle with weight issues.

Hormones drive appetites and also tell us when we are full. I seldom feel full after a meal but I am obese. Something’s wrong there.

When I was a child in the 70s a lot of growth hormones were added to animals farmed for meat. I wonder about whether I absorbed those. My generation are the ones who were considerably taller than those before us - and wider too!

And of course food is satisfying and enjoyable and so hard to resist. I am very overweight yet feel faint and hungry and frankly miserable if I have to cut down to the amount that will make me the right weight.

I am not stupid. I am well educated. I’m not lazy. I work hard, do long hours and support a household single handed. Enough of those tropes please! And I am not the only one!

I’ve only been close to the right weight a couple of times in my adult life.

@IvyM

"Every day of my life since I was about 15 I’ve run for an hour, swam for an hour and lifted weights for another hour. I never in my life had more than 1600 calories all in one day."

This is such obvious bullshit. Every day of your life you've run for an hour, swam for an hour AND lifted weights for an hour? So three hours a day of intensive cardio and resistance training on not more than 1600 calories? You'd be dead, mate.

@TorringtonDean have you read “Why we eat too much” by Andrew Jenkinson? His take on this stuff is really interesting.

Before getting pregnant I would be in the gym each morning. My routine was run for an hour, cycle for 30 minutes do 220 floors on the stair master, and swim for 30 minutes.

I would eat between 1500-1800 calories per day. I was quite chunky

When I went for my first pregnancy appointment at the hospital the nurse took my blood pressure. She thought she had done it wrong as I had the heart rate of an Olympic athlete. 40 beats per minute.

i was very very fit

When I was a child in the 70s a lot of growth hormones were added to animals farmed for meat. I wonder about whether I absorbed those. My generation are the ones who were considerably taller than those before us - and wider too

I seemed to have missed those growth hormones. I must have been storing them up for Dd who is head and shoulders taller than me.

I think those doing a lot of exercise and saying they ate under 2000kcal a day but were still overweight are likely underestimating their calorie intake.

I remember an episode of Secret Eaters where a guy was genuinely bewildered why he was obese. He was eating Special K with jam and double cream - over 2500kcal just on breakfast. He was so shocked as he thought cereal was healthy and it was just a bit of cream.

Extreme example but its easy to underestimate kcal!

There’s some interesting research around satiety, gut biome, and so on, but it’s still true to say that calorie balance is the dominant driver of obesity. Saying this is not victim blaming.

@Kennykenkencat No doubt you were fit, but you were either eating many more calories than that, or you were doing much less exercise than you say.

220 floors on the stairmaster would burn about 500 calories I'd say? One hour on the treadmill, assuming a steady 10km/hour pace - maybe another 600 calories. Then you've got to swim for 30 mins and cycle for 30 mins on top of that. So another hour of cardiovascular exercise, let's conservatively estimate 400 calories. Every day. No rest days.

1500 calories total (obviously an estimate, give or take 300 or so cals in each direction). Which would mean you're eating just to fuel your exercise and would have hardly anything else left over for pesky things like tissue repair, recovery and general physiological processes involved in, you know, staying alive.

That was a great program; it’s amazing how many extra calories people can be eating through a few bad habits.

We had a sleep nurse when our first child was young, and she was explaining how she ate very little but still weighed over 100kg. Her dinner was “just a bit of pasta”, which was actually about 250g, with a sauce, onto which she grated about 200g of cheddar.

It should be treated as the addiction it is.

All addiction has the same emotional attachment, drug addicted people, alcoholism, food addiction, smokers, its whole life consuming.

The battle must be fought everyday, my uncle 20 years sober still takes 1 day at a time, it's a constant reminder for the reasons why you need to abstain he can't say feck it I'll get back on the wagon next time or I'll start next week, some addicts never find the strength to break the mould of self soothing with their drug of choice.

There is highly addictive additives in processed food.

Doctors need to recommend group therapy without the god 12 steps, shaming people won't help anyone, it's reprogramming years of learned behaviour instead of quick fix drugs that won't help the emotional connections longterm.

Not really sure what the point of the thread has been but YABU to think people who aren't exactly like you, don't get how you feel.

It's called empathy. Some are better at it than others. I may not have grown up in a broken home but I can empathise with friends who have. Similarly, my friends may not be my skin colour but I fully expect them to be able to empathise with me. All because we communicate and share experiences and lives. That's how human connection is formed.

However, no one can read your mind and just know what will upset you. Plenty of overweight, insecure women will like being asked what they are going to wear and plenty of women will like their friends being positive about dating. If you don't like something, tell them? I know plenty of overweight people who are perfectly content - others who aren't - the only way to know who is what - is people speaking up. Instead of just fuming quietly.

The chip on your shoulder is coming through but only you can manage your feelings and what you do with them. But your friends can and will empathise with you and get if you just shared with them what you've shared with us.

@Piglet89 thanks for the book advice. I shall look into it.

You can’t treat food like an addiction because the entire planet is addicted! M I am tired of the whole issue. I just want to live my life without thinking about calories etc. I did for a short while when I was close to the right weight and now I am fat again.

This is fast going to be a majority issue. The numbers who are obese are relentlessly increasing. I realised previously when following my extremely strict regime that almost all foods at the supermarket contain too many calories. We are all eating all wrong but some people metabolise it better than others. My theory.

My SIL is very fat. She also always wears the most gorgeous clothes (all high street). I think some people are just inherently stylish!! Her make up, hair and accessories are just perfect too. She always looks so well turned out.

I’ve always been slimmer than her, but I’m not in the slightest bit stylish. Actually I should probably ask her to buy all my clothes for me.

So I don’t think it comes down to size so much, but maybe confidence too.

BTW on the issues of clothes and dating….I’ve been various sizes and I have discovered the golden rule of shopping - whatever your size it’s guaranteed to be out of stock. I’m not very interested in clothes. Dating - nope, I’m not doing that. See no point at all in being treated like a cut in the meat market. I’m happier on my own.

As a person who is genetically slim (but not pretty!) I think I agree with OP. There does seem to be more judgment of larger people. Slim people still worry about their appearance (I have a big nose for example) but I do feel my slim build gives me more confidence. I feel bad because I see my larger colleagues, for example, making more effort with diet and exercise than I do. However, looking at my DC I do think there is less judgment about size amongst them and their friends than in my generation.

There's no denying serious problems can affect slim attractive people. Bereavement, life threatening illness, loneliness, lack of self esteem and that by comparison, worrying about looking nice in clothes seems trivial. But, this isn't a thread comparing looking fat in your clothes to life and death problems. It's a thread comparing the day to day, all other things being equal, experience of being fat and being slim. There is absolutely no doubt that for the vast majority of people in our society, the former is the more challenging. I don't understand the defensive race to the bottom element on this thread from some slim people. No one is negating the problems of slim people, merely pointing out that being fat isn't one of them.