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?

I have never ever been slim, I’ve always been anywhere from a 16 to a 20. I used to get so down about being the fat one and getting no attention, I used to envy skinny and beautiful people. Now I realise actually when I dress up and put a full face on and a great outfit I look amazing. I have a condition where my legs are stupidly fat but I just don’t care anymore. Instead of feeling envy when I see a slim beautiful woman I instead go up to her and say how amazing she looks. It’s just about confidence and your own securities.

*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.?

It's a vicious cycle.
I sympathise with you.
My friend has been through the paces with her weight, she opted for surgery a gastric sleeve it was a horrible 10 months however the change is amazing, she is more open about the pain and suffering she's been through, she now claims she was addicted to eating.

She couldn't focus on anything until she had a fix, she'd hide food on family and friends, wake at night to binge, her mood lifted when she entered sweet food Isles in the shop, she'd be gleeful thinking about eating as much as possible in the evenings, it was making her sad and constantly berate herself afterwards.

It's sad to watch.

Everything in moderation when something drugs/alcohol/unhealthy food is not moderated its becomes addiction, you won't beat addiction without the strength to fight.

@HarlanPepper I’ll do you a kindness and explain how counting calories and exercising works, as you’ve clearly not tried it.
You calculate your basal metabolic rate. For a slightly underweight woman it’s usually 1600 calories. You calculate the amount of energy you expand during a 3 hours long session of cardio. For someone who’s body is very used to that level of activity it’s usually around 1000 - 1200 calories. And there you have it, if you want to maintain a size 4 figure and be healthy while clinically underweight this is one way to do it - consume 1600 calories on the days you’re not exercising, and add the required extra calories on the days you are exercising. If you want to lose a kg per week you actually need to have an 800 calorie deficit per day. If you’re basal metabolic rate is 1600, that leaves you with 800 calories
3 hours of cardio isn’t actually a lot, most professional athletes train for at least 5 -6 hours a day. Yes, nobody trains on every day of their life, everyone takes a day off now and again, but the gist of it mate is that it’s hard work, some people do it, and people who choose not are ignorant of their efforts and restful of their results.

Not a good person? Because I'm sick to death of reading someone's self pitying rants about their weight, including how other people treat them? Mutual friends she's talking about and subtweeting, who I know are good people doing their best, and have been nothing but good to this person? When all she gives out is bitterness and resentment towards people she perceives as being better looking or slimmer?

Imagine how vile you'd need to be to say this to someone with serious health issues going on. You're an absolute monster.

TorringtonDean 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.

Please don't assume that all people who do sport do that. I've been a sporty, competitive athlete all my life and I don't even possess a heart rate monitor, never mind an apple watch. I don't use Strava. Most people serious about their amateur level sport don't post attention seeking posts on social media. Its generally what I refer to the "born again" ones that do that.

Of course those that post obsessively on social media will stand out more than the many others who just get on with it and enjoy the doing rather than the boasting about it or the attention seeking. I find attention seeking of any kind quite irritating, whether it comes from thin, fat, or middling people.

@IvyM I tracked calories for about two years, and I exercise 5 days a week. About an hour of heavy weights and conditioning (I am a powerlifter) but some cross training too. I was competing in the under 64kg category and I wanted to try moving down a weight bracket. I weigh around 63 kg at five foot 9, I wear size ten clothes, and I eat around 2500 calories a day. I lost weight easily on 1800 a day.

So I understand pretty well about BMR and TDEE. I still think you're talking pish. What professional athletes are you talking about? What sport? Some might train for 5-6 hours a day but it will be varied training and they'll be eating a sight more than 1400 cals per day.

100%. They almost always are. Most people have absolutely no idea what a normal portion size is. I can never get over how much pasta some people seem to think is a normal serving. I was out to dinner with a friend a few weeks back and ordered ravioli. The serving was a standard six pieces and a rich, buttery sauce. She looked gobsmacked and asked me if I wouldn't be starving afterwards. No. This is a normal portion size.

I think this is where a lot of people go wrong. They think they're not eating junk food and the stuff they're choosing is 'healthy' but they're eating far, far too much of it.

I also see a PP saying they never feel full after a meal. You are not supposed to feel full after a meal. You're meant to eat until about 80% satisfied, as the Japanese say. It's also normal to feel hungry before meals, even for a few hours. I have friends who don't seem to realise that being hungry is OK. The first hunger twinge and they're reaching for a chocolate bar or biscuits. They don't ever let themselves get properly hungry. One said to me 'no, you don't understand, my mouth is like watering and my tummy is rumbling', as if she was starving to death. That's literally what being a bit hungry feels like. Some people seem to be so used to stamping out those initial hunger pangs that they've lost the ability to tolerate being hungry.

One thing I can say as a fat person is I don’t smoke, barely drink and have never taken illegal drugs. Some of the young, lean, attractive people from my youth now seem totally knackered compared to me. The truth is all of us have a sell-by date. Sometimes those virtue signalling about their low weight seem to forget that.

How can all foods contain too many calories? That makes no sense. What do you mean by 'foods'? Prepackaged, processed meals? Junk food?

Some of these comments are clueless

in a society where plus size women are treat as different species it’s absolutely a different life experience, to someone who isn’t

I think your friends do mean well but your almost getting annoyed at the wrong thing OP they sound like nice ppl

also slim doesn’t always equal attractive there are friends I have who have better bodies than me but less attractive faces, it’s just genetic lottery really.

I agree with the OP. Those who have not experienced the issues that other people have do not usually understand them. I am fat - very fat. I once received a very nice birthday present from my co-workers, chosen by a very petite and slim person, of a top which was not only 2 sizes too small (the biggest size that shop sold so not even exchangeable) but also a shape that was extremely unflattering for somebody my shape. She had absolutely no idea that it wasn't big enough as her little brain couldn't compute that there were people who were too fat to fit into something that HUGE!

Also - many years ago my siblings and I arranged a party for my parents' Ruby wedding anniversary. I was flat broke without any savings, so I set out right from the start what food I would provide (which wasreed with them) and I agreed to do all the admin, finding names and addresses for the guests, finding B&B s nearby, designing and printing the invitations etc. The party went great, but one of my siblings had decided, without any consultation, to get a dressed salmon in addition to what had been agreed. After the party she called me and our other sibling into a room and told us what we owed her for the salmon. Neither of my siblings was particularly well off, but they weren't actually on their uppers like me. They couldn't imagine that I didn't actually HAVE that money at all, in fact I was living off my overdraft and had no savings. My bursting into tears in front of them gave them a clue though!

So - yes... I agree that those that do not have particular issues do not generally have any idea of how difficult it is for those of us that do. It is up to all of us to educate ourselves and to try to understand how others feel, regardless of whether we think they should be doing something about it or not. We feel the way we feel, regardless of whether you feel that way too.

Yes, obviously.

But some overweight people seem to genuinely believe their life is much harder and much worse than that of any slim person, and that slim people are constantly picking on them. It's like an obsession. The OP is like this.

My acquaintance posted some really nasty sub tweets about a mutual friend, because the friend didn't sponsor her on some sponsored walk she did at the weekend. The friend has just been diagnosed with a very serious illness and is devastated. She can barely get out of bed she's so shocked and upset. It doesn't seem to occur to this woman that other people also have challenges and problems and serious issues going on. She literally seems to believe her life is the hardest in the world and everyone should applaud everything she does and if someone forgets to text her back or doesn't invite her to something, it's because she's fat.

It's exhausting.

@pixie5121 I mean everything except fruit, veg and lean chicken and fish - which is what I ate. Everything else that lots of people (including thin people) regularly eat as meals - prepared or part-prepared - is too calorific.

I wouldn’t say thin people are picking on fat people. It’s a long time since anyone openly taunted me like they did when I was a child. I’d say biology appears to be against fat people and I’m rather sick of it. Maybe if I was reincarnated thin I might mess up that perfect body with my greedy ways - that’s what thin people think! But I started off fat in the first place and feel I never had a chance.

@TorringtonDean 💐Biology and hormones along with genetics cause a lot of the problems.

I have 2 DC 1 is skinny 1 is chunky with rolls.

The bigger DC runs all day every day,
doesn't eat much more than his sister, he'll never be slim and will have a battle with his weight.
He was born above 99.99 off the scale and has continued growing up and out.

My slim child is very inactive and hates moving anywhere.

There is no moral attachment or greatness about being slim.

I genuinely don't care what weight friends are, maybe I should show more concern based on this thread but it's a non issue as they are the people I love slim or fat.

I’d just not like to be questioned about what I’m going to wear. I actually feel like cancelling social plans at times because I have nothing to wear

If I am going out I want to know if people are dressing up, wearing jeans, etc. I don't want to be wearing jeans if everyone else turns up in a posh dress! Or vice versa. Nothing to do with weight - or lack of it.

Nah you’re the monster. You want pity yet you sit there mocking and slating someone else’s struggles. Why follow an acquaintance when you have such hatred for them? Only bitter and hateful monsters do that.

In what situation would you turn up in jeans if people were wearing posh dresses?

OP I'm large too, and broadly speaking (no pun intended) I get what you're saying. However (even though I find the 'what are you wearing' question irritating - grown adults should be capable of choosing their own outfits without needing to consult the hive mind), I think I'd actually feel worse if my friends asked each other what they were planning to wear but not me - I'd feel very 'othered' if they thought the question didn't apply to me because I was large. It'd feel like 'Oh, no point asking AnnHedonia what she's wearing, poor thing just has to grab whatever will fit'.

I do think you're being too hard on yourself/putting yourself down too much, though. 💐

I almost never eat prepared meals but I don't really understand how something can be 'too calorific'. Surely it depends on how much of it you eat? If I buy a giant bag of tortilla chips, I don't eat them in one go, I eat them over about a week, in small portions alongside sandwiches.

What you're saying doesn't make sense. You can't possibly know how many calories thin people consume.

I don't want pity...that's the fucking point! I want people to recognise that being overweight is not the worst possible problem in the entire world and that, shock horror, thin people also have problems! This woman has decided my friend hasn't sponsored her because she's fat and my friend didn't think she could complete the walk...how bloody self absorbed can you be? Our friend is probably going to die in a few years and this woman is wittering on and sub tweeting about her weight as if she's the most important person in the world. Hasn't even occurred to her that our friend has something going on.

I love the mental gymnastics of criticising me for not liking someone's really poor attitude towards a friend who is having a horrific time while you're writing such vile things to me. You poor woman...you must be very unhappy.

I've been on both sides re this - I've been slim (but with larger breasts) and had slim friends and two who were a larger size but we all used to go out clubbing together. The larger ones had a great time, dressed well etc but I think one of them at least was always envious/jealous of the slimmer ones.

Now when I go out where there are lots of younger people (or people who diet a lot, work out more etc) I see midriff skimming tops a lot which I wore when in early 20s but not now (50s).

In my 40s I had (have) 2 friends and I recall we were out an a day festival and one mentioned about 'oh you're so slim you can wear anything' not quite true! But she went to weight watchers (or had been on and off) and did lose weight. There were some clothes she looked amazing in though and I would've looked stupid in.

Agreed with @Absentmindedwoman too but that too works both ways - I met a good-looking man when out one night where he said that all the stunning girls were after him mostly for what he could offer (money, car etc) and he didn't seem that shallow but obviously had dated stunning girls to try to keep up and to prove himself. He actually said, some of them weren't that bright (some obviously were) and it was like having a conversation with a brick wall.

I genuinely don't get that from the OP at all. All she said was that she wished her friends wouldn't make a big deal out of what people planned to wear, because as an overweight woman her experience of dressing herself is very different from her slim friends. She hasn't been nasty or bitter about her friends, and has, as far as I can see, spent most of her subsequent posts having to defend herself against various accusations from posters who for some unfathomable reason are very annoyed with her about it. Its a bizarre thread altogether I think when a woman is deemed nasty and bitter for not wanting to talk about a subject that gives her no pleasure.
Your friend sounds like a pain, but there's no evidence the OP is like that.

This is a really damaging way to think. All foods are not ‘too calorific.’ How can they be? How can every portion of every single food except fruit, vegetables, fish, and chicken be ‘too calorific?’

If you ate one single biscuit it would obviously not be ‘too calorific.’ If you are a hundred bananas (the fruit you say is not too calorific) it would obviously be too much. A balanced and healthy diet is all things in appropriate portions, not ‘safe foods’ and villainising everything else as ‘too calorific.’

It's not the 'hive mind', it's trying to gauge what would be appropriate. It's not nice turning up massively underdressed to an event and looking like you haven't bothered. I am a very casual dresser and have lots of clothing sensitivities because of my autism so it can be hard to find suitable things to wear. I often ask what people are wearing if I'm not sure what the vibe is.