We’ve lost sight of what is a healthy weight

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Was chatting to my husband yesterday about getting to a healthy weight.

I am 5ft3 and at start of year I was weighing 80kg (12st 8)

I have hired a PT, workout 3 x weeklyand started eating healthy and now weigh around 72kg (11st 4). I’m not restricting food types or on any fad diet. I’m literally eating a balanced diet and the correct amount to lose up to 1lb a week.

I’ve done a decent start but still want to get to below 10stone where I would be a healthy weight for my height according to BMI.

I literally look like a ball in photos I took at the weekend. So fat.

He thinks I look great and lovely. Which is very kind. I literally don’t get how done people can’t see that I look fat. He’s not just being kind.

we got chatting and I Said to him that people we watch on tv that we think are “normal” (not underweight) and are similar height to me probably weigh between 8-9 stone therefore how could he not see I was overweight and not looking great.

AIBU to think no wonder we are quite an overweight nation. We equate 8stone/9stone as “skinny” but actually isn’t that healthy for someone who is just over 5ft? There should not be any shame in trying to reach a healthy weight. I kinda feel like we have lost sight of what is a healthy weight.

at 11stone/12stone, I’m not my healthiest, I’m not my fittest, I don’t look good. I’m opening myself up to more health conditions. Clothes make me look like a beach ball. I’m quite large chested and instead of making me look sexy/attractive, I just look ridiculous and almost ball shaped.

It all depends on the person. Through illness I dropped to 50kg at 5 foot 1 and I looked awful. Anything under 55kg and my head looks too big for my body. I'm over weight now but only just and I prefer to have that incase my condition flares and I end up loosing a lot of weight again. It buys me more time to get it under control.

My DP is required to have a private medical every year due to his profession.

The doctor he visited recently commented that he looked underweight before she weighed him. Turns out that my DP’s BMI is exactly in the middle of the healthy weight range.

The doctor then said that her visual view of normal weight was skewed by all the private medicals she does for other professions such as lorry drivers who are, sadly, typically overweight (as is the wider general population).

So if a doctor has literally ‘lost sight’ of what overweight looks like, I guess it’s quite possible for the rest of us.

People smoked an awful lot in the good old days.

And that was probably why there was less obesity. Nicotine is a known appetite suppressant.

Yeah it's not necessary the healthiest weight but that doesn't mean that your husband doesn't think you're attractive!

To an extent it's true. I am in the middle of the healthy range and when I lived in the UK I often get told that I was skinny, that I should put some weight on. A lot of people also refer to thin (normal sized women) as not being real women. A real woman has some meat on her etc.

Nobody tells an overweight woman that they are not a real woman.

BMI and the whole diet industry is such a con.

BMI was brought in to replace height/weight charts and was meant to be done using calipers and skin-fold measurements. Instead, it's now a height/weight chart hiding under a number.

Everyone loves to bang on about how good it is to diet to an arbitrary weight - and how bad it is to have an eating disorder. But no-one ever seems to make the link between the two, or realise that dieting just gives people eating disorders on top of their obesity (or temporary weight loss - and the VAST majority is temporary)

People with weight problems have issues with food that need to be addressed, because diets don't work - having been on one my whole life, the second I've begun to eat normally I've piled on the weight, because yes, my metabolism is screwed. And I don't care - I am DONE with dieting.

The sort of lies that are peddled on MN about "calories in - calories out" defy science (google 'overfeeding experiments' and follow the rabbit hole). The 'strain on the NHS' of someone who is obese is vastly overexaggerated and partly due to the undertreatment of conditions that doctors blithely assume are due to excess weight.

The true answer lies in taking the obsession and compulsion out of food - being able to use it as fuel and to be able to respond to hunger cues only - and being more accepting of all body shapes to allow people to do that.

When you don't think about food all the time, it gives your body a chance to sort itself out and begin to respond to hunger again - and I already see this happening in my own body. But what do diets do? They focus you on food, massively.

The diet industry persists in spite of how it fails - and because of how it fails. Everyone believes they just need to find the right diet, the one they can stick to. Well bingeing and starving worked for me for 40 years. Doesn't mean I recommend it.

I'm probably healthier now than I was then - but because I don't look it, then the likes of so many MNers will be making judgments of me. Well I judge them just as harshly - for the lack of empathy it takes to judge others on their size, and for the smugness of believing that being a specific weight bestows them with some form of moral superiority. Rather than indicating a lucky genetics and/or upbringing that didn't instill food obsession

The common-or-garden eating disorder is on full display regularly on MN, with the competitive under-eating of the mumsnet chicken, and the ma-hoos-ive salads.

Because who can even say what a 'healthy weight' is? I look like a ball too, but I'm fit as a flea again. The science that says a certain weight is 'healthy' is seriously flawed - so losing sight of what is a healthy weight, is like losing sight of a unicorn. You only lost sight of an illusion.

If anyone wants other places to start googling, they can try the 'Maintenence Phase' podcast.

Using exact weights is triggering for a lot of people with disordered eating on these threads btw. If someone’s in recovery for an ED and weighs more than your ‘massive’ weight it can send them spiralling

That’s just rudeness, it’s true that people are rude. And people are rude to fat people all the time. Not “it’s more socially acceptable to be fat than a healthy weight”, which is nonsense.

People are totally in denial. Fed up of friends moaning about various illnesses and generally feeling unwell but being unwilling to admit it’s not helped by being overweight. They just moan about how doctors don’t listen to them and how unfair life is. They are so offended if doctors suggest loosing weight. Take some personal responsibility for your health!

I think this thread is a great example! OP realises she's overweight, takes proactive steps to do something about it, and is then promptly accused of being smug and full of self hate.

It is not self hate or smug to realise that you are unhealthy and to do something about it. It is not a bad thing to point this out to others.

And it's far too convenient to blame smoking. What about the constant barrage of junk food and Deliveroo, meaning you're never more than 10 mins away from a calorie extravaganza? The complete reluctance to use any form of transport that's not a car?

Here you go for those with a rosy view of the past.

She sounds nice and professional.

Most people in the UK are overweight so if someone's just a little overweight people can see them as normal or slim.
It's lovely that your DH loves you how you are. You do what's best for you.

Weight Is tied up to so many things. Health, beauty and sexual attraction being obvious ones, but also on a basic level being well nourished makes us feel secure . Having enough to eat, all the time, is a recent state in this country for the majority. In other parts of the world it isn’t the situation at all. So on an evolutionary level we should eat what we can when we have access to it. It is very hard to learn not to do this.
There are also the long term issues from being lighter. I am in my fifties, and many of my friends who were careful how they ate and kept themselves very slim when we were teenagers and twenty somethings, now have osteopenia /osteoporosis. So there are both benefits to being lighter, and also problems. I have just had my bone density scanned and I’m waiting for results.
Women have much more pressure on them than men regarding weight.
I was a thin teenager and a thin younger adult, but I am two stone heavier now and I am trying to lose it. It is hard.

TV stars do tend to be tiny IRL, not that's a bad thing, they look nice.

I'm very fat and have noticed that, pre lockdown, I'd be the fattest in the Tube carriage or whatever. Now I'm not, it's quite normal to be my size.

When you look at dresses from history, you can see that people were tiny and malnourished so I'm not sure what I think about it.

I think photos are a weird call. I'm short and when I look at photos of me in a normal healthy range, I still look round and fat. I only ever felt I looked okay when I was underweight (this is going back two decades now).

I find with antidepressants, the level of hunger needed to lose even a few pounds isn't worth it.

Not only what a healthy body weight is, but how to get and maintain one.

Good for you OP, you are doing really well. I lost about 3 st in the same way: upped my exercise and ate healthier food, with smaller portions of obviously high calorie stuff.

Almost any thread on here about weight loss is immediately colonised by various theories advocating complicated regimes from Keto to IF to DrWhoeva on YouTube. OK, some need this, but basically if we eat modest portions of unprocessed food, lots of veg, don’t snack on the usual suspect snack / sugary / high fat foods all day long, and take plenty of exercise then we can get back to a healthy weight and lifestyle. Sustainably.

It sounds as if your DH is admirably free of judgment about body size and shape, loves you and fancies you, and is positive. But that doesn’t mean he is factually correct about healthy weight.

Good luck OP, let your success motivate you!

You are right, and it also makes it harder to realise that we need to lose weight when being overweight is normalised

Mostly I feel sorry for your DH, who appears not to be able to do right from doing wrong. He loves you and is never going to say "Yes you could do with losing a few pounds" because he loves all of you and/or doesn't want to upset you.

I know overweight women ( I am one) who dress well and take care of their appearance, doesn't mean they wouldn't be healthier if they lost a stone.

Yes they do.

Plus fat bitch, looks ridiculous. Like a ball. Looks silly. Looks awful. Disgusting

Etc etc

Don't pretend that slimmer people are criticised for their Looks as much as overweight people are

Yanbu. I get called 'worryingly thin' by members of my family and some friends. I am not, my BMI is 20 and I am within the healthy range.

Age makes a huge difference. Calorie intake, for most shorter than average, needs to be far less than the recommended 2,000 a day if you are not going to end up
overweight.

Post menopausal women, effortlessly slim in late teens & early 20s, will likely have to work at it & when you factor in rubbish weather in UK, balancing act of work/elderly relative care, stress & tempting, ‘fast food’, not easy.

You should try and sort out your posture. You’ll look tons better in pictures even if you are carrying an extra few pounds.

I am clearly fat, any negative mention of my weight gets! NO YOU ARE LOVELY! From my husband and I shout to DD “IS’T YOUR MUM BEAUTIFUL” . He’s saying it because he loves you and doesn’t want to be unkind to you, ofcourse he knows you are overweight. I’m not sure what you want him to say, if he went, “yup, you are reeeeaaaaalllly fat” you would be hurt.

Until recently I was 74kg at 165cm which is in the overweight category. My GP had definitely mentioned to me that I should try to lose some weight as I approached menopause. My DH never once indicated that he felt any different about me, which I appreciated because being told I was unattractive certainly would not have motivated me.

I’ve since been diagnosed with bowel cancer and dropped 10kg, which has landed me in the middle of the healthy weight range very quickly. The thing that amazes me is that people who know about my health condition will still marvel at my weight loss as though it’s something positive. Along the lines of ‘oh sorry to hear what you’re going through but wow don’t you look good!’ And frankly, I think that’s a bit messed up.

It's sad but people just don't put their health first. As a country we work really long hours, have high cost of living and a lot to juggle. Couple that with socioeconomic issues and you've got an obesity epidemic. People that spend their lives yo-yo dieting need therapy not a meal plan. They know how to lose weight. The question is why are they comfort eating or making poor choices when they know better.