AIBU to ask if anyone else is classed as obese?

[TheOpalFox]

Im
16 stone and classed as obese :( anyone else?

Yes I’ve been in the obese box forever. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t on a diet or hated the way I look. I found a diary of when I was 10
and I hated how I looked then.

I'm not sure if it is

Sorry I know that sounds weird 😭 but for example today I have eaten...2 packets of oven baked ready salted walkers crisps. Granted 96 calories a bag...and on top of that 2 cans of monster energy which were 15 calories a can.

And that's probably standard for most days and yet can't say I'm losing weight more than usual. I find it extremely hard to eat one meal a day, I rarely have an appetite due to my medication (and anxiety means I've been unable to cook any food in this hmo for the past decade). I do admit once a week I absolutely do cave and order a takeaway just so I've eaten something. But year I find it weird cos the food I do eat never seems to correlate with my weight per say 😳

Incrementally over many years for me.

I was 12st when I married my first husband in 2018. 14st by the end of Covid, and 16st 10lbs by March this year.

I have a profoundly disabled son, and a chronic health condition. I was eating for convenience and speed. Air fryer teas, takeaways, drive through coffees because the aforementioned child has horrendous sleep issues.

I was watching the weight creep up and couldn’t find the energy to do anything about it. I was shocked at the number on the scales, but I knew I was big.

I went to the doctors and was told I was prediabetic and had early fatty liver - at 36 years old. That, and being around/being able to care for my son, was enough of a kick.

I started doing something about it seriously on the 13th April, and to date have lost 20.5lbs.

I'm obese. 5 ft 4, and currently around 13 1/2 stone, which puts me in that category. Also in my 60s, so finding it hard to lose weight. I was just under 15 stone at the start of the year, and my target for the year is to get down to 12 stone which will get me into the overweight category. I was just under 13 stone a couple of weeks ago, and then I went on holiday to France where wine, cheese and croissants are very available! With me it's about balance - I want to be lighter and healthier and fitter, but I also want to enjoy my life...

Yes. I’m 5ft4, approx 13st10. I’m mid forties with an underactive thyroid and a big appetite. The struggle is real!

I was always a healthy weight, then I hit peri menopause and developed a high cortisol issue due to hormone fluctuations, it’s very common, it makes you gain weight, not sleep well, suffer anxiety etc, and to make it worse I stopped smoking, so that added to it. I also didn’t ever weigh myself. So it’s not like you see yourself get bigger each day, or even notice your portion sizes creeping up.

i went from about 9 and a half to 10 stone to 15 and a half, before I weighed myself, I developed high blood pressure and sleep apnea. I kidded myself on I was a 16, I wasn’t I was an 18, a fixed waist band of a 16 didn’t fit, and my bmi was 32. I couldn’t understand how I was so big, which sounds stupid. But I didn’t see it in the mirror. Whenever I saw photos I didn’t understand it. Surely I’d didn’t look like thst, why did my face look so fat.

i couldn’t get it off, I was exhausted from the sleep apnea so constantly starving and craving carby foods, for energy, my cortisol was off the charts, it was a mess, I was in a loop I couldn’t get out of.

so then I tried mounjaro, and I’m now 9 stone, bmi 20, have been for over a year, work out most days, no lose skin, have a clean and healthy diet, all health issues resolved and a size 8.

About a third of the UK population!

I've been 13 stone. Now 10 stone 4. About five pounds away from being not-overweight, for the first time ever, early childhood included. I love Mounjaro.

Not obese any more (Mounjaro) but before that I never had a sense of having "got to" anything - I was always the same sort of weight and shape proportionate to my height, even as a small child. Usually around the 12.5 stone mark, from mid teens to mid forties. Went to 13 in lockdown but otherwise very stable. My BMI was 32; looking at pics I'd say it was about the same when I was age 10 or 6 or 3.

I’m so sorry - I hope everything continues on an upward path. All the best to you xx

That makes a lot of sense, thank you for responding xx

Yes I was. 5/7 and 17.4 so 38 bmi

I knew I was overweight. I didn’t reliese I was that fat tho

now 10.7 and 22/23 and when I see pics of me few years back I do think omfg

I see people on here always saying oh they know they are fat, but I don’t think it’s true, you sort of know in an abstract way, but many people just can’t see it for what it is, I knew I’d gained weight, but I certainly didn’t see the reality in the mirror. I didn’t see how big I was. When I saw it in photos and the ring doorbell I was genuinely confused as I didn’t think I looked like that at all.

Contentment. Takeaways. Holidays IVF. Failures of ivf. Then eating as unhappy

Then you think fuck it I’m fat anyway. One more biscuit won’t hurt and suddenly packet has gone

Surprisingly easily and quickly. I wasn’t a lifelong sufferer, managed over 40 years never obese, mostly healthy weight occasionally veered just over bmi 25 then corrected it by eating less crap. Triple whammy for me was perimenopause, moving less (wfh) and becoming a carer for severely SEN child. I knew the weight was creeping up but it was no longer easy to correct. I went from bmi 25 to 32 in 3.5 years. Then back down to 22 in 9 months once I had the support of WLI to remove carb and sugar cravings and give me the mental space to retrain my diet to what my peri body needs.

yep! 13 stone 11 at 5 ft 6 and I’m obese. I am actively trying to lose weight.

although I had a health check done recently and I have excellent blood pressure, good cholesterol levels and no risk of diabetes. I’m not saying carrying extra weight is healthy as obviously it isn’t but I’m not on deaths door just because my BMI says I’m obese.

I've been obese several times in my adult life. I think what people don't get is that obesity doesn't always result from a sudden, drastic lifestyle change or a person deciding overnight that they're going to live off takeaways and chocolate bars. It can come on very gradually.

You don't have to overeat hugely to put on 1 lb in a month. Do that every month and it's a gain of nearly a stone. Continue for 3 years and you could easily go from healthy into obese. That's not McDonald's five times a week, that's an extra couple of biscuits here and there, or some buttered toast when you feel hungry after work. It might be that the person is eating exactly what they've always eaten but they've become more sedentary, or bodily changes such as menopause have lowered their metabolism.

Some people simply can't eat very much without gaining weight. Very few adult women, in my anecdotal experience, can eat anywhere near the supposed 2000 calories a day and stay a healthy weight. For some it's nearer to 1000. That doesn't go very far. So you have a choice - be hungry and dissatisfied all the time, but thin; or sate your hunger and be fat (or spend £££ on WLI if you are eligible and can afford them).

The biggest thing that could be done to stop 'fat shaming' is busting the myth that obesity is always the result of obviously poor food choices. Sometimes it is; sometimes it's a combination of getting to the obese stage and then thinking 'fuck it, what's the point, I'm fat anyway' but it is perfectly possible to become obese through a gradual process of eating slightly more than your body can metabolise, without takeaways, cake, chocolate etc. being in the equation at all.

I would also just waist to height ratio, it’s a better indicator of health than bmi. DH got to his healthy weight and he literally looked frail because he has such a big frame.

Big rise in obese girls which is causing increase in type 2 diabetes.

I think as a nation we've become used to obese people seen as normal.

I'm obese 5 4 and 11 stone. Im trying to lise weight slowly.

Yup look at a tdee calculator

at my current weight I would need 1584 calories at sedentary to maintain
me 2 stone heavier would need 1736 calories

Thats 152 calories, just 152 calories. Thats literally 2 biscuits or a large cappuccino.

It is actually quite easy to put on quite a bit of weight, age, a slight drop in activity and a slight increase in food and a year later you can have gained quite a bit. I could absolutely gain quite a lot, at my highest I was 14 stone and it was partially inactivity partially ice cream ontop of what was generally a reasonable diet.

November 2024 I was 14st 11lb, I’m 5 ft 2, I was morbidly obese.
I was on holiday with my partner and children and I’ve got about 3 photos of me. I felt utterly disgusting. We had booked our wedding so I knew I had to change.
Yesterday morning I weighed 8st 3lb and I’m in the middle of the healthy range.
I’ve spent most of my adult life obese so I do struggle to see what’s in the mirror.
I’ve stuck to the old fashioned eat less and move more.
we go to the gym 4/5 times a week and if I want something nice, I’ll still have it, just a smaller portion.

We’ve lost sight of what a healthy weight body looks like. Everyone thinks a woman at optimum weight looks emaciated.

The interactive thyroid is a killer because if you increase meds in peri you go the other way and get hungry MORE often!

I’m 13 stone, 5’ 4’’ and classed as obese by BMI. I’m strongly considering weight loss meds as I have a large appetite and get seriously hungry, but I’m peri and under active thyroid.

I was. I'm 5'6" and hit 16 stone 3 years ago. Think that's a BMI of 36.
After years of yoyo dieting I went on Mounjaro early in 2025 and am now a healthy weight.
To the PPs asking how you can let yourself get like that, it's really easy over time in your 40s & 50s. Stress, lack of sleep, being too busy looking after everyone else to look after yourself, comfort eating, comfort wine drinking... it creeps up v v easily.
For me Mounjaro is a wonder drug - I've got the old me back again - I look at old photos now and can't believe I was so big. I know I couldn't have done it without the WLI - I'd tried in vain for the previous decade. I'll probably be on it life tbh and I'm ok with that.

I think there's a lot of truth in this. If you look back at historical or restored films from the 50s and 60s everyone looks so slim - like really slim. Men and women - and compare that to a street scene anywhere in the UK now. Convenience food, highly processed food and 'go large' portions have a lot to answer for.