AIBU to be annoyed because I can’t find a “body double “

[Stayinganontoday]

for context I’ve always been “heavy” for my dress size, and I’ve always been classified as “overweight” apart from a few months in my adult life.

now, the problem is that consensus says that:

a) people overestimate how “muscular” they are
b) people really only become denser (to account for the higher BMI) with heavy lifting.

either on social media or online communities (like Reddit) I seem to look substantially lighter than people with my height and weight (one person thought I had to be 10kg lighter).

I can’t fathom why can I find someone with my same stats, it’s not like I do anything particularly rare - I mostly do Pilates and running.

i just wish I could find someone that I saw and thought “yeah I look like her”.

For the record, I’m 1.59m, 64kg (which makes me overweight for my ethnicity) and I’m a size UK 8/6 And bizarrely sometimes even smaller (but I’m sure that’s vanity sizing!)

I do look toned (or like I workout) but not gym rat type.

OP if BMI isn’t working for you just focus on waist to height ratio, and if your waist really is 26inches, there is no issue.

You look great. Stop dwelling on it. There's far more to life than weight.

I'm a tiny bit taller than you, same weight and I'm a size 12. You look fit and healthy but I can't believe you would fit into a size 6. What are your measurements? Bust, waist, hips?

my waist is currently 66cm my hips are 90cm and my chest is 94cm.

i sometimes fit in a size 6, that’s not my main size so to speak. (I also have some size 4 trousers but I’m sure that’s vanity sizing to the max)

How can you be 10 st 5 ft 3 and be a size 6? Is this U.K. size 6 you mean OP?
In 5 ft 7 and 9 stone 2 and I'm a size 10 - maybe an 8 in tops. In jeans I'm 26 / 27. I have very little muscle and but not much fat either. If I was a size 6 I would be skeletal. I have very small bones as well.

Yes size 6 U K (2US) again not my main size. Just sometimes I fit in one.

Perhaps heavy bones? I had a friend who was 14 stone while I was 11 stone. Same height; and we both looked the same size

My 18 year old daughter and her friends are UK size 6-8 and there's literally nothing of them! They are tiny. Do you mean US sizes OP?

Why do you care so much?

Sorry cross post!

Just another angle because I have two runners in the family.

Theyre obsessed with (their) weight - the idea being that all the good runners/fell runners have a very low BMI.
So is it possible that this is also influencing how you feel about your body?

fwiw I dint think you can tell that precisely if you lost/gain weight wo a scale

Given how uninformed sizing is could it just be that different brands have different sizes? I’m 5”3 8st 13 and wear a size 10. At Christmas I was 7st 7 and a size 10.

Clothing from Asda, Tesco, Primark I’m a 10/small. M&S I can sometimes wear an 8. When I was 10 stone I was a 14.

I don’t understand your post to be honest though. If you are content as you are you surely just continue to weigh yourself to monitor your weight is/isn’t fluctuating ? What someone else looks like is irrelevant.

Yes! There’s also the whole thing about “ideal race weight”.

my husband is a runner and he’s just as obsessed but in other ways. (He also has the very cringe habit that he takes his shirt and flexes every time he goes past a mirror). He’s also trying to be as light as possible all the time.

I was once part of an academic study about runners and their perceived weight and performance.

As you’ve posted so many photos I’m thinking next step is to post with documented proof,
photo showing tape measure and scales 🤣

I don’t think it’s as surprising as people say.
For one, those changes happen slowly and are therefore not as easy to spot than in other people you see less often (so the gap betwen before and after is bigger)

Clothes might or might not feel tighter depending on the type of clothes you wear.

And the variation you’re talking about is quite low 69 to 74kg is only 5kg.

If the issue is only spotting the changes then I’d say weigh yourself once every 1~2 weeks.

I genuinely struggle to understand how women (and it is almost always women) can get so wrapped in 'how could you possibly fit that size when I weigh so much less & I'm this size' etc etc etc.

OP clearly carries significant amounts of muscle in her legs. She's fit, muscular, a healthy but fairly low percentage body fat.

Her BMI weighs slightly into overweight at her current composition, but as her GP has said, as she is at the moment 'keep doing what you're doing'.

It is also completely true that she could be exactly the same weight & at significant risk of several lifestyle diseases is she was, for example 40% body fat at the same weight, rather than around 25% (which I would guesstimate she currently is based on the photos). That would represent nearly 10kg of muscle mass loss & carrying it as fat instead - same weight, VERY different health prognosis.

If you don't have a history of eating disorders OP, get yourself down to Argos with twenty quid in your pocket and buy one of these https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8478823
You can measure where you are now, and keep a rough eye on how you track over time, measuring once a week.

If you're a stable weight, +/-2kg from 'norm' wouldn't be a big deal at all. Given the limitations of just measuring body fat through your feet, +/-2or3% would be completely normal. Anything outside this would suggest it's time to get a bit more proactive about tweaking intake down & ramping muscle-building activity back up.

I don't understand the comments about weighing being hard work at all. It's fast, accurate, and unless anyone has a history of poor mental health or ED, is an extremely easy way to get answers rather than guessing.

If you feel short-changed in some way that it's that cheap & easy to get accurate answers on a long-term basis based on you & no-one else, you could always pay to have a DEXA scan now, so you know if your visceral fat is in the healthy range (which combined with cholesterol tests & checking BP, might be a more useful sense check ca family history?). It would also give an idea how much above or below the £20 scales register your current body fat percentage.

BMI is a useful starting point for general health/weight management. Generally too many people are happy to put an 'overweight' BMI down to some kind of exceptional genetics, when the truth is they could really do with losing 5kg. In your case, you are very muscular & absolutely healthy at your current weight. High BMI in muscular athletes doesn't represent any kind of health risk at all.

If someone has a high BMI AND body fat over 30%, that's the time to start doing something about it.

Stop looking for complicated solutions when a very easy, very affordable one is available on every high street in the country 🤷🏼‍♀️

do you think it is healthy to be obsessing on numbers like this? You are not overweight, you are not putting yourself at risk. So calm down

You look amazing!! So strong ❤️

I can’t find a body double for myself and I don’t care. You should give way less fucks and feel comfortable in your own body.

I don’t understand what you want and I find your posts really confusing. Are you saying,’I want a reliable metric I can use that tells me when things are ok with my body (green), when I need to watch out (amber ) and when I need to take action (red)?’

To add - BMI is a population based tool and can only be used as a rough guide for individuals.

There is also the alternative option of hip/waist measurements and ratio.

BMIs usefulness is heavily caveated when it comes to short (and tall) people and for those who carry a lot of muscle.

This is taking up too much headspace and the thought processes comes across aa unhealthy and obsessive.

I can understand you have health anxieties based on your family history, but as you’’ve acknowledged yourself you have an active lifestyle.

Try to move on after this thread and perhaps shift focus on to adding something new, for example mindfulness, meditation, yin yoga, that will support your overall relaxation and health?

I actually have salter ones… non athlete mode puts me at 33% athlete mode at 18%. I’d probably say I’m somewhere in between so I’d agree with your estimate.

i dislike(d) weighing myself regularly because generally, i can never seem to keep below 68kg, so whenever I have it’s always been a bit of disbelief between the scales vs how I perceive myself

im aware that’s a me problem so I’m sucking it up this time.

I hate mindfulness, I can’t stand meditation ( I’ve tried a million times but don’t get it) and I do all sorts of types of yoga practice regularly… but not for the mental side ( they don’t do anything for me) - I do them for mobility.

Yes, it’s the mental side that would be so helpful to develop to balance out the physical exercise and interrupt the habitual unhealthy thought processes - plus support your overall health.

I think it’s hard to break thought processes… that’s the autism in me. They don’t really bother me though (although I’m aware people would think that).

I do get what you're talking about OP. I'm a similar height and weight to you, although I'm more of a size 10 than an 8 or 6 after having 3 kids, but I do always think I'm deceptively heavy on the scales while I still look petite and fairly dainty