To accept I will never look good in a pair of shorts

[Crazyladee]

I'm 5ft 5 and size 10 top and size 12 bottom. Typical pear shape.
However I have absolutely awful legs. Throughout the autumn/winter is great as my legs are covered but come summer I have the same issue. I cannot show my legs. I have been blessed with horrible chunky flabby elephant style knees and chunky calves and thighs. They are also covered in cellulite.
I have tried everything to make me feel less self conscious. I've had sessions with a personal trainer last year, I've had lipo fat freezing on them (which did nothing) and I've tried dry body brushing. Nothing has worked. I had lunch today with my best mate who has legs to die for. She was wearing a gorgeous pair of tiny khaki shorts and looked fab. I sat sweltering in jeans. I think I am going to have to accept that I will never have the legs I long for.
Anyone else in the same boat?

Pics or it never happened

Yup, size 12 and in proportion but my legs are terrible! Pasty and mottled and my knees are lumpy looking. I look honestly terrible in shorts no matter what style (I’ve tried them all)

I sympathise. I've resigned myself to chinos and maxi/midi skirts here.

Yep!!!! Me too!

sansasnatch

Pics? No way! I'd rather upload photos of my bare backside!

Can I climb into your boat? Size 12 and reasonable shape but legs are pale, sport some fairly grim veins, fat chubby knees and chunky thighs. I have given up on shorts

you know there are somethings cooler than jeans that still cover legs long floaty skirts, all sorts of dresses in whatever length you like, linen trousers, thin cotton trousers, cropped wide legs
looser things are generally cooler as air circulates better than tight fitting anything including shorts

Size 12 legs are not bad!

Me too!!!

It's shit.

I have pale legs, fat knees, chunky thighs and disproportionately muscular calves. I still rock shorts - I just wear them with wedges and they look fine.

Yep, I'd love to be long limbed and elegant but it's not meant to be 👎

I feel your pain, OP.
I’m a size 8-10 at 5ft4 and, although my legs are slim and muscular, I am also genetically cursed with terrible cellulite and pasty white skin

My go-to trick for wearing shorts is a pair of skin coloured fishnets underneath (the type dancers wear on stage). Your skin can still breathe but it makes your legs look 10x smoother.
If you get a good tone match it looks like you have bare legs (from a distance )

My pet peeve is that I don’t tan and people say stuff like ‘oh it’s fashionable to be pale, like Nicole Kidman or Anne Hathaway’.....I wouldn’t mind being pale if my legs were all the same colour as they seem to be! Nothing fashionable about legs that are the colour of bread dough with sort of pinkish mottling!

Totally! Even at my smallest (size 6). So with you on the elephant knees. I don't understand why they're so big!

Snap! No shorts since puberty here:( Size 10 on top, slim arms but size 12 pale, blotchy legs. Running has definitely improved them but shorts are out

My Irish ain’t used to say that her legs were chunky and mauve,with orange fluff on them.
She was right.

Same here, hate my legs. Fat knees, massive thighs, inelegant ankles and random scars acquired over the years. Also several shades lighter than the rest of me.

Tell me more about the fishnet idea - where do you get those from? Do they make you look like an 80s dance wannabe?? How far away do you have to be for them to be invisible?

Put on some Sally Hansen airbrush legs (far better than fake tan, and it blurs out veins/bruises etc) and find a style of shorts that works. I have very muscular legs, and love a skort as its freedom of movement but I feel a bit more covered. But I guarantee that no one else thinks your legs are even 10% as bad as you do. And if they do, stuff them!

Mine are tree trunks, start big at the ankle, get gradually bigger (no reduction at knees) until they meet enormous arse. Not nice!

I looked at the airbrush leg and thought it would go the same way as fake tan for me (looks dirty, oddly streaky no matter how careful I am, runs in the rain?)

I'm also a pear shape with strong chunky thighs. Short, slightly french knicker style shorts look best on me. Longer, mid-thigh shorts are dreadful, I look as if my scout troop is missing!

I don't care that my legs look pale, that I never get tanned shins and that I also rock a multi-layered cyclist's tan on my thighs. I give zero fucks that I have some lumps and bumps, so what it's my body, no-one is going to fall over at the sight of me.

How many hairy Dad legs do you see and judge for wearing shorts? Why are you so hard on yourself?

I have terrible legs too - they have never been a great shape even when I was a size 6 they were disproportionately chunky
I'm now a size 10 and I hate them especially my cankles.
That coupled with having RA for half my life plus injecting my drugs into my legs for the past 10years means that my legs really shouldn't be on display.
I don't wear shorts but will wear linen trousers and skirts instead in hot weather.

Same here , fake tan is your friend.
Exfoliate , moisturise and some fake tan and you will feel much better .
I like winter that I can wear tights but yes summer I wear maxi dresses /skirts as I can't show bear legs .

For me, I like to look nice and if I don’t, I feel uncomfortable. Undoubtedly some internalised message that my legs aren’t adequate due to societies obsession with female perfection but I don’t have a nice time if I feel self conscious. So I don’t wear them. Short wearing is not my hill to die on.