If you're 5'7 with a 26" waist...

[waistchallenge]

Would you mind telling me how much you weigh, please? My waist is 27" but I'm thinking of trying to get it down to 26" because it opens up more possibilities with vintage clothes: 26" seems vastly more common than 27" when it comes to vintage, for some reason.

I'm just wondering how much I might have to lose to get down to 26". If it's too much I might not bother 😅😬

( I was going to post this on Weight Loss chat but then I realised there's probably more people who can answer the question on here).

I'm mid 40s. I'm 5ft 7 and weigh 8st 5. 26 waist and 28g boobs 😕. I've never been happy with my body sadly. This time last year I weighed 7st 5 and 25 waist.

In my teens to around mid 20s I was around waist 22" and around 7st. No dieting or cutting back on food.Size 8 or 10 fitted me. Size 8 wasn't that common.

I have kept a few Laura Ashley vintage pieces from mid 1990s. They say 10 on the label but by modern sizing they're size 6 or even 4. A 6 didn't even exist in the 1970s or 1980s and 8s weren't common. As you say a 10 was the smallest size.

I was born in 1959 in a well off family, living on a farm. We grew our own fruit and vegetables but cakes, biscuits, sweets, cans of coke were treats , not everyday. People are getting fatter. We're not bigger now because of a better diet now, as a PP suggested; we're bigger because of a poorer diet.

I’m 5’6” with a 25 inch waist. I weigh 51kg.

My frame is petite but I’m limby. I keep my waist with lots of core elements to my workouts. I do MMA, and running, and lift lots of weights. I do bodyweight and suspension exercises too, often adding additional weight to them.

We're not bigger now because of a better diet now, as a PP suggested; we're bigger because of a poorer diet.

I think you're misunderstanding what I meant.

People are growing taller now due to better nutrition and healthcare, and that has been the trend across the population for the last +50 yrs. A 5'7" woman in the 1960s would have been unusually tall for a woman, and would likely have had to make all their clothes to measure in order to achieve a good fit.

Being taller means that healthy measurements are obviously proportionately bigger. A 26" waist on someone who 5'3" looks very different to the same waist on someone who is 5'7".

That's totally separate to the obesity epidemic, which is due to (IMO) consumption of large quantities of UPFs and high calorie foods. The obesity epidemic is not caused by improved nutrition and healthcare at all, but the OP is so far from being obese that I don't really consider it relevant to the thread.

I'm 5ft 7 and even with hardly any fat on me I still didn't have a 26 inch waist - would be 28, 29inch. I'm not sure where I could have lost it to get there... must be girdles all the way!

As an aside I wear slips whenever I wear a skirt or dress if it's unstructured. It does indeed make it hang better. I'm a millennial.

5'7" 58kg, waist is a shade under 26"

Yes but you're unhealthily underweight - nobody should be aiming to "keep a waist" at the expense of their bodily health, it's stupid.

Wow.
That seems incredibly underweight

I'm 5"7. 8st 10. 25 waist.

It wasn't a compliment, just a statement of fact 🤷‍♀️

In 5ft 6.5 26 waist and weigh and go between 9-9st 5

I was the poster who pointed out that this particular height/weight was underweight. It was a statement of fact, not an accusation against which the poster needed defending! How odd that you reacted that way. Whether or not that height/weight ratio is "natural" or not, it's still underweight.

I am much bigger than that now BUT I am 5'7" and when I was a 26" waist I was between 8st 7 and 8st 10lb.

I'm 5"7, 25-26" waist and weigh 53kg or 8st 5

It was because you said it as though it's a bad thing. If a person is naturally slim and doesn't put weight on no matter what they eat/drink, I consider it rude for people to make an unsolicited comment on it (I dislike the expression, but it's "body shaming") I daresay you wouldn't tell someone they were OVERweight unless they asked for your candid opinion?

It's a BMI of less than 16 - that's well into severe illness territory.

The comment was hardly unsolicited!

It was literally in response to a PP giving height/weight stats that showed her to be underweight, and also saying she thought she was carrying excess fat and wanted to lose weight.

If a friend said those things to me I sure as hell would be talking to them about the fact that they were underweight. I'd also be telling them they needed help.

I'm 49 and 5ft5 with a 30 inch weight (maybe 29 on a good day).I weigh 59/60kg, am on anti oestrogens which isn't helping, but I have started a healthy eating plan, so I'm hoping I can drop a couple of kg and waist inches.

AGAIN, I didn't see the deleted comment, but it still sounds like an unsolicited remark (unless she was actually asking what people thought about her trying to lose weight)

No. I’m not. I’m very petite in build. I’m really muscled and extremely healthy. I fight competitively. I have a six pack. Don’t just look at the numbers and judge me. This shows why we struggle with weight.

It wasn't unsolicited, it was a response to a public post in which a clinically underweight person stated that they feel they are carrying too much fat (or words to that effect.)

Your posts are seriously tedious. Nobody except one poster has said they want to lose weight whilst underweight. Nobody at all has said they're pro-any-medical-condition.

Even if someone does have restricted eating (I've happened amongst lots of what appears to be starvation or binge eating called "intermittent fasting" by accident on YouTube) it doesn't necessarily mean they are anorexic or is in favour of others being anorexic. Anorexia is a medical condition as I'm sure you know since you won't STFU about it. Not everyone wanting to lose weight has anorexia.

So please will you just bore off now? (That's a rhetorical question, nobody wants to hear your lecturing answer). This is the style and beauty board. It's about having fun. Go bang your oversensitive drum somewhere else.

That's the very definition of an unsolicited comment. The poster stated her feelings she wasn't looking for a response.

As a vintage enthusiast I just wanted to chime in with a suggestion that you give sewing your own garments a go! You could start with skirts for example as they're pretty easy. Loads of patterns for 27 inch waists on eBay and Etsy (both original and repro!). That's where I get all of the patterns for my family's summer clothes :) I stopped buying actual vintage a few years ago.

I had a 25 inch waist until I had my son in 2020. I finally managed to shave it down to 26 but then got pregnant again last August so currently have no waist to speak of at all 😂

Have you researched or collected any vintage clothing yet OP?

In the 1950’s into the 1960’s it was a ‘roll-on’ girdle with stocking clips, a longline bra and a full slip (with straps) or waist slip (underskirt). Every day. The girdle and bra, especially with the body having been ‘trained’ to wear shaping undergarments from the early teens, would have given the body a far more hourglass shape than we are expected to have today.

Going on my large collection of garments and dressmaking books published in the 60’s, I would expect a fitted dress with a 26” waist to also have a 38” bust and a 40-42” hip. In light of this losing weight to get that inch off your waist may not work for you and you may want to look into a modern shaping undergarment instead if you want go start wearing vintage? An inch is very little to whittle and can easily be achieved with the right underwear.

From speaking to my Mum and Aunts when I was a teenager in the 1980’s I gather that comfort came second to decency in the mid century and achieving a trim, very firm figure through corsetry was absolutely standard, just as wearing a bra with a fitted t-shirt is today. I’m sure there are days you are glad to get your bra off at the end of the day, it doesn’t mean it was all that uncomfortable to wear.

Good luck OP!