Do you weigh more than you look - and why

[AfternoonNap]

I know i need to lose weight - BMI is 28 and I am aiming to get it to 24 on a fairly healthy lifestyle change of low GI and carb dodging :)
What does confuse me though is the difference between what the scales tell me and my clothes. I have just got a brand new pair of size 12 jeans which fit really well and I bought size 14 tops from M&S, White Company and Gap at Christmas. I am convinced that these shops are all using vanity sizing but that doesn't explain why I'm able to wear the same size jeans as my friend who has a BMI of 22. Can some people just be heavy without being (very) fat or am I just deluding myself in some way.

bumping ..... I'm not the only delusional chubby, am I?

People can't believe how much I weigh when I tell them. I know that I am overweight and flabby but people are surprised by how much.

I weight 14 and a half stone, but am tall and have an hourglass shape, so people see the comparatively small waist and assume I have a normal BMI - mine is 29.

I do agree with the vanity sizing, I bought a vintage M&S dress in size 18 - it is smaller than a modern siz 14

I'm two stone overweight, I don't 'look' it but it's crept on evenly all over.

Pre children I'd always been 'slim' so I did n't realise that weight would sneak on , just a little bit on my shins, a bit chunkier in the thigh, a padded look to my chin.

My dress size has n't changed dramatically, it's a bit tighter....so I'm looking to slim down and I'm being mindful of what I eat now.

I'm a tall hourglass as well.

I'm 17 stone and a size 18-20. my best friend is the same height as me, 13.5 stone, and a size 22-24. How does that work?

I'm going to Slimming world and doing the Shred to loose some weight.

I do too. Whenever I have been officially weighed, the nurse/doctor is always suprised by how much I weigh - I guess I am quite muscly...... under the current layer of flab.

I think it depends where you carry your weight. As legs/bum is a bigger area than stomach you can put on more in those areas than you can on your stomach without it showing. You sound like you have more weight on your top half than your bottom half, OP hence you can get into the same size jeans as your apparently slimmer friend. I am guessing she doesn't wear a size 14 top?

I have to disagree with the vanity sizing thing though unless it is going in cycles. I have a size 14 shirt from M&S that I got in the 80's. I can wear it now although the bottom button strains a bit. I could never in my wildest dreams get into a size 14 now - more like an 18/20.

I always find BMI a dubious measurement as it does tend to throw up these anomalies. I read recently that waist measure and hip to waist ratio are more accurate indications of being overweight.

Bone structure also has something to with it too. I have broad shoulder, fairly large feet and broad hips. There is more skeleton to hang the flesh from!

I'm 12 stone and take size 16-18 top, size 14 bottom. My friend is the same weight but hourglass, I look loads fatter than her because I put it all on my belly and back. She can wear things I really can't get away with yet.

Very irritating!

Oh and when we did our body fat measurements she was 45% body fat and I was 30%, even though we are the same weight and height.

I weigh much more than I look. A few years ago I went a bit mad on the slimming, (slimming pills, smoked like a chimney really behaved stupidly). Size 8 clothes hung off me. Everyone said how awful I looked, I had gone too far. I was 9.5 stone! When I went to the doctors for my pill they said you really need to be 8.5 stone for your height (5'6). If I lost another stone I would have been very ill .

Some people are heavier than they look.

Even now I'm 13.5 stone wearing size 14. You can see I'm carrying too much weight but people can never believe thats my weight.

I had the same issue when I was pregnant. My weight was 12st then, wearing a size 10/12 and the midwife wanted me to try and loose some weight to lower my bmi. Erm no thanks love, I'm fit healthy and eat well. I'm just heavy!!

Even at my thinnest (and we are talking size 8, so skinny people were telling me to gain a few pounds) I still weighed 10 stone. I think I just have seriously good bone density! My late grandmother was the same, looked like she would take off in a stiff breeze but weighed in at the 10 stone mark. She had a lot of nasty falls in her last few years but never broke a bone, so I think there's something in it. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

My DD appears to be shaping up the same way, she is 16mo, and my friend has a DD born the day before. They are identical to look at, height, waist etc. My DD is on the 91st centile hers is on the 50th!!
If I pick her DD up the poor child almost ends up on the ceiling!!

I weigh more (nearly 11 stone at the moment) and take a bigger size (usually 14) than most people think - people have commented they thought I would be a 12 and about 10 stone. Maybe because I'm slightly above average height, wear black trousers a lot (!) and am fairly toned. Just have some belly flab and a bigger bum than necessary for comfort!

I think I weigh more than I look... I've lost 2 stone recently at Slimming World and people keep asking if I'm at goal now, or assuming I am, but I'm still 14.7 stone with 1.7 stone to go to reach my SW target and another stone after that ideally, probably. I'm a size 16 now so if I get down to 13 stone I'll hopefully be a good size 14 and that's fine with me. I'm tall and in proportion but am large of nork which makes everything else look smaller iyswim...

Likesshinythings I am also skinny at ten stone, as I was on my wedding day. Mum said she put her arm around my waist and it just went on coming back round towards her!

I'm 5 foot tall and 15 Stone. This should mean I'm an actual ball. In reality I'm a complete hourglass with 36j's and a 28 inch waist.

No one ever thinks I'm that heavy even my friend who's a personal trainer and very blunt guessed me at 12 stone before she weighed me.

I do know thought that all this compact fat is around my organs which is why I'm aiming to reduce my weight.

Another 'heavy' signing in!
I wear a size 12 on a 5'7 height and I reckon its an ok figure - probably class as 'sporty' body shape because I have broadish shoulders and chunky bum/thighs.
I've refused to weigh myself for a few years but I seem to recall it was around the 11.5-12 stone mark, and when I did the bmi calculations it told me i was obese and I was mortified. (I'm not sure exactly - but I think it also told me I was on the high end of obese so I decided that BMI was a load of bollocks and I no longer have any scales in the house...)
I probably could do with losing a few pounds if I'm truly honest, but I am tackling this through sensible eating and modest exercise rather than anything formal or regimented. From past experiences this usually just improves my shape rather than too much impact on weight.

JoJo your friend is probably envious of your slim legs though - thunder thighs and hips seem to go with an hourglass shape

Wow lauriefairycake you are lucky with your measurements. I am 5 feet 1 and dieted down to 9 stone 2 pounds and my waist is 28 inches if I pull the measure tight . I would love my small waist back. Tips anyone?

I'm 5 foot 2, you notice every pound I gain :(

Also seem to have a waist, although it's quite large, and large hips. But I'm still 3 or 4 stone overweight, so maybe they're just fat creating the illusion...

I used to a) do the weigh-ins at a slimming club and b) work at Evans while I was a student. From the weigh-ins I learnt that it is v v difficult to tell someone's weight from their appearance, even to within a few stones. From Evans I learnt that body shape makes a massive difference to the clothes size people wear. But I also learnt that people judge 'fit' differently - some people went for the smallest size that fastened, even if it was unflattering, some for a bigger size than they needed as they wanted to be v comfortable. If someone says they wear a mysteriously small size for their weight I tend to want to tell them to try something bigger as it may look better.

Yeah, I've got some size 14s in my wardrobe that I can fasten but there's no way I'd wear them due to serious muffin top, really I'm a 16 at the moment. I'm another one who puts all the weight on around the middle with barely an ounce of fat on my arms and legs so I probably look like I weigh more than I do because people see my stomach and not notice that the rest of me is quite lean.

Clothes sizes are ridiculous. Back in my good old slim days I had 2 pairs of jeans from the same shop, one was a size 8 and fitted comfortably and the other was a size 12 and tight! In most other clothes I was normally a 10.

oreocrumbs I'm just an inch taller than you and I couldn't even imagine how ill I would look if I was 8.5st, that's crazy for them to tell you that.