I am starting to develop a bit of a paunch. However, when I look in the mirror, the funny thing is that while my tummy is sticking farther and farther out each year, my waist is pretty much unchanged, and while I feel like it looks like I’m getting fatter, my clothes aren’t really that much tighter.
My SO’s abdomen, however, is not like this. Her abdomen kind of has a ‘crease’ around the navel. My mom had something like this as well- instead of one big tummy, its like two small tummies, kind of like (I’m ashamed to admit) a snowman. I had tactfully asked my SO about this, out of sheer curiosity, and she said it was because when she was younger her mom would deliberately get her pants that were 1 or 2 inches too small (her mom is a whole other can of worms, who constantly told her daughter she was ugly, fat, etc).
I’m wondering if this is the real reason (wearing wrong size pants for so long) or it is just normal fat distribution for women when they reach a particular BMI.
Interesting theory, but I don’t think too tight pants when young are going to have a lifelong effect on the way your tummy pouches out when you’re older.
It is not age-related exactly. It is weight- and build-related. Think of various folk you know. When men get to a certain level of overweight, they often develop a pot belly sort of thing. (My father’s is rather extreme. He looks really weird.) Women tend, at least the ones I’ve seen, to get rolls or the snowman effect.
Is it reversible? My SO has lost eight inches off her waist since July, and overall has made steady and consistent progress toward weight loss/fitness.
Its not that I’m grossed out by it or anything, its just I haven’t seen a lot of tummies that look like this (aside from my mom, who is twice my SO’s age and had 2 kids).
Well, I believe (bear in mind I have no first-hand experience with the loss of such a feature) with a certain amount of toning, it should go away, but I don’t know for sure. She might want to ask a personal trainer or another exercise authority about it. Since she is still so young, I would think it would be easier to tone up than for an older person.
I successfully “de-snowmanned” when I was around age 24. I lost 70 pounds and took up kickboxing, and you would never have known I’d been afflicted. Of course now that I’ve had a kid and got a desk job, I am segmented again (temporarily, I hope).
Just means that she puts on weight ALL around the abdomen, not just in the front. Potbellies are for people who put it on mostly in the front.
Like me, in other words. I don’t have much of a sticky-outty belly (completely sucked in, it sticks out about 1/2" from “flat”) but my kidneys and the area above my hipbones are really well-padded.
I’m not entirely unhappy with the way I look; my only objection is the practical, as it’s now (40# heavier than I was) significantly less comfortable to bend over sideways.
I just thought of an explanation for the pants idea. Guys (the main group who gain potbelly and no other weight) generally choose to wear their pants below the belly, over their relatively skinny hips, butt, and thighs. Those who put on the weight evenly around the middle also tend to put it on in the thighs and butt too, so even wearing pants below the belly won’t get them into a smaller size; therefore, they’ll wear their pants at a more comfortable height. Where’s the most comfortable place to fasten your pants if you’re going to wear them over a belly? That’d be somewhere that your belly is already creased-- in other words, your waist. Hence the idea that your pants are CAUSING the belly crease, when actually you’re choosing pants that fit into the way your body already looks.
When I get big, I “snowman”, too. At my chubbiest, my bellybutton just - fwoop! - disappears in there!
But yes, with patience and hard work, it can be toned flat (or flat-ish) if you want it to be. This is stubborn bulge to move though, I find that when I get down to my goal weight, that stuff is the last to iron out, so to speak.
Doesn’t this get down to the whole generalization that men get viseral fat? That is, the fat that is underneath the muscle layer, hanging around the organs. Women tend to get fat that is on the outside of the muscle layer. Since it doesn’t have the smooth, taunt coating of muscle, it folds a little easier.
Supposedly, the viseral fat of men is more dangerous in the long term. We ladies are better suited to long term storage without serious health effects.
If women store fat around their middle - in an ‘apple shape’, then it is dangerous fat too. The ‘safe’ fat is around hips and thighs, in a ‘pear shape.’ Women tend to store more fat here than men, so it is often said that women’s fat is safer, but if, like me, you tend to store fat in your middle it is bad. I work hard to keep my weight down because it all goes right to my middle when I do gain.
If she loses more weight off her middle the crease will go away. If there is no fat there is nothing to crease. Wearing tight pants might give you a temporary indentation but it’s not permanent.
Zipper, most women do have that 2 tummies thing. Women usually have that little chub right under their belly button even when they are thin. When there is extra weight then you get the fat above the belly button too, and that creates the 2 tummies look. The fat over the belly button comes off more easily and the abdominal muscles are easy to tone up, but that little bulge under the belly button is almost impossible to fully get rid of.
Sigh, yes, I too after years of being so skinny people thought I had an eating disorder have acquired fat rolls. It’s just what women do - my SO has a little potbelly, I have, er, several little potbellies, in segments. I lost one though already, and I only started dieting a week and a half ago! So now I only have three bellies instead of four.
I guess I have a snowman belly. It’s divided up like that too. I even have purple-ish creases when I sit down. It’s all pretty flat when I stand though. I’m not overweight or anything, that’s just how it folds. I took pictures, but I’m too embarassed to post them.
