I’m fine with mirrors, like Plnnr, I’m in practically the best shape I’ve ever been in. But it’s photographs. I’ve always been told I photograph poorly but I don’t know if they’re just trying to spare my feelings. My face looks really round and plain. Plus, in recent photos, it’s obvious I’ve had way too much sun in my life. My skin is starting to look really damaged. Argh, my dad keeps reminding that Anglo-Saxon women age poorly…
I’m sorta fat, although I do like the “fat hourglass” description upthread. I think I’ll use that on myself.
Problem is that I don’t even own a full-length mirror. All I have is the one above the bathroom sink. So I figure I’m just a little chunky, until the nasty truth comes out in a fitting room or photo.
Also, there is the unguarded honesty of my five year old, who tells me I’m fat but not tootootooTOO fat. Which is kind of endearing, plus I’m soft to hug.
When I was in high school I was 5’2" and weighed 105 pounds and absolutely agonized over how fat I was. Now I’m the same height (although I also think I’m a lot taller, sort of willowy and model-like), and I weigh almost twice that, but I FEEL thinner. Go figure. I think there’s a happiness quotient that figures into the whole equation.
Cartooniverse, I’ve seen photos of you online, I believe, and you just look like a regular big guy to me. I wouldn’t have characterized you as fat at all.
I luvs you, too.
I can feel the love…as it saturates itself through the layers of Girl Scout Cookies that are permanently affixed subcutaneously to my lower half.
Shirley Ujest Fan Club now has two full members. (Outside my dog. Inside my dog, its too dark to see how I’ve let myself go.
)
Preach it sister! I’m a whopping 5’3 and I never realize I am short until I see pictures of myself with other people or try to get something down from a high shelf.
And yeah, who didn’t feel fat when they were in high school weighing in at a whopping 100 pounds. Shit, to be like that now …but with the emotional confidence I have now…I would conquer da world.
But, allow me to wax philophosic here for a moment the highlight of my pathetic existance is going bowling every Wedneday night. I get to see first hand all the different types of female bodies.
Naturally, as a female, I am more than envious of the women who are in their 30’s and 40’s (and beyond) who still have a great figure. Then there are the women who have let themselves go and way beyond that. GAH. They are my example of how important it is to myself and as an role model for my children of keeping my body in motion and eating good foods first. If I ever wear the female sansa-belt pants, someone please shoot me.
But, back to the Skinny Women Who Seem To Be Blessed With An Excellent Metabolism. They Aren’t. Every.One.Of.Them. Smoke. And I cringe for them in the future when they cannot breath. When they cannot cross the room without gasping for air with an oxygen tank hooked up to them. Cold air leaving them winded. I feel only sorrow for them knowing that their last days will probably be filled with loads of chemo and radiation and painful surgeries. Only to lose in the end because all of that takes so much out of a spirit and body.
I’ll take my pudgy stomach and deep, deep breaths of air any day of the week.
If you smoke, please think in the long run how much more it will suck to have your chest sliced open and ribs spread for the surgeon to get at the cancer and the following radiation/chemo and the exhaustion and barfing that follows. Then think of just how much more easier it will be to go through withdrawl and all its sundry if you stop smoking now. It will be hard, but you will thank yourself and your lungs will thank you in the future.
[steps off soap box]
6’3" 210 lbs.
My wife is ‘bout 5’2" It’s easy for me to just walk up behind her and set my chin on top of her head and start rubbing her shoulders.
Don’t mistakenly do this with a woman that you have mistaken for your wife. Sort-of freaks out the Husband. Both wives as well.
“Heh. What’s up with that guy? He sure looks upset. Kinda scared too. And why is my wife standing way over there? And who is…whhhhhaaaAAA?.”
We were at an amusement park looking up at the rides.
I’m huge, too. I’m 6’4" tall, so I can carry a lot of weight without really looking that obese. But I’m 340 lbs., and there’s only so much height can do. I really need to lose 100 lbs. It’s a matter of life or death, actually. I’m having health problems related to my weight, and a CT last week revealed some calcifications in major blood vessels. Not good. Spectacularly bad, in fact.
I have to agree that I just don’t feel as huge as I am. I constantly have to remind myself that my appearance is different than my personal image of myself, and that people react differently to me because of that.
I travel almost every week, and a co-worker commented upon how I’m the guy coming down the aisle that everyone is praying about: ‘Please god, don’t let him sit by me.’ He’s right, I’m usually the biggest guy on the plane. If I’m in a regular seat in coach, the person in front of me can’t recline – my knee’s are in the way. If I’m on a small plane, they don’t seat anyone next to me because of load balancing.
I was so skinny in high school – I don’t want to be like that again, but it would be nice to look more normal.
I’m 5’9 and 230.
I’d love to be 170.
Ardred is 5’9 and 250.
He’d love to be 190.
As long as we stay about the same size, we can share clothes.
Whoops.
I meant to add:
I’ve always thought of myself as fat, even when I was little and my preschool teacher thought I’d broken my collarbone at the playground because it stuck out o my chest so far.
Even though my softball cards from when I was eight show a terribly skinny little girl.
I think of myself as a little overweight now, even though I’m 50 or more pounds over what I’d like to be.
I think part of this is that it’s so difficult for us to see what we really look like unless we take special steps (such as those photographs mentioned upthread), we can’t see ourselves as we appear from outside.
So many people have bad self-image: we know we are ugly, etc, because it’s been pounded into us during the school years and reinforced by advertisement afterwards. It takes years of effort to dig ourselves out of that hole, even if you don’t have actual problems in the social-communications realm. This has surprisingly little to do with what our bodies actually look like; it’s more about the set of our facial expressions and the way we carry ourselves.
I had often thought of having someone video me without my knowing and then showing me the tapes. The experience would be disturbing, I was sure.
Then four years ago someoen took video of me at the lake in Finland and it was… sobering. I saw myself and realised why I had had so much difficulty in the social world. It wasn’t the looks (I’m blobby but not horrendous) so much as the movement and voice tone and lack of subtle social skills. No wonder the European women were unimpressed. 
I’ve devoted much of the time since to learning how to be social.
Congratulations, Sensualips, on saving yourself!
Hah. That’s not short! You’re only short when you realize one day that you have been not the shortest person in your class, our your grade, but in your school since seventh grade.
I’m 5’0, even. And no, I’m not bitter about it, why do you ask? 
Thank you Sunspace I think you and I have a lot in common (AS).
It was a Christmas party 4 years ago. My FIL was playing with his new video cam. He filmed me and my 2 SILs sitting on the couch. My SILs are both pretty big and I was in the middle, so at first I didn’t notice. Then one of them got up and HOLY COW! I was well on my way of becomming big myself. I’ve since lost 30 pounds.
And here are some new pictures of me. (Forgive the background – we’re remodeling that room right now.) These pictures no longer make me cringe, which is progress, I suppose.
Aaaargh! Your name always makes me think you’re a woman!
Well, I’ve always known I was a bit burlier than I should be. I’m in the process of slimming down a bit now. I’ve lost about 15# or so in the last hmm… 5 weeks? I hope to lose about 50 more, but that’ll be challenging. Honestly, I’d be happy with 230-235. 273 (started at) is a bit much.
See? See??? Told ya’all she was learned. She used “subcutaneously” in a sentence.
–swoon–
I’m glad I started this thread, I really am. It’s the struggle of " how do I appear/how do I appear to myself/how do I wish to appear to others and myself/ how close are these things to objective reality? "
twickster and bodypoet, thank you for the kind words. For those posters here who have made serious changes in body size, at what point did it kind of “hit” ? When you went clothes shopping? When people made comments that were supportive and recognized it? When you saw photos or --shudder-- video?
Oh, seeing video of my ass going up a flight of stairs that my husband took whilst on vacation was, I told him, grounds for immediate divorce. Gah. What happened?
Straight Dope happened.
You bastiges.
I weigh 180 pounds at 6’2", but I have this unpleasant gut. I didn’t realize it until I looked at my whole body in the mirror a while ago, but I have been unconciously ‘sucking it up’ for quite a while now- as my belly sticks out more, I’ll instinctively ‘suck it in’ a little bit more to compensate
I really can’t stand the way I look or sound. Watching myself in home videos is agony- its as if I identify myself as ‘most unpleasant person on the planet’ in terms of body movement, voice, and physical appearance
I have knobby knees, am thin enough that my ribs are visible, yet I have this spare tire around my abdomen. I’ve always thought my rear end was too big for a guy- pants/underwear/etc always seems to ride up and I often feel I have some perma-wedgie curse :mad:
I have really long toes…I’m talking about toes that are the same length as many people’s fingers :eek: My 2nd,3rd, and 4th toe are all longer than my big toe 
and my pinky toes are so much smaller than the rest they seem more of a vestigal nub of flesh than an actual digit
If I could change anything, I’d just spread out all this fat concentrated in my belly. I don’t mind my weight, its just the fat in my body feels badly distributed, and I feel awkward walking around in just swim trunks with my concave chest and protruding belly :eek:
Incubus From what you said you are describing my ex-husband to a T and I thought he was the sexiest man alive. One thing that was never a problem in our marriage was the sex. So wouldn’t feel too self-conscious. (He used to call it his “frog” belly).
I’m happy at 100 lbs, but since menopause kicked in, I’ll be damned if I can lose the lousy 8 lbs I’d like to.
I freakin’ hate my body right now. Just hate it.