Are you happy in your own skin?

greenmossgiel....I have written a great long reply to this..and then deleted it..but basically I very much understand what you are saying. I dont really think one can honestly really be happy knowing they carry extra weight and have always done so. Its been the bane of my life - I've tried many times but know that my nature leans a little towards being just a bit lazy and just a bit keen on that second slice of cake.

greenmossgiel, I too have struggled with my weight ever since I had my first child at 18 years old. I've been on countless diets, lost weight, put it back on, and so it went on. I did join WW and lost 3 stone going from a size 16 to a size 12 and I really got into the habit of eating healthily.
I found it hard to maintain the weight loss and am now ten and a half stone and a size 14. I decided over a year ago to stop dieting and just try to eat healthily, and guess what, I have stayed the same weight. I still have the food that I love but in smaller portions and limit myself to treats like cake and chocolate at the weekend. So, yes, I do feel happy in my own size 14 skin, but it's taken me a long time to get here.

I was size 12 when I married in 1967. I'm now size 16, after having had three babies. I think this us natural - so many of us get fatter in middle age, and it usually sticks. I believe the extra weight protects us if we get ill. I remember having a dreadful bout of flu at 17, and I went so skinny I had to borrow clothes from a skinny friend. If that happened at 66, I could die without a bit of weight to lose.

Anyway, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

I think you're right there, Joan! I'm a size 16 too, and I'm 5'10". I was ill with a bad bout of pneumonia one winter a few years ago and think that if I hadn't had that wee bit of extra cladding, I may have 'popped my clogs'! I think I must have been a size 12 when I got married at 17, but have struggled with weight gain from when my last baby was born. I've done all the diet clubs that showed up along the way. I also did very well with the Rosemary Conley Hip and Thigh Diet - eating hardly any fat at all. The weight came off steadily, but then, like with all the rest, and as Nannyliz remarked, the weight-loss was hard to maintain. No... I think if I got too thin, my laughter-lines would become deep wrinkles, then I'd have no reason to laugh at all - and that would be unforgivable!

For much of my life I was over-concerned with my weight. About 35 years ago, when very unhappy, I suffered from anorexia ['though I didn't know the meaning of the word at that time] I thought that I looked gorgeous...gaunt and just skin and bone, whereas of course I looked hideous. As my life became happier and my confidence grew, I began to worry less and less about remaining a size 8. As I near my 70th birthday I am, I believe, a pleasantly rounded size 14 [on top] and 12 [below] and have no objection to being so. I enjoy my food and have learned to wear garments that disguise the odd wee bulge. My husband and family like me as I am and I seem to fit very nicely into my own skin

I can't believe the size of clothes I wore in my youth. I was never thin enough for my husband [ex] and was probably borderline anorexic [again the word didn't exist then]. Spent most of my life trying to be less than 8st when in fact my ideal weight was 9st [that was the weight at which it took a while for me to go above if I didn't diet like mad..like some sort of latent heat of vaporisation...?].Being pear shaped, I was in my late forties/early fifties when I realised that a combination of jogging and drinking lots of water shifted the cellulite..however,just as I'd cracked it my knees gave out, so the jogging had to stop. Do feel sorry for young women now under so much pressure to look 'perfect' ie thin as a rake and with a boob job. So much for liberation....

Someone once said to me "When you start dieting you are dieting for life". It is better to eat healthily and not counting points all the time. I have a weekness for sweet things so if I feel my clothes getting tight I just don't buy any biscuits or cakes. My DH is diabetic so he should keep off the sweet things but he is as bad as me.

crimson couldn't agree more - and young women who wish to change their body image are getting younger by the day. It's all very sad. I, like you, cracked the problem of burning the calories with jogging and such...until my hip gave up and had to be replaced. Now the other one needs fixing. I've just happened on a humorous quote - 'Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside'. Mark Twain

I was 6 stone 10 pounds when I started work, 7 stone when I got married but went up to 9 stone after second baby. A bout of pleurisy when my youngest was a toddler knocked me back to 7 stone. When I did start putting weight on it stayed there and refuses to let go of it. I don't let it worry me.

Yes – in the context of where this conversation is going, I'm happy in my own skin. I don't know what I weigh, I don't care what I weigh. If I found that my size – whether a bit heavy or a bit light – was beginning to make it difficult for me to do the things I like/need to do, I'd do something about it. Otherwise, I don't care.

I must say that I`m not happy in my skin at all, so maybe I should do something about it, but I just can`t face not being able to eat my favourite things, and having to maybe eat things that I don`t like because they`re "non-fattening and good for me". I don`t eat excessively, honestly, just probably not sensibly. When I was a teenager I ate a lot more than I do now, and was always slim, but I put on weight after each of my 5 babies, and have been on an upward climb ever since! I think that now I`ve reached the age that I am, it`s too late to worry about my figure anyway, I just try and ignore the mirror!

I'm not really happy in my own skin which I feel guilty about. As a retired nurse I witnessed many tragedies which made me want to savour and bless each day realising how lucky I was. However, being human I also hate being size 16 and only 5' 2"!! I have a farly healthy diet but do like my wine and life is defo too short to abandon the grape.
My guilt also incorporates all the medical advice about being apple shaped....bad for the heart...overweight, bad for the joints etc etc. I try and aim for everything in moderation!! And, like numberplease, ignore the mirror!

absentgrana's comments are very sensible, aren't they? Surely the best way to go about things is to listen to what your body's saying to you? When it starts to protest, then an agreement can be made!

My body`s been protesting for years, I turn a deaf ear to it, wrongly, I know. And SoNanny, I`d LOVE to be a size 16, I`m 5`1" and a size 22/24!

I spent most of my 30's worrying about trying to get back to a size 10 from the 12 I had crept to, then my 40's trying to get back from a 14 to a 12. Its taken me until now to feel more relaxed and I'm happy if the clothes I like look good and make me feel good. Now I'm in my 60's I realises that if i went back to the 7 stone I was when I first got married I would look utterly haggard.

My grandma (a wise woman!) always said it was better to keep your face than your figure. Just sit down and smile - everyone will tell you how good you look!

But I also know that if I take the arthritic knees to the teenage GP she'll just say 'you need to lose weight'!

I was 8st 2 once. Long, long ago. Sigh!

I'm deffo not saying what I weigh now. (what happened???!)

I know what you mean about 'knees', MrsJamJam - I'm getting a dodgy one, now! I wouldn't like to take it to the doctor, either. He's quite attractive and my knee is a bit on the podgy side....!

Knees? what do they look like?

I hit my top weight about 2 years ago after almost 50 years of eating emotionally and opting for comfort food rather than healthy food. I am the family shape (just look at the family photos for evidence) so I told myself I couldn't buck the trend and pretended not to care. But I'd be lying if I said I was entirely happy in my own skin...I've shed a stone and a bit gradually over the last year or so and feel better for it, the last half stone in the last few weeks thanks to weightwatchers. But I'm miserable at having to watch every single mouthful, counting points and 'adjusting' my favourite recipes...it feels like a punishment. I'm not aiming for skinny, just a bit trimmer, but I know that if I don't monitor my weight and how I eat I am likely to pile back on what little I've lost but I resent it. I would love to make peace with my self-image and with food - is it possible?

Mollie - I do so agree about resenting the way I have to monitor everything I eat. I remember a time in my youth when I worked in London, lunch each day was a Mars bar and supper was a sausage and chips (due to spending all my cash on clothes not having much money). If I did that now I'd be soooo unhealthy. I did find WW and found it great for losing weight, but I disliked their reliance on 'diet' foods and no longer do those. I know that if I eat plenty of fresh veg, and avoid or have small potions of sugary/fatty foods I can keep my weight pretty stable. I am lucky that if we go out my OH will always let me dip a spoon in his pud and I savour every mouthful!

greenmossgiel - On all photos of me since I was a wee baby, my knees have deepest dimples...and - they are still with me. Cute!

Hello everyone - just joined this great site and find all the comments re diet, weight etc very interesting. Like most others I have been on and off diets all my life. The really depressing thing is knowing that it never lets up - to keep slim you always have to plan and watch what you eat. It does feel like a sort of punishment regime. I have hypothyroidism and have to take daily thyroxine and I had hoped that this would help me lose weight. No such luck - I continue in the family tradition of solid, broad shouldered "big women" and would love to be an 8 stone size 8 or 10 or 12 or even 14!! ( I also hate going to the Drs- even if you have a sore finger they blame it on your weight!)

Gagagran Its like visiting the Drs with a chesty cough and being told to stop smoking, I have never smoked in my life!!!!!

I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. 62, blonde (with a little help of course!), 5’10”, and 10 and a half stone now. However, up to age 30, I was around 8 and a half stone, had my son at 30, only put on 20lbs, and lost it in 2 weeks after he was born. At age 40ish things started catching up with me. Up until then I’d been able to eat like a horse and not put on a pound but then I had a hysterectomy, had to go on HRT, and that’s when the weight started creeping up. My husband tells me I’m still beautiful (I was, I was) but I’m not sure what he’s seeing! Bless him, after 34 years together he’s still wearing the rose-tinted specs, for which I am truly grateful. I look at myself sometimes and think where have the years gone, and why do women have to go through this but I’m lucky – I’m healthy (touch wood quickly), and fit. I have no mother to look at to compare myself with as she died when I was 30 (at age 56) but so far, I don’t really look my age so here’s to a glass of red wine daily and 25g of dark chocolate, and loving and being loved.