Whatever happened to my waist?

Lexisgranny Had a little smile to myself. Like you once considered a rasher of bacon side on - small waist and stomach flat as a pancake. Now at 80 plus lost 2.5 inches in height and no definition between stomach and boobs - what happened. Like Liz46 would make a good belly dancer due to build up of cardiovascular fluid in lung and abdomen. The joys of things to come, on the other hand be thankful because the alternative does not bear comparison. Still as flamboyant as ever and style, capes and colours much admired.

Mine has come back after I had an ovarian cyst removed.

I really cannot think that my lack of waist had anything to do with the cyst, as after all the distance between where my waist should have been and my reproductive organs has surely been the same all my adult life.

So I am puzzled. Where did my waist wander off to, and why did it decide to come home again?

Yes, I do spend time looking for my waistline - I now seem to be apple shaped! I, too, had a lung problem a few years back and lost a lot of weight, including from my stomach. But like a bad penny it has come back - and how!!

I'm pretty skinny everywhere else, but I have rather a flabby fat belly. Looks like I swallowed a football, or I'm about 6 months pregnant.

Lexisgranny Don't be depressed ☺ 5:2 works well for me but it doesn't suit everyone. I'm one of life's minor obsessives. When I decide I'll do something (especially health related), I can be a bit evangelical! I've also given up sweets, biscuits, cakes, chocolate and pastries without going hungry. I lost a stone, fairly effortlessly, doing that and I won't go back. I didn't give up bread or a nice glass of red wine! ? I'm not excessively thin at 9st 5lb (5' 6"), give or take, but my waist is smaller than half my height.

I thought our change in shape was because of the change in hormone balance?

Which as we can’t do anything about that we just as well relax and go with the flow?

lizzypopbottle so.......I’m under tall for my weight then?

I need to get taller and soon.

lexisgranny sadly you have hit the nail on the head, everything slides down, necks lose their filling and go saggy, ditto boobs, what doesn’t settle on your waistline, slips on down and fills your shoes to overflowing!

lizzypopbottle now you really have depressed me! However on a positive note maybe giving 5:2 fasting is worth a shot. B9exchange hope that doesn’t mean I will end up in extra wide shoes in a larger size!

The menopause stole mine! It was there until it arrived and gradually it just disappeared....

It's not called 'middle aged spread' for nothing! DH weighs the same as when we got married (wish I did, he eats way more than I do) but his waist size has gone up. I think gravity comes into it for some extent. We lose the tightness of connective tissue and everything moves downwards!

Just injecting a slightly less light hearted note, I used to describe my figure as 'boyish' since I was 'straight up and down' but taking up 5:2 fasting, a few years ago, melted the visceral fat and a waist appeared. I also lost the round shouldered, humpy thing at the top of my back. Waist to height ratio is more revealing than BMI. Your waist, ideally, should be less than half your height. Just saying....

There seem to be a good proportion of ladies with my problem, and if you translate that across the country, it must be quite a large market if a manufacturer would start to cater for waistless ladies who still have reasonable sized hips and thighs.....where are they?

I've lost my waist too. I have slim legs, so buying trousers is difficult. A bigger waist size means big thighs and hips, which I don't have!

Ashamed to admit to being jealous as my daughter, who lives alone, has nominated her boyfriend of a couple of months to be in her bubble. I do understand but I have been so close to her in The past two years during a difficult divorce and now feel redundant. I am happy that she has found someone she likes but ....

Not sure where your waist has gone but if you find it,could you please ask them to have a look for mine? Disappeared, no idea where or when but I’d welcome it home if found.

My proportions haven’t changed - I still have a waist albeit larger, along with larger boobs and hips! The hourglass just gets bigger as I get older!

Lucky me ! Always fairly slim. Now well into my seventies, too late to change ?

I have a fat tummy but am not too worried. A couple of years ago I was ill with a lung problem and the weight dropped off me. That was the only advantage of my illness - I had a lovely flat tummy!

Thanks to some very clever doctors I am ok at the moment but a bit flabby.

Elasticated waists aren't what they used to be. All the high street stores sell them. They're usually called pull on trousers. I like the way they fit without having buttons and zips spoiling the smooth look.

It happened with menopause for me. Childbirth didn’t affect my waist, but now.....slim everywhere but my waist. Very annoying.

I think most of you will have noticed that as your waist has thickened your height has reduced. This is because the disks of cartilege between the vertibrae of your back shrink and become much thinner; that means your spine shrinks and the gap between hips and ribcage shrinks, so that means less space for the skin to go into the waist and out again, a bit like a vertical hammock.

I have been saved this problem, as I never had a waist to begin with as my hips and ribs were always very close together, the main problem has been that my rather short neck has got shorter and I sometimes feel I look like a tortoise with its head shrinking into its shell, I love polo neck and cowl necked sweaters, but recently have started looking like Kilroy in them, nose and eyes, peaking over a wall of knitwear.

I have always had a waist, however much my weight has fluctuated, and that waist has always been proportionately small for my overall size. Where it has gone now I have no idea; I didn't notice it going, but I now have a roll of...well, fat. No subtle way to put it, I have a roll of fat where I had a waist, but weight, food consumption, exercise - nothing has changed. Most depressing.

I want to know where my bottom’s gone. I seem to have a long back that disappears into my thighs. Again like others I’m considered slim but resort to baggy, long tops to cover the shapeless rear view.

Thanks for the laughs this morning. It's when tube shape turns to apple shape that's the real problem. Luckily not quite there yet. I sew all my own clothes and tend to make dresses without a defined waist. Some folk advise to wear belts - Noooo way!