Whatever happened to my waist?

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!

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?

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....

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!

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

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!

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

I need to get taller and soon.

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?

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'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.

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!!

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?

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.

Loving this post, we can all relate to it!!!!

Lizzypopbottle, are you sure about the ratio between height and waist?

I'm five foot two with a 32 inch waist, should I loose an inch or two?

Those of you naturally slim, do you eat normal meals? I’ve never been naturally slim and I keep my weight somewhere reasonable by watching what I eat. Thank goodness for elasticated waist!

AH64

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.

Absolutely my sentiments AH64, cannot find my previously pert bottom anywhere. Although relatively slim my flesh has gone flabby!

When I mentioned my loss of waist to my doctor during a routine check up (back in the halcyon days when we could still actually see a doctor) she said it was just middle age. I was happy it wasn't anything sinister, and also happy that I was going to live to 130!

I've not got a waist either. I blame it on the menopause.
I love chocolate, anything sweet really so that might have something to do with it as well.

My waist used to be so small that if I bought a belt I would have to have more holes made. Used being the operative word. I don’t own a single belt now. I can still see a hint of it standing full front, but sideways.........!!

Thank you Hetty58, Your tip to wear men’s trousers reminded me that in the 1970’s I always used to wear men’s jeans as I have no waist but slim thighs & bottom. Most women’s trousers look like jodhpurs on me.

Disappearing waists. Thanks for all the comments. It has cheered me up to read comments on my problem and to read one from someone approaching 80. I am 83 and was once a lissom 5 foot 9+ inches. However, as size 12 in the 50's was always a 24 inch waist and mine was 25 I felt inadequate and cast around for the awful"slimming " garments of that period. Expanding to size 18 and sometimes 20, in my sixties, I managed to get down to a healthy size a few years ago, by simply eating less and getting used to that, so arms and legs OK, and a bit of a waist, returned. But.... size 14 trousers now always have waist of 31 to 32 inches and mine is 34. Measurements are always based on a woman of pre - menopause age, I think. I look fairly OK but...... I now have a problem of hunched shoulders. I have tried a number of shoulder straightening appliances, which certainly help. Beware.. many of these are Chinese and made for people of fairy like proportions, so, if you take a chance, order the largest size offered, i.e. XXL. I have also shrunk over an inch which affects those weight measurement charts.....

You’ve ticked the first box for sorting it, by noticing and wanting it to change. After that it’s just how not if you do it.

I've decided (this year) that there is no point in worrying about my shape. Everything is now much nearer the ground than it used to be - and I mean everything - and no diet is going to change that. I eat fairly healthily, if you don't count the odd biscuit and chocolate, and I get regular exercise, so I've stopped worrying and try not to look in mirrors. On the plus side there are lots of lovely 'pull on' trousers available and I have found a nice dress pattern that misses out the waist which I may make for next summer. Life's too short to waist-worry!