Then I moved, and quit smoking, and wasn’t coughing 24/7 anymore, and started eating more than one meal a day, and gained over 40 pounds, and I HATED myself. I felt fat everywhere. Shopping for clothes was a chore, and I’m not even middle-class in my income, so coughing up $100 for a dress is laughable. My solution? To hide in my apartment and only emerge for work. Naturally, I spent a lot of time being crabby and miserable.

Here’s the thing: I have one pair of comfortable shoes, and I live in Berkeley now, so there are hills and walking trails everywhere. Walking is free. I’ve been reading about exercise- how a little is better than none, how it helps you feel better, how it quiets your emotional mind- it’s true. Every day I walk somewhere different. I try to walk a couple of miles, but if I don’t? Who cares? It’s no one’s business.

Oh- and also? Not that you should befriend someone just because that person is fat, but having at least one friend who is larger has helped me, if only because I have someone to bitch to about the lack of affordable plus-sized clothes on the market!

I don’t know if this will help you, or if you will read it, but I hope you’re well nonetheless, and that you start to appreciate your body as it is NOW, and for what it can do.

have only gotten about 1/3 of the way through these but felt the need to write something. i weigh 199 lbs. i am a former rower, swimmer, etc. and gained 50 lbs in six months when i quit rowing my first year of college. i am now nearly 21 and struggling with everything i’ve got to drop some for my 21st birthday. i hardly go out because i hate the way i look. i haven’t had sex in nearly a year because i can’t even bear to look at myself, let alone have anyone else see me. doesn’t help that my best friend is a size 2 with DD’s. or that my father thinks less of me because i’m fat now. and maybe he has a point because i let myself get this way by losing my will to exercise and binge eating. who knows.

some days i can’t get out of bed. i want to be able to feel sexy again. i want to feel happy and excited about my milestone birthday coming up — i want to WANT to take pictures that i can look back on to remember the occasion. my god i want to wear a bathing suit again without crying. i’m just lazy. i could be whatever i wanted if i could snap myself out of this depression and be healthy.

sorry for the whining. i just needed to scream it somewhere. i just need to feel alive again. damn it.

even if no one ever reads this…wow, how liberating!

Hope I can play as a ‘too skinny’. I am 5’5″ and weigh 105 lbs, most I’ve weighed so far in my life (I have been putting effort into eating more and exercising and I put on 10 lbs in the last year). I look much ‘skinnier’ at this weight than people assume I ‘should’ (I am flat chested and most of my weight is muscle, I think that contributes). I am usually the smallest size in pants in ‘regular’ sizes. I have problems with tops and dresses fitting since I wear a 30 A/AA. Wish I could shop petites/children’s, but my limbs are too long.

I second the commenter who said men have a really, really warped idea of what women weigh. A lot of it is due to media – women in porn, actresses, etc – their ‘statistics’ are all over the web and they are nearly 100% made-up as far as I am concerned. For many (shallow, silly) men the highest ‘acceptable’ weight of a woman is 120 lbs (no matter their height!), but they have no idea what that looks like. In fact I suspect many would criticize women of that ACTUAL weight as ‘too thin’.

So yeah, I was officially obese at size 12. And “overweight” at size 6 when I was super-fit and working out all the time.

I’m really tempted to post a picture to my livejournal and make people guess my weight now. That was always good for laughs in high school when I weighed 140 (oh, the looks of horror when people heard that!). Now that I’ve gained another 30 Lbs of T&A, the guesses would probably be even more hilariously off. (I’m 5’3″.) I always knew clothing was all too long for me, but it took me a very long time to understand that I can’t buy commercial pants because I have a huge ass, at least in crazy no-butt sizing terms. I was looking at some “curvy cut” lines the other day that proudly proclaimed that they had a full size difference between the ass size and the waist size… Oh, a ONE size difference. Ha ha ha. I am seriously learning how to use my god damn sewing machine. I’ve never had any particular weight issues, but I sure do hate the clothing industry, and I feel like crap just like everyone else when I go shopping and can’t find a single thing that fits. Thank god my tits stay up on their own.

My goal weight used to be 165, 155 ideally – but it wasn’t until recently that I realised that I have never weighed that it my adult life. The lowest weight I’ve managed to maintain with some ease was somewhere between 175 and 185, but then came the repeated dieting, and the rebounding from a diet, et cetera. My personal “ceiling” appears to be 249 (which, surprise surprise, I didn’t “look” according to two different doctors). Never got above that, even when I was eating crap and not getting any exercise. Lately I’ve been eating better, more intuitively, and swimming, and I’ve dropped some weight, which makes me happier than it should, FA-wise, but at least I can feel pretty and like a big, strong, healthy, happy woman at this weight, something I never could’ve pictured myself feeling as long as I was above 200 pounds, and I have FA, but mostly Shapely Prose, to thank for that :)

Depending on the brand I am a 10 or 12 in pants/skirts etc. If the company offers a “curvy” line of pants I can usually fit a 10, with the 12 being a little saggy. Non-curvy 12s fit okay, but generally give me horrible plumber’s crack because of how they are shaped. The odd thing is, I have pretty narrow hips – they’re only about 2″ bigger than my waist. But the curvy pants are shaped so that they allow my narrow hips to hold up the pants, whereas in normal pants they sag so that my round caboose is trying to do that job :P

I have a pretty doomless rack (38B? 36C? not really 100% sure, I should get a better fitting), so I generally fit medium shirts well. But I have broad shoulders and very thick upper arms, so if I’m wearing long sleeves, I just get a large.

I go between a 12 and 14 in pants, usually leaning toward the 14s. I need to break out the tape measure and find out my “RealFit” size, because I’m way curvier on the bottom than I’m apparently “supposed to” be. I’ll have pants that are tight in the belly, butt, and or thighs but baggy at the waist.

As far as the tops, I’ve got everything from S to XL, and have come to the conclusion that they’re just making crap up.