You can overcome it. My job requires me to be on stage at least once a week if not 2-4 times. I've learned that weight has almost nothing to do with how you will be perceived up there. I see photos of myself in my past performances and the things that bothered me the most about those pics is seeing my bad posture and lame clothing.
Posture is the very first thing people will notice about you, not so much if you have good posture but it is very noticeable if you have bad posture or weak posture. If you don't LOOK confident it sends a message for people not to take you seriously. So I work very hard to have good posture, my physical therapist really helped me out with this one and taught me exercises that would isolate and strengthen the right muscles for this head to toe. But it's not just muscle work, it has to be put into practice on a daily basis in order for that to become first nature to you. This ted talk is a help about body language
http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_y...re?language=en If I remember correctly she talks about power posture too which you will need to do if you're going in front of people.
Choosing the right clothing is also very important. I look for something that will photograph well from all angles because with social media and everyone holding a smartphone pictures will be out there. Even a glimpse of my shoe has to look good. Dark clothes are good for this with pops of color in accessories. I use a little self tanner so that I don't look pasty under the lights, I make sure my eyebrows are well defined because if I don't they wash out under the hot lights of the stage.
It takes some practice but you can learn to be more comfortable on stage both in how you look, how you feel and how you come across.
Stage (fat) fright - turning down opportunity?
I think the whole photo thing makes it so much worse, I can possibly face the audience (ca 100 people), but knowing that photos will be taken and probably up loaded creeps me out, knowing that I'm not looking my best at any angle right now (the double chin photos etc - aaah!). Anyhow...I will try to find some clothes and look at the ted talk. I know I might be perceived as super egocentric, obviously the people coming to the lecture don't/won't care almost at all about how I look, but I just got into this self-conscious critical phase were everything gets blown out of proportion when it comes to my looks/weight. Thanks again!
