My weight was always justified to me by my family because my father was supposedly big. This didn't really help my motivation to lose weight.

But in the last year or so I started noticing how the rest of my family e.g. mum, brother, grandparents, uncles etc. were all incredibly slim.

Now I have started to lose weight I'm certainly losing it quick. So perhaps genetics are on my side and not against me as had always been assumed.

Is your family big or slim and how does it affect your psyche?

97% of my family is slim, most of them are unreasonably athletic so my size has always made me feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. My mom gained weight when she quit smoking many years ago, trading her nicotine addition for a spitz addiction. Since then the weight has come off and she looks very trim and fit. My dad has always been fit, he is a big guy but working in construction/being a drummer for the last 30 years has kept him pretty trim. My sister in her first year of college has put on her freshman 15 but still looks awesome. I have one cousin, not much younger than I am who has steadily been gaining weight (getting close to my size even), and while I feel bad for her because I understand how it feels to let that get out of control, I also am secretly glad that I am not the only big one anymore. The rest of my family are pretty much all athletes. (Champion beach volley-ball players, hockey stars etc etc) Probably part of the reason that I am not very close with my family. I didn't have anything in common. Now I am deliberately trying to stay away from my family for as long as I can so that when I do see them, they will all be in shock over how much weight I have lost. That's how it plays out in my mind anyway!

Gah! I keep invading the mens corner!...

Most of my family is thin the exception being me and my aunt. :/

This is the second time I have posted on Ian's post in the men's corner without realizing it until afterwards. LOL!
Sorry

I'm the only person in my whole family who is obese, a small few are overweight but only very slightly.

All of the men on my side of the family are big and tall, as in 6ft 2in-6ft 4in and 275-350lbs and to think I weighed what they weigh but I was almost a foot shorter! They look normal like football linebackers vs. looking overweight and fat.

The women on my side of the family are all in the normal range so I looked huge next to them. I am taller than all the women too.

I am surely built more like my dad than my mom. But I am working on changing that!

My family is all round. With the exception of my father we're all plump to some degree or the other. I fit right in so to speak.

Everyone in my family is thin...then there is me.

The majority of my family is averge weight; a few are under weight, and a couple are a few pounds over. But I am by far the largest in my family. My father is maybe 10 lbs overweight, my mother is rail thin, my brother is a very average weight, sister-in-law is very thin; and all aunts, uncles, and cousins are average or thin, except for one aunt. I always feel like an alien in pictures because I am tall-ish, wide structure and over 200 lbs. My grandfather's mother and sister were large(never knew either of them), but he was about 6'5" and 165-170 lbs. So really, the majority is not.

My father, and everyone on his side of the family, is large (and has been for several generations). My mother was thin until her 40s but is now overweight. Everyone on her side of the family is quite slim (and again, they have been that way for generations).

My sister has always been thin, even after giving birth to six (!) children. She works for it, though - she eats healthy and exercises. One brother has always been a health food freak and very athletic, and thus, slim. Another brother has fluctuated between being overweight and being a healthy weight. And my youngest brother is obese, and has been chubby since the day he was born. My nieces and nephews are all thin.

So it's really all across the board for my family. I definitely take after my father, though - from appearance and body build to personality - so I know I'm genetically disposed to struggle with weight.

(Sorry for invading the men's corner of the forum. )