On another weight loss board I lurk and occasionally post on there was a recent thread which talked about how overweight has become so prevalent that the slightly overweight are viewed as normal and the normal as too thin. One aspect of this that was frequently mentioned is how sizes have changed over the last few decades to keep up with the expanding girth of the average person. More than one poster brought up the fact that a size zero of today would have been a size six not so long ago and a size ten a couple of decades before that. I did some web-searching for old size charts and the posters are absolutely correct. Today's size zero roughly corresponds to the old size 10, and double zero to size eight.

I wore a size 10 in high school when the size 10 measurements were 34, 24, 34. Today at approximately my high school weight I can easily slip into a size zero. But back when the same size jeans were marked size 10 I thought I was fat because the skinny girls in my class all wore size six, a size that has no modern equivalent (the old size charts list size six measurements as 30, 22 1/2, 32). It was around that time I started dieting and embarked on a twenty+ year cycle of losing weight and gaining it back with interest. I've achieved my current weight a few times in the past but this is the only time I've managed to stay here for more than a couple of months. I try to tell myself I'm thin now and the last five pounds I've been struggling with don't matter. But I felt fat at this weight when I was sixteen and the memories of feeling fat then are causing me to feel fat now. I think if I could just get below my high school weight the fat memories would stop effecting how I feel about myself today.

Magrat,
I don't know how old you are right now, but you must realize that after high school we become adults as our bodies mature. We just naturally fill out and gain a few curves even if we don't gain much weight. It's just the difference in being a skinny teenager and a young adult. Unfortunately, the fashion runways are full of young girls made up to look like adults, only skinnier. It's all an illusion that needs to change because so many young women unfairly think that they are too fat when comparing themselves to these waifs. It may be possible to diet yourself into oblivion trying to go below your high school weight but do you really want to live there permanently? How hard that would probably be to maintain.
If you like what you see in the mirror, be happy! You are a young adult and look like one. You are also probably a lot healthier if you learned some things as you lost your excess weight.
Please don't let your mind "play tricks on you." As you near your goal, celebrate the person you are today! And forget about the size charts!

well said glasscock

I agree, most of us aren't meant to be our High School weight as mature adults. I too was one of the girls who had her adult curves by the age of 17 and felt enormous compared to my friends who were 20lbs smaller than me and this set me on the diet treadmill for the next 25+ years. But you know what I discovered at a School reunion many years later - that NOT ONE of those skinny girls had remained that skinny. Even my friend who at 17 was a beanpole with no bum or boobs had curves - she sure wasn't fat but about 20lbs heavier than she used to be.

Kitty

Magrat,

Based purely on what you wrote in this post, and without knowing you at all, my hunch would be that the difficulties you are experiencing might relate to problematic mental things (like feelings, memories and thoughts), rather than a physical problem (like your actual size or weight).

In my opinion, when you say this, it isn't about your actual size or appearance, it's about how you feel, and trying to change your feelings by changing what is on the outside just won't work in the long term. It doesn't matter what size or shape you are, if you are struggling with challenging feelings and memories, I would take time to work through and address those, rather than focusing on the physical manifestations of those feelings. My guess would be that it's your feelings that result in the "struggle" you describe, and if you could address those in some way that works for you, I think you'd find yourself a lot happier in your own skin.

I second what Cglass said.

I am down to my high school weight. When I got here, I excited pulled out an old dress -- a dress my mother wore to her sister's wedding in the 1950's, which I borrowed for a rush party the first week of college. Surely it would fit now!

Not quite. Even though I am the same weight, my body is not the same. I have three children, but even without them, your body is simply not the same after fully reaching maturity (and spending a bunch of years there).

Besides, if you lose 5 more lbs -- it's kind of hard to find those 00's!

I have the finding 00Ps problem myself. It's an issue. And even then I need to belt a lot of things or I get lost in them.

I have had the opposite experience of many others: at 37 I am the same weight but markedly smaller than I was in high school. It's all the strength training. You can change your body composition without seeing a smaller number on the scale. That is what I focus on. Well, what I really focus on is being healthy and strong;the change in body shape is a bonus.

Whatever your weight and shape, be healthy and happy. Be proud of your accomplishments. I'm sure you look amazing.

Personally I was way too thin when I was in high school, I do prefer the body I have today and lucky for me, so does my husband!!!
And as the saying goes "Real Women have curves", let's celebratre them!!!

Cheers,

Caribbean Girl

Thank you for the replies everyone.

Cglasscock1 you flatter me by describing me as "young adult." I'm actually in my forties. For some reason I tend to come across as younger than I really am in my posts. Actually in real life I look younger than my age. I got carded in bars and liquor stores well into my thirties. And a couple of years ago I was carded at a drug store when I was buying an OTC sleep aid. Apparently the clerk thought I was under eighteen.

I don't know how hard it would be to maintain 110 pounds, a weight I haven't seen on the scale since I was fourteen, since no matter what I do, short of a drastic starvation diet, which I know is impractical and unsustainable, I cannot get the scale to drop.


Thesame7pounds I wish I had kept some of my old high school jeans. They're probably back in style now.


One thing I have a definite mental block about is that women should weigh more as they get older, especially if, like me they never had children and have remained active.

Petite Powerhouse, I envy you. You're 2 1/2 inches taller than me and you weigh two pounds less than my goal weight.

Caribbeangirl02 you're taller than me and you're goal weight is the same as mine. Maybe I should aim lower? (Yes I've got a bad habit of comparing myself to others, I admit it.)

Again thanks for the replies. I'm going to keep on fighting to lose the last five pounds. Deciding to stay where I am would be giving up on myself which could very well lead to me regaining every pound I've lost.

People truly do come in all shapes and sizes. At my highest weight I was 129 lbs. It looked fine on me, but to me, not fabulous. I think my body looks best between about 108 and 113. That's the weight at which all the muscle I've worked hard to build is showcased best. I'm a sporty girl. I still have curves, but the muscle is defined now. That's the look I want for myself. But that said, I have seen women my height who weigh much more than 129 who rock that weight. They do look fabulous! I don't think they should lose a pound.

We're all different.

I was surprised to hear that you are in your fourties and still as small as you are. Have you been to any of your high school reunions? I'll bet you would be the most petite person there, if your reunions are like mine, LOL! Reunions are always surprising. Maybe you should go for the gratification that I am sure you would get! Anyway, good luck with your goals!

I went to a private school that closed it's doors shortly after I graduated. So, no reunions.

It is true that we do change as we grow into adults. But I do see a point where due to so much overweightness, it is actually becoming a norm. I have people telling me that I am slim and I am not fat and things like that and I just think this is denying the problem. There is a problem and it needs a solution. I am just into the normal BMI and I am a medium frame but I have a lot of tummy fat on me. And I can feel it troubling me when i go to the gym. It is really bad, preventing me from exercising free. So I know i need to lose more, I still feel heavy. But as I have other overweight people around me, I can easily be told that I am fit and slim just because I weight a bit less than them. And to me it is still pain, it is pain to carry all that weight on me. I deserve my freedom.

I find this to be a problem, too. And I confess that I am bothered by all the posts on different forums about "rail-thin" women who "have no curves." Many thin women actually do have curves. I have curves and, as I say, at 37 I am smaller than I was in high school, not larger, despite being the same weight. I was a bit pear shaped in high school, but weight lifting transformed me into an hourglass; and muscle is denser than fat, so I am smaller all over.

I think our perception of size has gotten hugely skewed in this country. On the one hand you have concerns about thin celebrities and models; but we have the opposite of that as well. It's as if we feel the only way to counter the aspiration toward extreme thinness is to shout to the world that to be at a certain degree of thinness is to be emaciated and without curves, that being feminine means wearing a size 6 or 8 or 10 or some such, not a 2 or 0 or 00. It's frustrating. Even at 129, my highest weight, I was a 2/4. I am a small person—I have worked out hard for 20 years to remain so—but I am still feminine.

I see the beauty and femininity in women who wear larger sizes than I do. I also see the beauty in myself and other women my size. And we are all women: we should pull together no matter our size. We should not disparage overweight and obese women, but we shouldn't ridicule the size 0, either, and we should recognize that it's OK to want to lose some of the softness in the belly or arms or bottom. It is possible to do this as an adult woman (not possible for all women, but possible for many) and it is healthy to do so, too. And it doesn't mean you cease to be an attractive, feminine woman if you do so. In this nation we are the most unhealthy we have ever been, but we are also the healthiest, too. We are much more into exercise than we ever were before. Women in their 40, 50s, 60s.... They are working out, building muscle, staying feminine but also lean. This should be what we consider normal—at least in the achievable realm of normal—for a woman as she ages. I hope one day we really do look at aging in this way. I know I do.

Don't get me wrong: no one should try to maintain a weight at which their body isn't naturally comfortable. If you can't eat well, feel full, and have energy, your weight isn't sustainable. But that said, we really do have a skewed perspective of what is normal—and feminine—now that so much of the country is overweight.

This.

Randomly discovered this thread -- I love this post, so I'm gonna bump it.