Currently down about 120lbs after 8 years of going up and down. Net loss is 200lbs, given I had some regains over the years. Now, I’m down from 300lbs to 178lbs and ever since I passed 185lbs, I’ve had a lot more oppurtunities with women.
It feels weird, not gonna lie, it just sorta happened out of nowhere. A lot more women smile at me, talk to me, and look at me more. The attention I started getting just feels like a glimpse really. Not massive amounts, but noticably more. I’m still 10lbs away from being done entirely, as I do still look a bit husky at 178lbs.
Though, it’s not just women, but people in general have been treating me better, even strangers. I will finally reach normal weight for the first time ever in the next couple weeks (173lbs according to my BMI) and I can’t be more excited to finally see it!
For those who lost weight, what was it like for you? Did people start treating you differently?
First off, congrats on shedding so much excess mass! Second off, ignore BMI, it is a shit metric.
It is a great metric. It is easy to calculate and can be done from historical data where other measurements can’t. It’s not the only piece of information that should be considered though. It’s an indicator not a diagnosis.
I think the problem with BMI is when people misunderstand what it’s for. Is not an “am I fat” tool. It’s specifically about heart health and it’s not used in isolation. The more mass you have (fat or muscle) the more your heart has to work. It’s naive to ignore it just because the word “obese” has become an offensive term.
BMI is for population studies and not suitable for individual assessment.
Congratulations!
Did you use the new drugs to lose so much?Why does it matter?
Same reason as the title, (in)validation.
Simply curiosity, no need to look for mean reasons.
Why would it be mean? It’s part of who we are, for better and worse. Shying away won’t make the feeling disappear, but we can come to terms with it.
Skinny people see being fat as a moral failure and thus losing weight through any means other than starving yourself and exercising 24/7 is unacceptable.
Meanwhile, most skinny people just eat until their full and aren’t hitting the gym, it’s just their default.
But, on the other hand, most fat people have lost and regained weight tons of times, so when they see someone losing weight without starving themselves and hitting the gym, they get jealous.
That’s the bit people don’t understand. Fat people on diets are starving and constantly uncomfortable. It’s a 24/7 attack on willpower (and it doesn’t magically go away when you hit goal weight). The weight will almost certainly come back, because willpower is a finite thing, and it’s more and more demoralizing each time.
Skinny people don’t have to think about it.
When fat people can lose weight without thinking about it, everyone else feels threatened.
It’s the same reason everything else sucks. Literally everything needs to be gatekept.
Why can’t education be cheaper, or loans forgiven? Because they had to suffer, and so do you.
How would it possibly be fair to somebody who died of cancer because they couldn’t afford care and then someone else just gets care for free? That’s not fair! They gotta pay!
Same shit, different story. I blame the church.
other than starving yourself and exercising 24/7 is unacceptable.
That’s not how losing weight works. You don’t need to starve yourself, you need to stay in calorie deficit (doesn’t equal starving and you may actually feel less starved than usually if you start adding better filling food to your diet). You don’t need to workout 24/7 (generally working out is not neccessary at all), doing proper strength training will help with losing weight (because building new muscles requires a lot on energy which increases BMR) and with looking better overall. But proper strength training doesn’t require you to workout 24/7, you just need like 50 minutes 4 times a week in order to hit most of the muscle groups twice (i.e. doing upper/lower split) to keep stimulus going (which start the building of new muscle fibers which increases BMR). And strength training is nothing like weightloss show nonsense — which is «doing a gazillion reps of light weights while sweating a pool and being out of breath with pain in your muscles and having to deal with devastating recovery» — you need to lift weights with consistent techique in 3-6 rep range, 2 sets and just be close to failure during last rep of each set. It will get you needed levels of muscle stimulus, you will not experience pain while working out, it will not make you uncomfortably wet from sweating and recovery will be fast and fine.
most fat people have lost and regained weight tons of times
Because they tried to lose weight like it’s goalpost via starving and working out 24/7 rather than building sustainable habits in eating and working out that will make you lose weight and stay in healthy weight range as an effect. When you don’t have those habits, you get fat.
when they see someone losing weight without starving themselves and hitting the gym, they get jealous.
Maybe they do. But that doesn’t really matter. A huge percent of people that lost weight with drugs like Ozempic also regain their weight in a span of two years after they stop taking it. Because none of these people actually builded healthy habits that lead to weightloss, they just took a drug that mimics a hormone of “feeling full”. And as they don’t have those habits but still remember the eating habits that they had before GLP-1 (and while taking the drug, there is no conscious change happening, so habits don’t really change, you just stop overeating due to GLP-1), they are likely to get fat again.
Weightloss is really not that hard if you don’t fall into social media bullshit and keep things rational and somewhat up to current science. People often fall for keto/carnivore/vegan¹/highreps/highcardio and other unreasonable ways to lose weight. imo the hard part is to stay consistent in calorie tracking but only for some time, after that it’s just starts being some sort of second nature and you start to eyeball stuff for calories without thinking about it.
¹Being vegan is reasonable from moral standpoint but doesn’t mean much in weightloss.
I hate to gatekeep, especially after my last comment…but how fat have you been?
Losing weight is not complicated or hard. I never said it was. I said it’s a 24/7 challenge of willpower that doesn’t go away when you hit target weight.
The biggest chunk of that willpower is spent against fighting the lack of (or insensitivity to) the hormone that makes them feel full in the first place…a problem that can now be countered medically.
It’s not surprising, then, that when they stop taking the medicine, they start feeling hungry, and when they are hungry, they would eat.
It paints a picture that there are actual physiological barriers to losing weight…physical barriers that probably didn’t mean much before the current food landscape. Now calorie-dense foods are cheap, readily available, shelf-stable, physically addicting, and completely devoid of actual nutrition.
That physically addicting part is really the worst of it. You can’t just not eat. You have to succumb to hunger eventually.
Telling a fat person to lose weight is no different than telling an alcoholic to cut back to no more than 3 drinks a day, forever. Is that impossible or unreasonable, for someone else has never experienced alcoholism? Sure. Absolutely. Is it something you can realistically expect from an alcoholic? No, that’s crazy…nothing against alcoholics, but we know and understand now that it’s addiction and there are physiological barriers, and telling people that the cure is to just cut back is batshit insane.
Likewise, you can’t just stop eating. You have to face a trigger, multiple times a day, every day. It’s incredibly exhausting.
People often fall for keto/carnivore/vegan¹/highreps/highcardio and other unreasonable ways to lose weight
Why is keto unreasonable?
First of all, main and only principal of weightloss is calorie deficit. There is no other nonsurgical way to lose weight rather than from calorie deficit.
Now, keto is unreasonable in weightloss because it’s a low-carb diet. Lack of carbs (primary source of energy for humans) makes weightloss harder because someone on keto would feel less energetic for quite some time due to at least adaptation to said metabolic proccesses. In general, forcing organism to get energy from some less efficient and not-quite-as-good metabolic transformation is something that comes from a belief rather than reason.
I don’t mean that one can’t lose weight on keto. But it does increase discomfort during weightloss which increases the chances of giving up on it.
There is something to this but I might have described it differently.
Being obese is seen as a moral failure, and struggling to lose it is a virtue. Drugs are seen as a cheat because you haven’t atoned for the moral failure by suffering, therefore you have not earned the right to be treated differently.
Can’t be a good Christian without a little suffering and oppression.
Can you guys remove the negative filter and consider not everyone wants to belittle you hurt you or take something from you?
Have you considered the question can come empathy, interest in solutions, basic curiosity?Nope. Unspoken side-effect of obesity.
Kind of a multi-faceted usage of the word “belittle” here, but I’ll allow it.
Dude, I am skinny and all I want is for anyone who wants it, to have the experience I have. I have biases, surely, but none against the drugs that let people with disordered eating finally experience a normal appetite, to lose the constant food noise. To enjoy eating in a healthy way, get full and forget about it until physically hungry again. I absolutely do not think most fat people are just lacking willpower or whatever - I don’t need willpower to eat normally, just need to pay attention to how I feel.
Maybe because I got here from anorexic and food obsessed in the other direction, getting healthy to the point eating did not make me anxious perhaps gives some perspective. Willpower did not avail me, it just harmed my body.
I do know some people who worry about the side effects of GLPs, whether that is disguised judgemental attitude I don’t know. And more who think they are just so expensive it’s unequally available and bad for that reason. But not many anymore who think it’s just lifestyle alone that is an acceptable way to get to a healthy weight, not after seeing people’s results on those drugs.
ETA nevermind on that last paragraph - I see there is someone in this very comment thread saying it’s just lifestyle.
Nothing can be easier or improved as long as other people had to have it worse.
That’s a great summary, very pithy.
I blame the church.
Yes, tho I think there’s also a bit of the commerce zero-sum thinking to blame too. Like: “if my competitor gets a free advantage, that puts me at a relative disadvantage.”
Curious and showing my interest to op’s story. But apparently this is interpreted negativily.
Rude.
Welcome to pretty privilege, beautiful
Yes my friend the world is cruel and shallow, and your looks are a multiplier for all of your opportunities. Go forth and make people happy just by seeing you
People who have lost weight in this thread talk about how their own attitudes changed. Is that what spurned the change for them or a result of the effects? It’s probably both but it’s complicated. And very, very far from a simple framing like privilege.
Is that what spurned the change for them or a result of the effects?
It’s because they’re being treated like people.
spurned
“to reject with disdain or contempt”
You mean “spurred”, “to incite to action or accelerated growth or development”
More autocorrect. Half my comments are edited because of this bullshit.
Oh, I see. What a weird change, it doesn’t even make sense to follow “what” with “spurned”. I guess it’s true that autocorrect got ‘enhanced’ with AI.
My guess is that it’s dumber than we might imagine and guesses on the basis of word frequency without context. Trying to spell foreign words is horrific. I have a comment about a banjo tune called pateroller that a nightmare to get through because it was convinced I was fat fingering the spelling.
Could be a combo of your weight loss catching somebody’s fancy, but also you yourself may be exuding more happiness which they return with smiles.
No. People really treat you very different if you look good compared to looking bad or average. You have many millions of people who have this experience.
Many good looking people have a self obsessed personality but it doesn’t matter for how strangers are attracted to them.
Thats my First part…catching somebodys fancy…they are nice to you because they find you pleasant to look at. Happens to my wife all the time. No makeup and comfortable clothes people are aloof, makeup and nice clothes they are chatty and holding doors for her, etc
Yep. It’s just how it is. Nothing we can do, it’s just built into our dna.
A lot of women find it a relief when their looks fade, since they never enjoyed that attention from strange men. Other women feel sad and invisible.
I think most guys have never gotten that kind of attention so we don’t know what we never had.
Yeah, in my wife’s young days she used it to her advantage. Cop giving you a parking ticket, just act cute and you park where you like.
Now it makes her angry that people treat her nicely when she has put makeup on and styled her hair.
I have the most off-putting personality imaginable and I still get a ton of attention from women because I’m tall. It just won’t keep peoples attention more than a good personality will.
But they tend to smile more, and people return that.
Not of you dont look good. Then people think it’s creepy, specially women.
People can’t be shallow! Mistreatment by others is because you’re not being happy enough for them!
For me it did not change how people treat me, but how I treat myself. This than reflected how I interact with people and made them treat me better in return.
After going from ~145kg (320lbs)to ~82kg(181lbs) my confidence skyrocketed and I got very possitive and in the mindset of everything is possible if ypu work hard enough.
This mindset did not leave me even when I when back to ~118kg (260lbs) and I was still as popular as I was when I was ~ 82kg (181lbs).
After 1 year with ~118kg tho, the confidence started to waver as I did struggle to get back down and was mentaly in a break point anyways because, you can’t outrun the trauma and I had to address my eating dissorder (binge-eating) and undiagnosed neurodiversity.
Now with therapy I’m back back to ~98kg(216lbs) and I started loving and accepting myself again, I often get compliments from people saying, I look great and happy compared to one or two years ago. Not just from the weight but also the aura around me is quite more possitive.
What people
I haven’t been skinny since I was a child, so I can’t relate. But it would feel very weird if people started noticing me more. I’d probably find it annoying, to be honest. Good job with the weight loss!
Cant tell about women as when i was at my height of around 100kg 175-177cm, overweight, no muscle. There weren’t that many women in my environment to accurately gauge any treatment. That was some time before covid.
During that time i lost ~25kg. Down to ~72-73kg and that was the time when thanks to covid client services jobs were starting to suffer and there was influx of women to my field.
No treatment difference from men up until that point.
But as i managed to implement a decent resistance training routine along with diet control over time i packed on muscle mass as well with fat loss.
By now I’m ~83kg, 15-17% bodyfat, clearly muscular even by regular gym goers standard.
That did eventually change treatment from guys.
They became more forgiving, friendly and maybe respectful. I have ADHD, so the amount of mistakes i make hasn’t changed, but if previously i was scolded for the same mistakes then now I’m rather easily forgiven and told “no worries, shit happens”. In addition any advice i say is heeded actually and people to come up to me more regularly to ask for help
She is most definitely more attracted and “hornier” now when I’m muscular than other times in our life.
I need to keep up my swimming routine… thanks for the motivation
I had a bi friend become really sexually aggressive. And had to rush out of a bar in ft. Lauderdale cause I was kinda SA’d. It’s a mixed bag.
I’m sorry that happened to you. These things cropped up for me, too. It was like suddenly inhabiting a whole new world. Sometimes in good ways, but often not so much.
I’m not necessarily angry about the first one, the second one was pretty eye opening though, as far as being in a woman’s shoes type thing.
It was a huge headfuck and made me a little depressed, at first.
Yes, everyone treats me much differently. I get free stuff sometimes. It’s wild. And I’m still pretty weird-looking, just minus 90+ pounds, plus a bit of muscle and confidence.
Oh yes!
Currently down from 160 to 100kg (350 to 220lbs) and almost everyone is treating me differently. Many people didn’t make eye contact with me either on the street or in shops, some were visibly unconfortable (or slightly afraid). I had remarks all the time about how big (not fat, just imposing) I was.
Now cashers smile at me, people on the street are more friendly. It’s night and day and it saddens me in a way. I didn’t lose weight for appearence reason but for my health, and to see for the first time how people are (were towards me) judgmental is kinda sickening.
I just though people are sometimes a bit cold but never really associated it with my weight.
They treat you like they should be treating everybody but don’t.
Went from 130-100kgs(286-220lbs) over about a year so far, still trying to get lower, but it has slowed down. <_<
I personally haven’t noticed a different maybe I’m not observant enough.
Congratulations on the weight loss, hope you reach your goal and feel great about your awesome progress.
People treated me better for the first year then it was normal. My biggest was 286lbs (129 Kilograms.). I’ll never forget getting down to 168 and I felt like shit because of how little energy I had I feel a lot better at 189lbs-194lbs range but that’s because I eat better and I lift weights and exercise and I’m not trying to lose weight and I didn’t really use any weights going down but I did when I was trying to not feel sluggish from being too small.
That’s trippy to think, I had a group of friends in my early 20’s at my smallest and they were telling me to catch up but when I was an overweight teenager, I was being told to hurry up because I was big and therefore, slower.
Oh wow, catch up vs hurry up. That’s an interesting one. Thank you for sharing.
absolutely! I went from 378lbs to 190lbs in just over 2 years and everyone was way nicer. women, (and men), flirted with me. workers in stores offered to help me more often. I got a raise. everyone treated me differently. even long time friends wanted to hang out more often than normal. then life happened, I gained back up to 302lbs. once again, I’m invisible. people rarely talk to me other than just a “good morning”. but, I’m back on keto and fasting so soon I’ll be back to my former glory.
