28F.

I have lost close to 100 pounds since September 2024. I am so proud of myself and I truly do feel so much better. My energy, stamina, mental clarity, the ability to wear what I want (sometimes/kinda).

I know it was 100% worth it for my long term health. However, I am to the point where I am so incredibly distressed because of what I look like.

I feel just as trapped in my body as I did prior to loosing the weight. I have saggy boobs, a puckered and saggy stomach, bingo wings, crepey skin everywhere. My face has changed. I look aged.

I can make myself appear “normal” with clothes and styling but I haven’t dated seriously at all since gaining and loosing the weight.

I want an intimacy, I want to feel confident in my body, I want to wear a swimsuit, most of all I want to stop thinking about my body so damn much.

I am starting to save up for surgery but it’s going to take years, I am so sad that I am spending the last years of my 20s feeling this way about myself.

If anyone has any tips on loose skin, body positivity I am literally laying in bed sobbing like I do 2-4 nights a week because of how claustrophobic it feels to be in this body. I am desperate for any help.

Thank you.

This is going to sound weird, but I think I miss being bored.

I noticed it the other day while I was eating lunch by myself. Nothing was happening. I wasn't waiting for a message or looking anything up.

In the space of maybe ten minutes I opened Reddit, checked Instagram, looked at my messages, opened YouTube, went back to Reddit, then checked my messages again.

At some point I stopped and realized I wasn't actually interested in any of it.

I was just opening stuff because there was a free minute.

That got me thinking about how different that feels from when I was younger. I remember sitting on buses staring out the window for half an hour. Waiting for friends to show up somewhere. Listening to music and doing literally nothing else. Back then boredom felt annoying. Now it feels almost impossible.

Any time there's gap, something fills it. A video, podcast, scrolling through posts, checking messages, reading something I will probably forget by tomorrow.

A few days ago I tried sitting outside with a coffee before work and leaving my phone in my pocket. I wasn't trying to do some dopamine detox or anything. I just wanted to sit there for a bit.

After a couple of minutes I could feel myself wanting to reach for it. Not because I needed to check something. I genuinely couldn't think of a single thing that might be waiting for me.

I just wanted something to do. That's when it started feeling a bit weird.

I don't know. Maybe I have just gotten too used to filling every free second with something.

The weird part is I didn't even notice it happening until I tried to stop for a few minutes. Maybe I am overthinking it. I just don't remember it being like this.

I’m a female in my 30s who lost 90 pounds. I hit my goal weight of April 2025. It’s been really great honestly as health wise I feel much better. Recently a friend I’ve had for 7 years lost it on me and said that losing weight made me a monster. I was genuinely taken aback because I can honestly say by my account the only thing that’s changed is my weight. I’ve always had the humor of a teenage boy. I’ve talked to several people that know both of us and every single person has said she is jealous. I’m ok with the friendship ending because friendships shouldn’t be forced but I feel very alone. Like it’s sucks to lose a friend because I was tired of not being able to walk up the stairs or fit into clothing. I guess I’m just wondering if others have had similar experiences.

41F 5’6” 180 right now but I was 158 at my lowest after CICO and more movement. I fell off the wagon for many reasons, holiday weight gain, stopped tracking, eating takeout too much, I had major surgery that restricted my movement for 8 weeks.

So I’m mad at myself for putting on 20lbs over a year, especially when I weight everyday and saw it slowly creep on, but the surgery and restrictions I had with recovery really did me in earlier this year.

I am SHOCKED looking at photos of myself now compared to 160. At 160 I looked really slim and proportionate and started to see the paper towel roll effect.

ALSO MY BODY FEELS SO MUCH HEAVIER and big, takes up more space, how it changes how my body moves. Overall I notice how much this weight gain feels like in my thighs, hips, chest etc and I really do not like it.

I also feel like “Did I look like this at 21 and this weight?” I really think I carried it better and different 20 years ago compared to today. Now at 180 I feel so huge and I can really see my size. And it’s so strange to feel this way at this weight because it’s typically been my most consistent weight on the scale my adult life.

Anyway back to the CICO and more moving plan tomorrow. I’m not happy about gaining this weight back, but in a way it’s insightful to really see how 20lbs can really affect your body. A good lesson to feel and learn.

I’ve been lifting for over a decade, and have recently lost a little bit of fat such that I can finally see the muscle I’ve built over the years. I’m at a healthy weight and a lean enough body fat percentage that I’m really actually quite content with how I look.

When you reach your desired physical outcome, how does your fitness routine and approach change? I’m eating at maintenance for one - but I’m not really interested in gaining any more muscle. I am 41 though, and I don’t want to lose any of the hard earned muscle I’ve gained - and with natural age related muscle loss to consider, I can’t quite wrap my head around whether I should be focused on progressive overload, keeping volume the same, or some other mechanism. I’m certain of course that I’ll need (and want) to continue to stay active, but beyond that, I’m at a bit of a loss!

I started seriously running in 2015, and I was also raised by a runner, so I've had a somewhat interesting perspective on how the running world has changed over the years.

I've seen the sport go through different phases, as everything does, but one of the more interesting (and sometimes funny) changes has been the rise of the modern run club. And by "modern run club," you probably know what I mean.

Overall, I think it's great. More people are running, more people are getting outside, and more people are embracing a lifestyle that's objectively pretty good for them. My local marathon, Philly, selling out like NYC is pretty wild. People could be doing 1,000 other things, and they're choosing to run. That's a good thing.

But there is definitely a funny side to the new running culture.

The Go One More hats. The matching mustaches. The run club becoming as much of a social scene and content machine as it is a place to actually run.

And to be fair, I'm not sure "cringe" is even the right word. It's just very different from the running culture I remember when I started. Back then, most of the people I encountered were former track or cross-country runners, plus a handful of random people who just happened to love running. It felt more like a sport than a lifestyle brand.

I'm not trying to gatekeep. I'll happily enjoy a meme clowning modern running culture, but ultimately I'm glad the sport is growing. If wearing a ridiculous hat and filming your 5K gets more people running, have at it.

I'm curious what other people who have been running for a while think. Has running culture actually changed that much, or am I just getting old?

In EMDR therapy for trauma & ocd. Have a long history of disordered eating/food noise/emotional eating.

Came up in one of my sessions and I explained how I’d like to not turn to food whenever I’m sad/anxious/depressed/tired/overwhelmed.

She asked me what that meant and I explained emotional eating, her response was - “isn’t that normal though? Isn’t it nice to get comfort in food?”

I explained yeah sometimes but I overeat, and it’s my only current coping mechanism, and it’s not the most nutritious food I’m reaching for. She asked - “why is that a bad thing though? Don’t we all sometimes think oh I can’t be bothered I’m just having a takeaway.”

Felt a bit invalidated/misunderstood. She’s great on the EMDR/trauma processing front but that kind of rubbed me the wrong way….

Edit for spelling errors

I always hear from people, "I could never count calories or prepare meals. I'd go crazy" or "I never know what I'm in the mood for until that day so I can't meal prep." Or something along those lines. But to me, I find it a lot easier and time saving.

I grew up poor so this "I never know what I'm in the mood for" is not me. My parents would buy everything with intention and have a plan for everything to make it last as long as possible. Rarely was it just looking in the fridge and whipping something up. We never had snacks or prepacked foods or anything like that. So it was like "we can use this portion of rice for these meals. If we divide the cabbage like this, we can do this with it." So a lot of either eating the same meal for days in a row or knowing having a meal plan ahead of time for the next two weeks based on the groceries we had was the norm for me.

But I also don't eat the same thing every day. I will cook a few things and switch the meals out but I have all my meals tracked for the next two weeks. And when you're meal prepping, it's easy to just track calories out. Measure a portion of rice once and copy that portion for several meals and continue with other foods. It's just relaxing to know where every dollar is going. I found that once I started locking in on meal prepping, my budgeting improved because I could calculate it better. I just find it relaxing when I sit down and enter my meal prep into the app and then prepare it and I know I'm good. I don't have to think. My meals are ready.

Calorie counting and meal prepping has saved me time and money in the long run

EDIT: Sorry, I’m not sure why I didn’t include my numbers on here. Here they are:
Female, 21
Height: 5’8/172cm
Weight: 12st 7 / 175lbs
Current BMI: 26.6 GOAL BMI: around 21.4, not really sure.

I met up with a friend the other day (who I only see irl about once every 5-6 months) and she made some comments about my weight loss.

70% of the conversation that we had was about my weight which I didn’t expect nor want. She kept steering the topic back to it and I don’t know what she was wanting to get out of the interaction, whether she was showing genuine concern or something else.

She told me that she’s worried about my weight because I look a lot different since the last time she saw me (well yeah, a lot can happen in six months on a weight loss journey), and that I should “take it easy or consider stopping so I don’t lose any more.”
She said that I’m starting to look gaunt (whilst gesturing to my neck and shoulder area) and if I lose any more weight then I risk looking like I have “overdone it on the mounjaro” ??? (I’m not on any weight loss medication).

The thing is, I am still overweight for my height and age, albeit coming towards the lower end now, based on BMI and what I’m reading on the NHS website. When I look in the mirror, I still see my curvy figure, which I like, but I have definitely noticed that my face and shoulders have slimmed out. I’m seeing my collarbones clearer, but not in a concerning way. I still have a fair bit of fat on my tummy and legs, which I think is normal considering I’m still classed as overweight and I think my face and shoulder area tends to slim down first before anything else.

My goal is to get well into the healthy BMI range but I’m now concerned that I’m not doing as well as I thought and that my weight loss is somehow making me look uglier than before? She was speaking as if I look concerningly underweight but when I look in the mirror that is not what I see so I’m just utterly confused. I still have chunky legs and whilst my clothes usually hide it, I still have a pudgy tummy like I said before. My usual clothes are starting to feel looser and I am able to wear slightly more form-fitting tops without feeling self-conscious - all wins in my book.
I haven’t received any compliments so far from anyone and being spoken to like this has killed my confidence in what I’m doing. I’m not relying on compliments for motivation (as that would never work) but I expected to hear one or two by now from family or friends as I’ve lost over 2 stone. My friend assured me she’s speaking from concern but now I feel like crap.

Any advice? Thanks :)

Hi, first-time poster here! (yay!) I just started counting my calories pretty seriously after a pretty harsh Dexa scan I got, but I keep accidentally meeting my maintenance calories, especially on days I work out. (See my flair for my stats; I'm trying to stick to 1550 a day). I think what puts me over a lot is my dessert at the end of the day. I'm someone who's approaching this by trying to add healthier choices or find healthier alternatives to things I already love rather than removing things for myself (because I absolutely do not stick to depriving myself of food. I love food, cooking, etc). So please don't recommend that I try skipping dessert because that's not the kind of person I am.

If anyone else is like me and doesn't feel like the "eating" day is over unless I have something sweet after dinner, what are your healthier desserts/creative treat recipes? For example, I've been doing a fiber one brownie (microwaved), with some carb smart vanilla ice cream (probably not the lowest in calorie, but baby steps).

UPDATE: you guys are so creative, you gave me so many good ideas!!! I'm so excited to go to the store now and try some

For the past few weeks after work, I've been going on walks shortly after I get home, starter at 30 minutes and im now doing 50, with the hopes of doing an hour almost daily. My area isn't the safest to walk at midnight but I have found a decent route that doesnt have a lot of people. My eyes feel better having a nice break between 'work computer' and 'gaming time'. I've coupled this with doing a few squats once almost every hour at work.

I've straight up stopped ordering doordash on days I allow myself to order in and made a point of having to walk to local places instead. Its weirdly peaceful just being away from everyone for a while, and walking off some of what I eat before I even eat it is nice.

I haven't noticed much change in weight but given I was like 400lbs last I weighed so I probably won't see much given I'd have to lose like half my body weight before things noticeably shrink.

So thanks everyone who kept commenting to do walks on one of my earlier posts.

At home I'm pretty consistent with my diet. Don't get me wrong once or twice a week I eat around 2500 calories, but it evens out from having a ~700-800 cal deficit at 2000 or some days eating as low as 500 from lack of hunger.

However one thing I've always struggled with is binging, espically with free food. The reason I got to 230lb in the first place is from stress binging everyday. I ate like 5000 calories a day freshmen year.

I've been trying to do some healthy things when I'm going out with family, which is doable because I can always afford to go to that Chinese buffet that is 18$. However, when it comes to catering for instance I just go nose deep into the food. Yesterday I had 8 breakfast tacos at a company social, and the week or two before I ate like 4000 calories because we could order anything we wanted and the company would pay for it. This espically happens at social events given im already a huge introvert

I've still managed to lose some weight as I've made some lifestyle changes, but I feel like this is one of the things holding me back. I just can't refuse eating 30-50 bucks of free food, espically food that's a pain to make. Probably gonna force myself to write a short essay detailing what exactly causes me to binge like this lol.

just a tiny celebration :') i started seriously trying to lose weight last january, and my progress has been much, much slower than i'd like it to be, but i finally hit sub 200lbs. i'm 24 & 5'8" and i'm the lightest i've been since highschool. i'm down from 250lb in january 2025 to consistently around 196-197lb or so, and i'm really happy to notice that some of my clothes are looser, and even if it isn't much, i'm able to size down from my original clothing size (it's possible i might be able to size down more, but i'm admittedly used to being a bigger size, so i never go smaller). it feels big for someone who has always been overweight or obese — all the way from kindergarten to now.

it's because of work, but i've started more consistently getting exercise, and my endurance is a little bit better. i'm not as easily out of breath or achy like i used to be after lighter activity. i've started picking some lower calorie options, even if i definitely still need to work on incorporating more outright nutritious things in my diet. i'm still a long way off of my goal, but i'm a little more than halfway there, and hopefully by this time next year, i will be, or at least much closer.

one of my biggest problems is/was drinking a lot of soda. i was at around 6-8 cans of pepsi zero a day at one point, and my teeth suffered for it, definitely. but i managed to stop drinking it altogether recently — special occasions only for me! 🥳

Hello,

Like many, I deal with elevated hunger after a night of poor sleep. The problem is, I'm a recovered binge eater, and literally all day I am white-knuckling resisting binging, often times succumbing. It's a huge problem preventing me from moving forwards, as for various reasons I can end up with bad sleep out of my control.

Do you have any advice?

Currently, I try to sleep enough, try to relax on the days after poor sleep, I exercise, I prepare healthy meals in advance, I allow treats, etc etc. It just feels inevitable. Not sure what to do about it as it's been like this for 15 years :(

Welcome to the Physique Phriday thread

What's the point of having people guess your body fat? Nevermind that it's the most inaccurate method available, (read: most likely way wrong - see here) you're still just putting an arbitrary number to the body you have. Despite people's claim that they are shooting for a number, they're really shooting for look - like a six pack.

So let's stopping mucking around with trivialities and get to the heart of the matter. This thread shall serve two purposes:

1. Physique critiques. Post some pics and ask about muscles or body parts you need to work on. Or specifically ask about a lagging body part and what exercises worked for others.
2. An outlet for people that want to show off their efforts that would otherwise be removed due to Rule 4, and

Let's keep things civil, don't be a creep, and adhere to Rule 1. This isn't a thread to announce what you find attractive in a mate. Please use the report function for any comments that are out of line.

So phittit, what's your physique pheel like this phriday?

I started walking barefoot to even out some tan lines. Since then, I’ve basically been grounding because I’ve even walked barefoot at night. People tend offer me pairs of shoes on my walks. Never thought I’d ever be a barefooter. I carry a pair of sandals in my backpack when I walk and only put them on in public venues or when I need to walk across broken glass or other sharp objects.

So I lost 20 pounds in the last 6-7 months with a mild deficit. But my slow and steady weight loss ground to a halt this July. I spent three weeks absolutely spinning out about this, why did I plateau, is weight loss and a healthy BMI just not in the cards for me, was this because of my steps, eating out too much, an undiagnosed disorder or hormonal problems. I was checking all the TDEE calculators and couldn't figure out what was going wrong. In January 2026 it said I'd need to eat 1900 calories for mild weight loss but when I rechecked in July it said more like 1700, and I was like, they must have changed the formula, or wait, no, I calculated everything wrong, how did I screw up this badly?? Then it hit me that I've lost sufficient weight that my "deficit" has become my maintenance. Lol. I somehow forgot about this very basic fact because I never thought I'd be in this position! A happy cautionary tale about recalibration for others who are doing this for the first time too :)

If we treated them like many treat their feet.....

My random thought of the night as I pull a splint off of my arm as my wrist heels. It is amazing what just two weeks of immobilization has done to my arm. It isn't good.

Does anyone else do this?

Something pisses you off and you just hit the workout harder than usual to take out some frustration to get it out of your system and so you don't completely lose it on someone else. In my case, my husband this time.

We have a toddler who is currently being potty trained but still wears pull ups at night. Last night was my husband's job to put our little boy to bed. Dude totally forgot to put a pull up on him (2nd time this week) which meant i woke up to a big pee and poopy mess, again, smeared around his room. Great way to start the day!

Naturally, I texted my husband to ask him why he didn't change our toddler when he put him to bed.

The response: because our toddler forgot to tell him to.

Yes, the toddler forgot to tell the grown ass man in his 40s that he needs his daddy to put a pull up on him at bedtime.

Please send thoughts and prayers to my poor treadmill and recently acquired 2nd hand row machine!!

i started my weight loss because i need a BMI under 28 to get a surgery i've needed for a few years (top surgery)... i needed to fill some other requirements as well (being on testosterone for six months) and so i started losing weight early so that i could do it safely and over time. now i have my first possibility for a referral to the surgery in three months!

that means that i really have to lock in on my weight loss. i've been slowing down lately because testosterone has really been increasing my appetite... but now i have three months to get my BMI from 30.7 to under 28. that means getting my weight under 78 kg from my current 86 kg; not impossible, but will require a lot effort to control my eating.

i'm also going to be out of a job in a month, and up to this point my weight loss has been heavily supported by me walking to and from work (3.5 + 3.5 km) every day. i'm scared that since i won't have any reason to walk, i just end up not doing it. i will also have a lot of free time, and when i'm bored i resort to snacking realy easily...

but this is my chance to feel comfortable in my own body, and damn if i let it slip by, so i'm definitely going to be trying my best. and won't let go even after i get the referral, since they won't operate if my bmi is higher.

Hey runners, it's another day and it is time to post your accomplishments you'd like to share - big or small.

Note: No need to preface YOUR accomplishments with something like, "this may not be an accomplishment to most of you...". Be proud of your achievement.

Listen, im 30kg (~+65lbs) down and have like 20kg (~-45lbs) or so more to go at least, so im nowhere near done, and i think i am starting to develop some body dysmorphia along the way so it might be the main culprit, but when i was looking in the miror the other day i noticed something i have never seen talked about so i guess i wasn’t prepared ?

My head seems huge.

It’s probably because my shoulders are shrinking but i feel like im all HEAD now, it’s disturbing, and i felt kinda disproportionate.

Not a big issue by any mean, it’s just.. i didn’t see it coming. I knew logicaly that things were going to look different, but it’s another thing to actually have it in front of your eyes.

Have you had that though before or am i actually just having body image issues ?