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?
This is a well known experience for both men and women. There are many reddit threads about this as well.
Almost every human will treat someone sexually appealing much, much better. And for women, it’s mostly about being thin, and for men, having a bit of muscles, being tall and having a confident personality.
Both men and women, but specially women, notice how they start to feel invisible in society in their 40s or 50s because they lose their attractive surface. People treat them very differently when they do.
If you have never been very attractive, it’s not a big difference, but if you were, it’s a massive difference. It’s so big and noticable that it can cause depression.
But it’s not in every culture. Eastern cultures are not as bad.
Eastern cultures are not as bad.
I know for at least China, Indonesia, Singapore and especially South Korea that being even a smidge above their idea of normal weight can get you completely shunned from society, and body ideals are quite strict among Japanese celebrities as well, far more than here.
So in which Eastern cultures is this not as bad?
for women, it’s mostly about being thin, and for men, having a bit of muscles, being tall and having a confident personality.
Tough luck, my fellow men. We need to work more on everything, not just plain lifting.
Well we are also stronger and more capable. Specially if humanity hits hard times, it’s going to be men who gets us out of it. By sheer force if needed.
Be proud to be a man. Men built the entire world around us. Water, electricity, piping, housing… Everything.
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.
But they tend to smile more, and people return that.
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.
People can’t be shallow! Mistreatment by others is because you’re not being happy enough for them!
I’m stuck in the opposite situation right now. I spent my whole life being skinny-fit. That’s thanks to undiagnosed ADHD, which kept me bursting at the seams with energy 24/7. I was always running everywhere, biking, canoeing, hiking, doing martial arts and gymnastics, climbing trees, buildings, etc. I had a natural 8-pack without ever going to the gym. I used to get lots of attention and compliments, and I would turn heads in public pretty frequently.
I never had a big head about my looks growing up. I never really noticed I was all that attractive, I just thought I was “normal.” It wasn’t until I started losing it that it really hit me.
I broke my leg in my late 20s. Motorcycle accident. It was pretty bad, and my job at the time (US military) rushed me to get back to work and back into the gym ASAP, which meant it didn’t heal well. I’ve basically had leg pain ever since, which has severely restricted my physical activity and almost got me kicked out of the military. Both my legs were compromised; I spent several years walking with a cane before knee surgery finally got me back on my feet unassisted. But I’m still dealing with non-stop aches and pains.
Adding to that… I fell down the stairs in my 30s and messed up my back, so now I basically hurt all the time every time I try to move anywhere. I’m 100% Permanent & Total disabled, according to the VA. I can still walk normally and I don’t look disabled if you meet me. But I’m basically in minor pain all the time, just from existing.
As a consequence, exercising has become an extreme challenge and I found myself gaining weight over the years of inactivity. I’m already 75 lbs heavier than my target weight and it’s really showing in my gut and face. Swimming is pretty much the only exercise I can do with minimal pain, but I hate swimming. So motivating me to go to the pool has been near impossible and I’m just packing on the pounds now.
I’ve noticed that people don’t give me much attention anymore. I haven’t turned heads in public in almost a decade now and people don’t go out of their way to help me anymore. Folks are more blunt and rude with me, which hurts because I’ve spent my life trying to foster positive and uplifting communication with everyone I meet.
Also, at 42 years old, I’m finally starting to show my age. On top of the weight gain, my hair is turning gray and receding, and I’m growing large quantities of unsightly hair everywhere else. People treat me like a tired old man now, not a young fit man. I’m having to come to terms with the fact that, even if I do get back in shape somehow, I’ll never truly be attractive again. Now that I’m aware of what I once had, it’s already gone. I dunno, maybe that’s just part of my midlife crisis, but it’s been one of my bigger struggles in recent years, having to adjust to a new me who doesn’t reflect the me I see myself as. I feel trapped in an ugly body with weights tied to every limb. Every little bit of movement is a painful struggle and it’s frustrating.
seems peoples attitude after covid changed for the worst in general too. military basically ruined your physical health by not allowing you to heal properly.
On top of the weight gain, my hair is turning gray and receding, and I’m growing large quantities of unsightly hair everywhere else.
Hair growing in unwanted places can just be shaved off. Laser removal might be an option, too.
Receding hairlines are pretty much preventable these days, the earlier you start the better (I learned about that a few years too late). If you care enough to do something about it, start with Finasteride ASAP. If you want to do more, add Minoxidil. If you want to do even more, treat the hair issue as a skin issue and act accordingly, i.e. read up on anti aging skincare and apply that to your scalp (spoiler: sunscreen is king, everything else is detail optimization).
About the graying: That is not necessarily bad, gray hair worn with confidence can be very attractive.
I’ve tried a handful of hair loss treatments over the past decade, but most of them have some really nasty side effects, all of which I experienced. In the end, I decided to just let my hair do its thing and hope I keep 70% of it like my dad.
My dad had a receding hairline, but at the end of his long life, most of his hair was still there. And I know that the balding gene comes from your mother’s side of genetics, but everyone on my mom’s side went fully bald by 30 and I still have most my hair into my 40s, so maybe I’ll be lucky in that regard.
i have my moms balding gene, she started balding at around 40ish. but my dads hair dint get gray til his 60s. my hair has thinned out also i have generalized alopecia areata which makes my hair fall out.
I also find swimming super boring. I plan to do it more when I get older as it is as you said a good way to exercise without straining/pain.
Have you thought about getting some bone conducting waterproof headphones? You can load audio files onto them like music, podcasts or audio books.
They aren’t that expensive anymore. I have shokz but other brands work fine too in my experience.
You can exercise in gym as you get older. All you need to do is have less weight and more reps. It gives the same results without wearing down joints.
For example, bench press 50kg 15 reps instead of 80kg 8 reps. As long as your muscles gets tired so you can’t do more reps, they will grow.
I’ll definitely look into that. Thanks for the recommendation!
Also thanks for sharing your story and good luck!
Shave your head. Join us. The bald life is great
is it time?
You know, I wanted to find and post this image myself but I was away at the time, and my phone screen is like 2 inches. Thank you for doing it instead 😅
The set up was too good to pass by. Thanks for the pitch.
One of us! One of us!
I can’t shave my head. I have ridges on either side of my head. My scalp looks like a wrinkled ballsack. Not only am I hideous with a shaved head, but the ridges prevent me from smoothly shaving. I’ll have tufts of hair in the creases of my scalp where I can’t reach with a razor.
My best bet is that I don’t go completely bald and can do something with what hair I have left. Otherwise, I’m gonna be one ugly bastard in old age.
Some of the electric razors out there could help with this. I have a couple ridges in the back of my head and I just jam that thing in there and it gets it pretty well when a normal razor can’t. Mine’s panasonic, they make some good ones. But many brands make similar ones. Just don’t get one of the ones with several circular heads, those won’t get into the cracks. The ones that are basically half-tubes lined up parallel can get in there good. Something with a head that looks like this:
Besides, the real ones don’t care what your head looks like. Do what feels best for you.
Heyyyyy bro I’m there with you!
You’re not alone.
Biggest difference was at the doctor’s office:
Fat me: Doctor, I’ve been shot!
Doctor: Have you tried losing weight? That’s clearly the problem.Thin me: Doctor, I’ve been shot!
Doctor: Well your bloodwork looks great, nothing to do here.
I’ve gotten to the realization that modern medicine just isn’t there yet. Pretty sure I’ve got some weird inflammatory thing. But even if I do get diagnosed with something, odds are there’s going to be nothing I can do about it aside from trying to stay active, not eat things that aggravate it, and stop taking so much random medicine to be comfortable (most things I take more are associated with developing dementia). I don’t have the energy to spend all that time getting diagnosed with something there’s no real treatment for. So I’m doing my best with the lifestyle recommendations for my symptoms and hoping it takes me on my feet.
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!
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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.
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I had the opposite experience. When I was younger and a very muscular 170 I did ok with women. When I got older and COVID closed my gym I put on a lot of weight, about 240 at my highest, but being older and having figured myself out a lot more I have fewer women turning heads on the street but women I actually talk to were FAR more interested in me.
People have their preferences and I’m sure more people prefer fit partners over not, but often the biggest factor in this change you’ve experienced might not be the weight loss itself, but the confidence it gave you.
yeah 170 and 240 are like a few tens of pounds away from typical. OP is talking about being way higher than typical to getting close to ideal bmi which is atypically fit.
For somebody who’s an average height, 170 and very lean/muscular is atypically fit and 240 is obesity.
We’re talking about the difference between six pack abs and regular trips to your cardiologist lol
OP also mentioned not seeing the increase in attention until he was below 185lbs which 55 lbs lower than 240
Definitely. I started taking karate in 11th grade and went from almost 300lbs down to 200.
I became visible at that point. People noticed me and talked to me. When I went to college, girls were pursuing ME. It was all very new and strange to me, and I definitely missed some opportunities, just because I didn’t always understand when people were flirting with me. It just wasn’t anything I had experienced before.
I’m old and fat again, but I think being fit for a while taught me how to project “thin guy energy”. Fat is not just a state of body, it’s also a state of mind.
I started taking karate in 11th grade
Karate’s also really good for your posture, which might have changed perceptions of you. BTW most shotokan schools are very welcoming of older people.
In my experience, all traditional styles are welcoming, adapting to different and changing bodies is part of the philosophy.
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.
For those who lost weight, what was it like for you? Did people start treating you differently?
Yes, I immediately started noticing a change in people… as well as in myself (feeling more confident for the most stupid reason: the way people would look at me). Because the real trick is that it’s not just ‘them’ being weird, it’s us.
I had to reteach myself to behave like I used to but I kept on losing weight (not thin by any mean but not the obese dude I had been for so many years), because that was what I needed to do in order to preserve what remained of my health.
I’m so jealous any time I see a fat guy who looks completely comfortable with themselves
i never seen a robust guy be comfortable at all, they often struggle to walk or breathe, and thier attitude is often less than pleasant.
First off, congrats on shedding so much excess mass! Second off, ignore BMI, it is a shit metric.
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.
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.
I lost weight and kind of blossomed in my early 20s, but in my head I was still overweight and awkward, so when I got hit on I had absolutely no clue.
You were no longer the giant Korean!
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
Edit: forgot to add in my wife. While the overall treatment hasn’t changed as we have been together for around 14 years, so all body types, from skeleton(~60kg in early adulthood) to overweight to muscular. She is most definitely more attracted and “hornier” now when I’m muscular than other times in our life.
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
