Genuine question about normal bodies

xxzenabxx

I don’t understand because when I wake up and I’m standing in front of the mirror I feel so lean and strong and I can see my abs. But when I sit down I see ab rolls, a belly pooch and my thighs look huge. If I wave, then my arms flap and it looks so unsightly even though I strength train. My stomach is bigger towards the end of the day but that’s probably due to food volume right? Now I’m all about body positivity, but does this happen to lean people as well? I mean is this normal? I guess it doesn’t help that social media is saturated with lean ripped musclar bodies all the time. I know I have 10-15 lbs to lose but I still look fairly lean because I have quite abit of muscle too. I’m just having one of those off days I guess.
Basically straight of the bat- are lower belly pooches, belly rolls, flabby thighs and underarm flap all just normal even for lean people but no one really speaks about them?

claireychn074

There’s a great tummy thread on here which someone will come along and link to in a min (my search function is not working). There are a load of ripped or toned women showing pictures standing up and planking or sitting down. So yes most of us have rolls when we sit: your thighs have to be bigger when you sit down as your muscle has to go somewhere; and yes a lot of people have abs in the morning but not in the evening. When you wave your arms you’re not flexing so that wobbly bit underneath is your muscle. Flex your arms and then try to grab underneath - I bet you won’t be able to grab nearly as much as you expect.

Oh and the ripped bodies on social media? Combination of years of hard work, posing and photo editing, not to mention the dehydration and carb restriction that fitness models undertake to show off their muscles.

Lietchi

claireychn074 wrote: »

There’s a great tummy thread on here which someone will come along and link to in a min (my search function is not working). There are a load of ripped or toned women showing pictures standing up and planking or sitting down.

Et voilà
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10689837/does-this-uterus-make-my-stomach-look-fat/p1

LivingtheLeanDream

Its completely normal to have rolls when we sit down.

Noreenmarie1234

Yep normal.

Watch this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i1bSS4MPUQ

yirara

if you take a pillow and fold it into a 90 degree angle against a wall/floor: does the extra pillow material vanish or point towards you and the sides? the same happens with your body. You can't expect organs, muscles, fat, intestinal content to vanish into nowhere when you sit down. Also, most people bloat a bit, which shows at the end of the day. Batwings: that's the muscles at the backside of your arms. You flex those muscles by keeping your arm straight (try it!). The same muscles relax when you lift up your lower arm and flex your biceps. All totally normal

ladyzherra

Achieving body love is a journey for so many of us. I was so glad to read about your good feelings toward yourself at the start of your post. There will always be something to raise an eyebrow about and wonder, "is this ok?" But, yes, the answer is: yes, it is ok. No matter what your body is like, yes, it is ok to accept it. Accepting does not mean that it might be your ideal, but it means that you are able to love it as you move toward any changes that you desire -- change is always happening. Honoring your body and all of its changes, at all stages, is something to aim for, in my opinion!

SnifterPug

It's totally normal.

AnnPT77

xxzenabxx wrote: »

I don’t understand because when I wake up and I’m standing in front of the mirror I feel so lean and strong and I can see my abs. But when I sit down I see ab rolls, a belly pooch and my thighs look huge. If I wave, then my arms flap and it looks so unsightly even though I strength train. My stomach is bigger towards the end of the day but that’s probably due to food volume right? Now I’m all about body positivity, but does this happen to lean people as well? I mean is this normal? I guess it doesn’t help that social media is saturated with lean ripped musclar bodies all the time. I know I have 10-15 lbs to lose but I still look fairly lean because I have quite abit of muscle too. I’m just having one of those off days I guess.
Basically straight of the bat- are lower belly pooches, belly rolls, flabby thighs and underarm flap all just normal even for lean people but no one really speaks about them?

Yes, normal. (Warning: Rant coming. This is one of my hot buttons.)

You're right, too few people present correct information about it. Why? No profit in *that*. The profit (for marketers/influencers) lies in convincing regular people that because we don't look like the carefully posed, carb-depleted, well-lit, extensively photoshopped fitness models, in a few carefully-selected photos of them, we're ugly and undesirable, so we need to buy their products to "fix" ourselves. It's evil.

I've ranted a bunch on here about the arm-flap thing. Every single woman I've ever talked to about this in real life (after they made some self-critical remark) has found that a good percentage of what they thought was fat/loose skin on their upper arm was actually nice, useful triceps muscle, but the muscles were relaxed rather than tensed. (I'm not saying they had zero fat or loose skin, but that a good percentage was muscle in all of them. What percentage it is varies by person, of course.)

I think the previous description about how to tighten those muscles is a little off. In my profile photo, the triceps are still somewhat relaxed (partly but not fully tensed). To get them fully engaged, I'd have to raise my upper arm more (so my elbow is pointing more upward instead of sideways), and tighten/curl my fist and pull it down toward my shoulder, making maximum effort to tighten up the back of the upper arm. Try that. If you're 10-15 pounds above a good weight, and muscular, I'm betting you have mostly muscle, and you'll see that clearly in the "maximum triceps engagement" position. If the muscle weren't slack (so a little floppy) when relaxed, how would it contract to move your arm?

The same idea is true with your thighs. The hamstrings on the back of your upper leg also are slack when relaxed, and they're relaxed when you sit in a normal chair. Pressing against the chair seat, they spread out horizontally, so thighs appear wider. If you sat on the very edge of a hard chair, and held your leg straight out in front of you as relaxed as you can while still holding it up, you can feel the same relaxed hamstring muscles in the upper back of your leg being a little flappy, like the arm ones. It's the relaxed muscle, under the effect of gravity pulling down on it.

I hope the thread linked above (the uterus one) gives you some perspective about abdomens.

It completely outrages me that all these "fitness influencers" and marketers cynically exploit our insecurities and misrepresent what normal bodies look like, and why. I hate that they/we (especially women, it seems like) make up names just so we can hate on normal, good, functional, useful parts of our bodies: Bat wings, bingo wings, arm flaps, belly pooch, wattles, hip dips . . . I could go on and on with pejorative terms. Ugh.

Our bodies are great: I don't know what I'd do without one! It's fine to want to improve our bodies, in a healthy way. Hating it at any point along the route, or feeling inadequate because of it, is completely unnecessary, and very unhelpful.

springlering62

Ok. I don’t know if Barbie has changed over the years. Wasn’t she what we were subtly told to aspire to?

Grab a Barbie, bend her legs. Note the bends and creases in formerly smooth rubber.

Voila. Even Barbie has the same problem. It’s just physics.

As @AnnPT77 has so helpfully stated here over and over, what you often think of as pooches and fat simply aren’t. They’re skin, covering muscle.

Hold your arm straight out to one side. Silently cursing the bingo wing? Now, flex your bicep a lá Popeye. Feel the bingo wing spot. Has the “wing” gone taut? It’s just skin covering the bicep.

Assume the leg shaving position. You know, the one where you hold your leg perfectly straight and still so you don’t maim yourself. Notice all the skin gathered around your knees? Now bend your knee. It smooths out.

Your skin has to have some extra give in it to accommodate the muscular movement going on underneath. When your muscles are relaxed, so is the skin surrounding it.

Posture affects it. I have terrible scoliosis type posture. I can appear to lose pounds simply by standing up straight.

Even sitting here in my armchair, after a giant bowl of soup for lunch, I can go enjoy a nice wee wee, return to the same position, and will appear to have lost weight.

Weight loss itself causes changes. I have a nice sheath of extra skin on my belly. It’s not fat. It’s just.....a buttload of extra skin. Eventually it will go away. Or not. *shrug* It’s better than it was before.

Don’t beat yourself up so hard.

And don’t you dare compare yourself to these phonies on social media. OMG I’m going to start carrying bricks and lobbing them at these vacuous women taking pics on the RR tracks and in front of the town mural. They constantly block the bike trail and stare daggers at you for interrupting their idiotic photo shoots.

I decided just this morning to privately boycott a yoga line that sent a Black Friday ad with many, many thumbnails of perfectly posed “influencers”. My fave was the gal self counciously posed as if she was stepping off a curb, with her foot high in the air, hips twisted slightly to one side to emphasize her butt and thighs. Really? Who walks like this?!!!!

**** influencers!!!! Who decided I needed to be influenced by these dingbats? What has happened to us?

Oh my. Tirade over. (Wonder how many calories that was good for?)

springlering62

In a nutshell, BE genuine and BE normal. Love the skin you’re in.

MarttaHP

I am already very lean, my BMI hovering around 19-20, but I sometimes do get these feelings of inadequacy. Whenever I see all these film stars/influencers/other famous people whose bodies I feel look better than mine, I try to remind myself that their livelihood depends on them looking like that. They probably have to keep up pretty strict fitness and eating regimens for that.

Me, I like junk food too much. I wouldn't want to give it up just to look "perfect", especially since for me there's absolutely no need for that.

jenring3

I just want to add here that these are truly some of the best responses (thoughtful and well presented) to this type of question I have ever read. And I've worked in the weight loss industry for over a decade and have just about heard it all. I've seen this go wrong many times, but you all have nailed it!

littlegreenparrot1

I think it's important to remember that those film stars and the like have a lot of money to throw at the problem.

I'm sure if I could have a dedicated trainer, housekeeper, nanny, PA, chef etc I would have more success more quickly. The motivation of being paid a lot would probably also help.

As it is I'm one person with a full time job, family respnsibilities, household to take care of, usual life admin to deal with.
With the best will in the world I'm not going to put the same amount of time, effort and care into it as they do.

I assume every picture I look at had been fiddled with anyway. If nothing else the lighting, pose, make up and professional photography is going to make it look better.

springlering62

@Noreenmarie1234
That video you posted is terrific!

angelexperiment

Yes even models legs jiggle when they walk

xxzenabxx

Hey everyone! Sorry for the late reply.
Wow- I’ve read some amazing responses! I watched the video so thank you @Noreenmarie1234. It really opened my eyes and made me realise that even the skinniest girls get rolls and stretch marks. It’s totally normal. Wow. I feel much better about myself. I’m definitely subscribing to her.

@Lietchi thank you for the thread- I had a look around and it amazed me how this is all so normal yet so hidden? That’s why I need to see more of this stuff! I honestly thought there’s something wrong with my body but I’m glad I saw those pictures of normal women.

@AnnPT77 thank you for the rant- I definitely needed it. Everything you said about the triceps and hamstrings is true! I tensed my muscles and there was less fat (although still more than I want- I have 13” arms 😩) and my thighs are still 24” at the widest point but I need to work on that too. It’s fine. I know I have 10-15 lbs to go.

@springlering62 I really appreciated your rant too. It made me think about how brainwashed we all are. I’m making a conscious effort now to remind myself that it’s all just filters, poses and lighting and they’re (celebs/influencers) just normal people with belly rolls too. It’s tough being a young woman in this day and age as it is, so I don’t need to make it harder for myself. So thank you again for that much needed rant!

@jenring3 Yes I agree, I wasn’t expecting such amazing responses but I was proven wrong!

I know I was having an off day because I started my period the next day but I really enjoyed reading all the responses.