Double chin and fat arms

And your profile pic is cute, but do you really want to relegate yourself to #2? You say or write stuff often enough and you start to believe it.

That’s why people with user IDs like “FattyFatterson” drive me bonkers.

They’re already in the mindset of “oh well I’ll try it for a minute but I have low expectations for myself and I’ll probably fail. Again.” And then they’re disappointed when they do.

I think it was @AnnPT77 who posted a while ago about bingo wings and them just being loose muscle - it was a great post, and hopefully she’ll see this and repost it for you. 👍

claireychn074 wrote: »

I think it was @AnnPT77 who posted a while ago about bingo wings and them just being loose muscle - it was a great post, and hopefully she’ll see this and repost it for you. 👍

OK, not sure it's what's going on for the OP, but maybe. Since it was requested, here's my standard "arm fat rant".

Many women hold their arm out horizontally and see some floppiness under the upper arm. They identify this as fat or loose skin. In every single case where I've discussed this with another woman in real life, they have been misidentifying some of their nice, useful upper arm muscles as fat or loose skin. (I'm not saying there's zero fat or loose skin, I'm saying maybe it's not *entirely* fat or loose skin.

Here's the deal:

Everyone, even very fit people, has some underarm tissue that moves when they hold their arms straight out. Relaxed triceps muscles do that, with gravity. Triceps are slack/mobile when relaxed, and only tighten up when they contract to do work. When you hold your arm out straight, they're relaxed.

Hold your arm out horizontally, relaxed, then grab a handful of the hang-y bit with the opposite hand, grabbing up as close as you can get to the upper arm bone with your fingertips. Hold on.

Next, while continuing to hold on with the opposite hand, take the extended arm and flex it like you're a bodybuilder. Get the upper arm and elbow at an angle above your shoulder, curl the lower part of the arm down toward your shoulder, curl the wrist downward/inward, and just generally work as hard as you can by positioning and intention to tighten up every bit of your arm that you can, especially that upper arm. (Basically, it's the position in my profile photo, but with the elbow up so the upper arm is raised maybe a 45-degree angle above horizontal, more wrist curl, and more tightened. In my photo, the triceps muscles aren't really engaged.)

Anything that you have grabbed with the opposite hand, that you feel tighten up or get firmer when you do the flexing, is muscle, not fat or loose skin. It's just that when that muscle is relaxed, especially with the arm outstretched, gravity makes it hang a bit. (If it didn't, how would it contract to do work?) Any large/long muscle in your body can act like this, such as hamstrings in the back of the upper legs. The triceps just happen to be located in an area where its easy to see them and obsess about it. Sometimes women misidentify some hamstrings as fat, too - in the seated, relaxed position, part of the upper thigh that squishes out horizontally is just relaxed hamstrings. If one raises the leg while lying down, but keeping the hamstrings relaxed, they'll wobble, too.)

Even quite fit women (and men) can typically make the upper arm area wobble, if they hold it in the right position with triceps relaxed.

So, check it out, see if some of what you have is actually relaxed muscle. 🙂

For the record, I think your arms look fine. Normal. They'd look funny if they were thinner. If that were my body, If I chose to improve it in some way, I'd try adding muscle, instead of worrying about fat. I don't see any excess fat that wants losing.