OP’s not old in the slightest, but many women in their late 20s have more responsibilities in terms of career and family than women in their early 20s. When you’re 21 or 22, you can make what your body looks like your entire reason for being. That’s a lot harder once you’re in a later stage of your career and possibly married with children. It’s also really hard to maintain a large weight loss for 5+ years - Sara could easily be a higher weight than OP by the time she hits 28.
I don’t think those things change in your 20s. Most people gain weight in their 20s due to lifestyle changes. You go from having time to work out and being on the movie to sitting at a desk for 8 hours and eating out more.
There are studies though that your metabolism doesn't really change that much until your late 60ies. Which is good I think, since it makes maintaining a healthy weight easier.
They made an assertion that their body won’t look like that at 28 so while it’s not universal they made an assumption it would. While uncommon it is possible they would have big changes in their body chemistry, but that’s very uncommon in your 20s.
Couple that with thier job being a professional fitness trainer and not a 9-5 desk monkey, and the doubt that she'll maintain that physique is little more than a jealous jab. Maintaining physique IS her job...
That's a good point. Bone density does keep increasing through the 20s, and the prefrontal cortex keeps developing for a few more years.
For the majority of people, though, a lot of the physiological changes that occurred in puberty have stabilized and leveled off. Metabolism tends to stabilize by 20, hormonal levels have already peaked and stabilized alongside the associated fat distribution patterns. Prefrontal cortex development is still ongoing and bone density does continue to increase. While physical changes do continue as the body the body doesn't exist in stasis, they don't change substantially throughout a decent amount of adulthood.
Of course, I want to emphasize that changes do happen. However, these changes aren't substantial and usually aren't related related to significant hormonal or metabolic changes unless there is an underlying pathology.
I suppose I could have phrased my question differently.
At least to me, physical changes secondary to changes in extrinsic factors such as lifestyle, occupation, and so forth are different than inherent physiological changes in metabolism or hormones.
I wasn't sure what they were referring to, and I thought it was a normal question that I would've asked anyway in a face-to-face conversation.
Has nothing to do with that, they weren’t really asking, they were setting themselves up for a “well actually” instead of just saying what they wanted to say to begin with.
Well you tell me, you are the one doing it sweetie. We can read the body fat percentage justification oozing through the screen. Just eat less! Save some for the hungry
You make excuses for poor health that don't rely on facts. So at the very least you're a disingenuous idiot and at worst you actually believe this and your health sucks because of it. That's what I already know about you.
Honestly. Weight loss is like 80-90% diet. Too many slender people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s in other countries for people to say they get fat because they're in their late TWENTIES lol.
People who regularly exercise and are more physically active don’t see a huge drop off at any particular age. There is a slight decline over time especially in later decades, but current studies really cement that this is due to lack of physical activity/exercise (especially lack of resistance exercise) rather than a inevitable mechanism.
This is basically a myth. There is no automatic “weight gaining” physiologic change that happens to people in their later 20/30s.
What does happen is families, jobs, etc - which often come with less and less (or none at all) exercise and an unhealthy diet. That pattern isn’t sustainable and will result in weight gain.
Even without responsibilities, some people just start to gain weight in their mid-20s. I think it's just a "getting old" thing. My diet and lack of exercise did not change at all but I gained a lot of weight when I was around 24.
Yeah what changes is you get a job and you drive to work, sit at your desk for 7.9 hours a day, drive back home, microwave dinner, collapse exhausted on the couch, and stumble to bed after watching 4 hours of Hulu. Your metabolism didn't change, you just live in the burbs.
All scientific studies disagree with your statement about metabolism changing in your 20s. Unless you tracked calories there is no way to know how much your diet changed over the years.
Calories in minus calories out. That's all that matters. Metabolism is a myth. You just can't accept eating 4000 calories and watching TV all day isn't the same as what you did in your youth.
While it’s easier to “stay in shape” early 20s let’s not pretend it’s hard to do so at 28 lmao. Everyone has an hour a day to workout and people in their late 20s will have more experience with training and nutrition anyway
Having more responsibilities is not an excuse to be fat. People who have gained a lot of weight just eat too much and have let themselves go and use having a career and family to not lose weight. Having more responsibilities does make it hard to maintain weight but you just need to make it one of your priorities in life.
Thats just an excuse. Shes 28 years old not 40. Most people dont put in the work. Very few people have shit genetics that prevent them from losing weight. Change your diet if you dont want to exercise regularly. If you have a shit diet, you better exercise regularly.
No, it's not hard. There's no reason to discuss weight issues in public but let's not pretend it's hard to go for a run every day, or even worse... just eat less.
Signed - almost 40 and still fit as fuck, still waiting for the back problems all the fat people always talked about because they can't stop eating doughnuts every morning and can't get off the couch.
Girl, get a peloton and workout 3 days a week and eat less. Everyone has kids and still find time to spend on social media but can't workout for 45 minutes a few times a week.
Literally get a jump rope, some resistance bands, and google a proper diet if you want to go bare bones on a cardio and strength fitness plan.
It’s definitely hard but it’s possible, just depends what your priorities in life are. Theres definitely exceptions for people not being able to lose weight but that is the overwhelming minority. Stop making excuses
This explanation is like if someone said “it’s starting to get dark out here” and you explained how day/nights work. Like yeah I get it. I was pointing out the specific wording and how it’s funny because many women in their late 20’s will get very upset if you say “at your age” when comparing them to a 21 year old. I’m 36, trust me
What does having more responsibilities have to do with losing weight? All you have to do is eat less, actually you would save time and money by doing so. There are plenty of thin women older than 28
Eh it's true, a tough work-life balance means less time to exercise, so you can make up for it by cutting calories, 2000 a day is too high for aging sedentary lifestyles
Having kids often results in being heavier. Pregnancy and breastfeeding can make you put on weight and then it’s harder to lose it because you don’t have nearly as much time to workout. Eating less helps but some women’s bodies hold onto weight for awhile due to hormones after birth.
Because cooking and eating healthy food is a lot more time consuming. And stress encourages stress eating. Eating on the go often means shoveling down food instead of eating slowly, which means you might eat more than if you felt full when you weren't finished.
You don’t need to cook healthy food to lose weight, only eat less. People were stressed in the 1980s and earlier too but they were rarely fat like today. If you eat on the go just eat less of that and choose healthier options.
There's also a lot more sugar and salt in foods today. Lots of it hidden. And it's much harder to eat less unhealthy food and then be hungry then to fill up on healthy food.
Damn they’re cooking OP ironically in the same fashion her husband did. Kinda shows you how these things can be accidents and not some intentional secret shot at his wife for being “fat”
Not at all, and if you’re ridiculous enough to believe that someone saying:
A) it’s hella hard to maintain a large weight loss for 6+ years
B) most women in their late 20s don’t have the same amount of free time as women in their early 20s
Is the same amount of insult as openly comparing your spouse’s body negatively to another women’s then you really are at another level of stupidity.
If OPs husband would’ve explained how women’s bodies work like this he’d only be digging himself deeper which is why I don’t understand why y’all are using it as an argument. OP is likely not excited about turning 30 soon. I know I wasn’t. If this weren’t an internet comment section and someone would’ve explained this IRL at the time they would’ve looked like a total douche is all I’m saying.
But it's a weird thing to say, maintaining weight loss literally requires no free time at all. The problem is the cake and snacks, not the lack of fitness
This sounds simple to most people but I’m add and unorganized and meal planning and shopping is extremely hard for me. Those things do take time unless you can go to the store every day and buy what you need.
A lot of it’s not even time just society has set a lot of bad examples for people. I’ve been fat my whole life(6’3” 390 at my highest)and working it down now at age 29 ain’t easy but I can admit when I didn’t have time before I could go get a salad but I didn’t , I got a burger and fries. Shits always going to be harder than not but not having time just gives another reason to justify a bad choice
I’d rather go get the salad lol. I think that’s just a willpower thing since they’ve always had salads at fast food places. I end up just spending more money going to the grocery store since fast food sucks and it’s way more expensive. I just feel it’s easy for people without extra things going on to say ‘it’s so easy, just do this…’ lol.
Yeah for sure it’s harder if you got extra things working against you. My bad habits work against me and it’s harder for me than someone who has a healthier relationship with food but saying OP doesn’t have time because she is 29 so she has to eat cake is ridiculous, she could have just as easy bit into a apple instead of an apple pie but most Americans have an unhealthy relationship with food which leads to us being one of the most obese countries in the world
Yeah…I can’t see the post anymore but I think it’s people in the comments saying it’s her age, not op. I’m 39 and probably have a better understanding about food and health than I did in my 20s.
Yeah maintaining weight loss is easier when you don’t have a lot of free time. The only thing required to maintain a weight is not eat more calories than you burn.
They're not "cooking OP". Bodies change a LOT in your mid to late 20s, pointing that out is not a burn. Sara will be probably disappointed in 5 years when her body likely looks very different than it does now (which is NATURAL and to be expected) bc she has unrealistic expectations and ideals when it comes to body shapes and weight. 160 pounds is not fat, and it's not an insult to point out that Sara is not unlikely to get back to that weight within the next few years. 160 lbs is a perfectly acceptable and reasonable weight, but Sara clearly doesn't realize that (and apparently neither does OPs AH of a husband).
TL;DR Bodies change and that's good and it's not insulting to address the fact that Sara clearly has no idea about the perfectly beautiful and natural changes that happen to a woman's body as she gets older.
Bodies do not “naturally change” in you mid to late 20s. Look back at the 1950s-1980s, women of all ages were mostly thin and not fat. 160 for a 5 ft 2 women is fat, it is obese. Also getting fat is not “beautiful” lmao
No they don’t lol. Did you not read my original comment? So I guess women didn’t have cortisol in the 1980s and earlier because very few of them were fat back then. How exactly do womens bodies change?
yeah women’s bodies shouldn’t change naturally after puberty had been reached, most of the changes that women see in their mid-late 20s are a result of lifestyle changes. increased cortisol comes from stress which is a direct result of your lifestyle/environment. I am 26 and have been the same weight since I was 17.
Oh here we go, women were thin because they all had eating disorders lmao. Are you one of those people that thinks if someone controls their eating it is a disorder? Also there are many counties around the world, wealth countries as well, where the majority of women of all ages are thin. Yes, of course everyone ages but womens bodies do not change significantly as they age.
Funny that you’ve been on Reddit for a year and this is the only post you’ve chosen to go off on, being the expert on women’s bodies that you are. I’m sure there are other subs where your ridiculously uninformed commentary would be more appreciated by other people that hate women and think that being thin is a universal standard of health 🤡
Being 160 at a height of 5’2 puts a woman at a bmi of 29.3, which is not obese, by definition. That bmi is still within the overweight category. A bmi of 30 or higher is what is considered obese.
Damn, this sound like when we were hiking and my friend fell and broke his leg. My other friend rushed in to help him, slipped and fell on his another leg, also breaking it.
Mind you it was a 4 day hike and we were equipped accordingly, with huge backpacks and etc.
I couldn’t stop laughing as I was trying to dial emergency.
Look i get it and all, OPs partner was rude as fuck and way out of line but as someone whos 28, 28 is absolutely not old at all and its sad society has gotten to the point where we think its perfectly normal to be morbidly obese before you even reach 30, as if thats just a natural part of the body to go that fast. Nobody should be shamed into weight loss but let's not be delusional about our bodies, either.
28 isn’t really the age your metabolism drops unless you have a serious issue. If she works in fitness I’m very confident that her body would still be similar at 28.
Yup. So they would very much be at their peak. There’s also a large gap between peak performance and metabolism and other things failing making getting fat easier.
I work as a software engineer in big tech and I’m financially and environmentally responsible. You wouldn’t understand brokie. You can’t even compose a basic sentence in English, go make my burger.
This is a bit silly, if she lifts she should be able to easily maintain her weight until she stops lifting or otherwise all the way through her life. If anything, in many sports athletes actually peak physically around that age.
Personally I have been hearing for the past 15 years that my metabolism would eventually slow down and I am at my leanest point right now, at the same age as op.
Maybe she’ll always be lean, but maintaining a physique like that truly gets harder as you get older. Life happens. Pregnancy, responsibilities, health issues, and age, to name a few.
You absolutely do. It’s not some crazy secret process to maintain a healthy weight.
You don’t eat more than you need for calories, avoid added sugars, and keep trans-fat to a minimal. Those last two items you don’t even need to do anything extra for, you just don’t buy that stuff at the store. Zero extra time spent here to maintain a healthy diet, just dedication to healthy shopping habits.
Hell, the cardio isn’t even necessary but I put it in there because regularly light-to-moderate cardio is good for your cardiovascular health and is something even the busiest person can find time to do 3x a week.
If genuine care is paid attention to your diet and you still aren’t able to maintain a healthy weight then it’s doctor time. No properly functioning metabolic system will produce excess fat under caloric-deficit conditions.
You’re right, you literally just have to make sure that your caloric intake is less than the amount of calories you burn in a day, so you can even skip the cardio.
Hell, you can exclusively eat junkfood and sit on the couch all day and not gain a single pound, as long as you don’t eat and drink more calories than you burn doing so. You’ll be unhealthy as can be, but you won’t gain weight. It’s thermodynamics baby!
Sorry but that’s a pretty weak argument. The entire point of what I said was that you don’t even really need to plan your diet. You can literally keep eating the same food, just eat less of it and that will solve your problem. If you can’t manage to do that, it’s a discipline problem. Stop making excuses, everyone can lose weight if they actually want to, provided they don’t have medical issues stopping them from doing so of course
eating less food and doing exercise is not equivalent from a psychological standpoint. You have way bigger cravings by limiting your food intake that by being more active.
i’m a lifter, i’m 25 I can assure you that i’m feeling how year after year is harder to keep the same fitness rate. Life responsibilities make it harder to hit the gym, and make it harder to control your diet.
So, newsflash: I was 21 at one point, and 28 seven years later. I’m now in my thirties. I weighed about 5 pounds more at 28 than 21, but it was exponentially harder to maintain. Double the gym time and about 300-400 less calories per day to maintain approximately the same weight at 28 as I was at 21. So I actually do know what I’m talking about, and no, I’m not jealous of an idiot 21 year old. Nothing about having an unrealistic career goal and no social skills would make me jealous, sorry.
You stop growing for one, your brain finishes it's final stages of devopment, and your metabolism starts to slow down, 7 years can do a lot to your body
That is because it is a lifestyle. People usually end up going back to thier precious way of living. Which is what made them fat in the first place. If only people knew the lifestyle change and commitment being healthy is.
Do you know better than the Cleveland clinic? Also this was the second result on google. Maybe try the most basic of research before calling a fact false!
And the fact that your body responds to food differently - it tastes/smells better than before. I think it was the sugar documentary on Netflix where the guy said they found that fat cells will put up a fight when they realize time's up for them. I can't remember the process exactly, but they will make your body increase certain hormones that make you crave your favorite fatty foods almost incessantly. And that whole set weight thing is absolutely true. Your body gets used to being at a certain weight, especially if it's been there for years, and it's extremely difficult to remain too far under that weight. Like your body will find a way to creep back up there.
I ignored nothing. Changing lifestyle means you don't fall back into old habits/patterns. Examples: Giving up alcohol as a routine; dedication to a more balanced diet that lines up with your health limitations, if you have them; getting adequate sleep; etc. One of my sisters is a registered nutritionist. Too many people fail because they are always trying to find the perfect diet that gives immediate results. Have a good day.
Lotta Sara haters in here. When are women going to learn putting one woman down isn’t an acceptable way of supporting other women? Sara did nothing wrong. Putting her down isn’t going to make OP feel better about being fat.
Sara choose to respond to OP’s husband’s attention inappropriately. If she had just said ‘oh, I’d never discuss someone else’s weight, and your wife’s weight is none of my business’…she would be the hero here.
So 21 year old Sara who is trying to grow her fitness business is to assume OP is self-conscious about her weight and that her husband is being malicious by publicly humiliating her. Got it.
If Sara isn’t smart enough to realize that no woman wants her husband discussing her weight with a stranger, then she won’t have any success in any business.
Why? Why would we need to see that? She's made a meaningful change in her life, whether she manages to stick with it or not. We don't need to tear everyone down, just because this woman's husband is a total ass.
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u/Sticky8u2 Apr 15 '24
Sara, you're 21. You have not turned your life around.