I suppose I wanted to start this thread to discuss issues men (and women too for that matter) may have surrounding their bodies.
Men are in general discouraged from discussing how they feel about their self image, and yet currently media and cultural pressures on men to look a certain way are increasing significantly. I know I feel that pressure fairly often, not sure how I feel about it, sometimes I like that there's something to motivate me at other times I feel pretty oppressed by what I think I should be aspiring to look like.
I'd quite like to not have to feel forced to workout, or go to yoga, or all the other little annoying things I'm compelled to do, or just not guilty about pigging out on those incredibly rare occassions I allow myself to do so.
It's much, much more difficult now than when I was in my late teens/early 20s, when the gym culture was a tiny minority of men (gay or otherwise). I was lucky in that regard.
But I was also endowed with some pretty spiffy genes, too, and had an odd and (at the time) unexpected combination of my parents' better features: I'm quite short, and stopped growing when I was about 12 or so. Growing up all I heard was, that with my "big hands and feet" that I'd be much taller than my 6' dad. Instead, I never really progressed past 5'6. It took some adjustment before I learned that people of my stature are more welcome into peoples' "personal space" and have used that to my advantage ever since.
My ideal weight is about 155-160, which is supposedly overweight for my height on the BMI scale. But in fact I really do have "big bones": I have unusually broad shoulders for my height and, at least until recently, had insanely muscular legs, which were partly genetic and partly because, as a kid, I was fat, then slimmed as I grew; even when I was fat (130 lbs in 4th grade) I rode everywhere on my bike, swam and water/snow skied; once I began growing taller all these activities increased. Even as an adult, I walked everywhere I needed to go (or took the subway); I didn't buy my first car until I was 38. All that (plus the genes) made for powerfully muscular legs that just weighed a lot.
As the gym culture was tiny (and the waif/twink culture non-existent), I was content with natural abs and no real pec definition: I wasn't flabby, but hardly ripped. That never prevented me from wearing a bikini on the beach, especially when I'd travel to So America or Europe.
Between my legs, shoulders, reasonable arms* and personality, I could pull off anything I wanted.
*Note: pic taken at 18, certainly not 26
If I'd been a bottom (or even a little versatile), I'd have stressed over my ass, which has always been one of my weakest features: small, slim and flat. Usually someone with such large legs would have a corresponding booty, but I never had that. As I'd have never put it to use, its lack was just a small sticking point in my vanity.
I've gained weight beyond 160 twice in my life, mostly "marital happy fat", and learned that I kept the same basic shape, just added weight everywhere (especially in odd places like my wrists and ankles and neck), and each time I lost the extra weight, my old positives (like my "
cum gutters") would re-emerge. The first time it was by a vanity diet (in my later 20s), the second I'll get to below.
I never went to the gym before I moved to France in 1990, when I was 30, but there, with the help of my BF, slimmed way down while sculpting my abs, sprouting smallish pecs and growing out even more musculature in my arms. French food, being of a much higher quality while be portioned smaller (by American standards) meant that, by the time I came home for good a few years later, I had that Rock Star look, which I maintained with haphazard gym visits and, later, yoga. But merchandizing furniture stores certainly didn't hurt, either.
I don't really hate my body, but I sometimes come close to it, I have a lot of health issues which at this point in my life I'm sick to fuck of dealing with and talking about, none of which helps me with the whole trying to keep in shape thing. I sometimes describe my body as uncooperative, in doing so I'm deploying that charmingly English habit of understatement. In fact I don't hate my body, it hates me. :tongue:
I reached my heaviest (about 180) around the time I was 40: in a supposedly-happy (and still fairly stable) relationship. Though I can trace my infection to an incident in 1984, I did not get tested until 1996 when the better drugs came out; when I was diagnosed as HIV+, with a few troubling health issues, besides, my life took a dramatic change, and my body with it.
It's too complicated to really discuss here, but concurrent with my other issues, I was put on a different medication regime when I switched HIV docs, and within three weeks my cholesterol had gone from 150 to 525 and my triglycerides were at foie gras levels. I was told that this medication was my last best option and that I should consult the nutritionist on staff for a special diet. I now call this my "medically-supervised wasting", and went from ~180 to ~140 in about four months.
This panicked everyone around me, but I trusted my doctor, and eventually my blood lipids were under control, but it took years: I was on that fucking diet for almost five years. I was give a strict list of what was OK and learned how to learn what was not. It was a very strict no-fat, no-cholesterol never-no-kidding diet: no beef, no pork, no sweets, very little bread, no dairy (unless fat-free). For a gourmand like myself to be denied such total pleasure was terrible.
My sister and my then-partner got on so poorly that I was obliged to only see here rarely, which really hurt because she'd always been my best support, and as my relationship grew increasingly destabilized, I felt increasingly isolated. When she came to CT for a visit after about two years of not having seen me since the diet, she shook and blinked back tears out in the driveway.
When I asked her if I really looked that bad, she shook her head and, swallowing and regaining composure: "No, not bad, just really different". My face was altered beyond recognition as the lipoatrophy caused by the meds (and that dreadful diet) drained all fat from it. Eventually, I'd be left with practically zero body fat.
That sounds nifty in theory, but for someone with my "big bones" and whatever remained of my musculature, being reduced to skin, muscle cartilage and bone gives me what I feel is a gaunt affect which is naturally associated with advanced HIV disease.
After finally shedding myself of that toxic relationship, I went back to the gym and got impressive results very quickly, and when I had a brief period of private insurance got on Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT), which added about 15 pounds of body mass through water retention, though it certainly did take a lot of that bony, AIDSy look away. Most of my gallery has pix taken at that time or shortly thereafter. I have attached a current pic at the bottom of this post, taken less than a month ago at Pride. For the record, I'm at about 145 right now that all the TRT mass is gone.
TBH it's wearisome, feeling constantly like I need to look like a strappingly healthy 20 year old who works out twice a day, when I'm a less than perfectly healthy (see there's that charming habit again) 31 year old who has a job and doesn't always have the time or the energy to follow the Brazilian Body plan.
Anyways, I just thought I'd share a little and open the discussion see if anyone else out there is feeling less than enamoured (see I did it again) of the flesh they inhabit.
To a large extent, I've accepted things about my appearance because I haven't the means nor the will to change all that much. I've found coping strategies that work: virtually everything needs tailoring or else it looks much too large, and I simply won't buy boys' (or women's) wear. That makes purchasing much new clothing much too expensive: size 28 (when I can even find it) in jeans or pants hang off my bony ass. But it's so hot here that one doesn't really wear all that much except for a few weeks in winter.
And, of course, I wear very, very little to work that anyone would even call clothing
But coping isn't the same as enjoying. I'd *love* to have my body fat restored, but won't ever happen.
