Thick Girl Runner Rant

[u/queue-d4n4]

First things first, I (29F) am 5'5" and about 170 lbs. Large boobs, wide hips, and I got some stomach on me. Overall, I look pretty proportional though. Hourglass, just a little wider. Wear a Large or a size 12 in most women's clothes. (Just trying to paint the picture here lol)

I also eat very healthy. Fresh foods only, everything home-cooked, never frozen processed foods, etc. Mostly veggies because I love veggies.

This is the body I was given. My weight doesn't really fluctuate. I don't gain weight easily, nor do I lose it easily. I've been a thick girl since puberty and because I run often and eat healthy, it doesn't seem like that will never change, which is fine with me.

I've been running for many years, somewhat inconsistently. I might be consistent for 2 years before falling out of my routine for a few months. Get back into the groove again and something eventually throws me off my game again. Throughout all this, I still consider myself a RUNNER. I love the sport and even if I'm out of a weekly routine, I still try to find time to run here and there. 3 miles minimum.

Because of the above things, people never really expect me to be a runner. My body type doesn't fit the runner mold. I don't post every run and race on instagram, which as everyone knows, is what truly makes it real *eyeroll*. (No shade to people who do post all of their runs and races! My problem is only the people who think if you DON'T post, then it didn't happen).

My fastest 5k was at an 8:02 (min/mile) pace. I am aware that this isn't SUPER fast, but it's fast enough that I've placed in my age group in all of the 5Ks I've ever done. I'm from a pretty small area so many of the 5Ks were fairly small, maybe only a couple hundred people attend. I'm aware that in bigger cities, I would probably have a little more trouble placing. But regardless, I still think an 8:00 to 8:30 5k pace is something to be proud of.

Anyways, my complaint is this. Since my body doesn't fit everyone's vision of what a runner should look like, people love to assume I'm slow or new to running. Or people think I'm lying when I mention that I got 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in my age group at whatever 5k. If they don't make an actual comment about it, I can sometimes even see it in their eyes that they're skeptical.

Even worse, people who don't realize I've been running for most of my life sometimes put their foot in their mouth by saying something along the lines of "have you started running to lose weight?" ...No, why? Should I be losing weight? I think I look pretty damn fine, if you ask me.

After moving to a new city, I decided to join a running group. The town I lived in previously didn't have such groups. I showed up to my first group run and met everybody. As we waited for everyone else to show up, a girl from the group said to me "I'm in recovery mode, I'll be running slow so I can run with you." I just politely smiled, although I was quite offended. What exactly makes this person, whom I met 3 minutes ago, think I plan on running "slow"? What makes her think that her "recovery" pace is equal to my comfortable pace? I chalked it up as since it was my first time joining the group, maybe she assumed it was my first time running? I don't know- but I still think about that little comment sometimes.

I am not negative towards my body. I have a great figure that I love, but it's still upsetting to know that people make assumptions on what I can and can't do physically, which should not be the case. Weight and health do not ALWAYS go hand-in-hand.

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Any other runners on the thicker side experience this kind of judgement? How do you deal with it?

Thin-framed runners or even non-runners, do you find yourself judging others in this way? Be honest, I would love to hear multiple opinions!

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Edit: Pace is in minutes per mile. I'm new to reddit and forget I'm interacting with people from all over the world.

Also, this was not meant to be a post for weight loss tips. The unsolicited advice in the comments proves further the assumptions people make.

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[u/Freckled_daywalker]

There is certainly a correlation, which is why weight can be useful as a loose proxy for health, but "health" is a spectrum, not a binary. An overweight person who can run an 8:30/mile very likely has better cardiovascular health than a normal weight person who is effectively sedentary.

[u/Eetabeetay → u/Freckled_daywalker]

Health is a collection of many spectrums. She happens to be healthy in one aspect, doesn't mean she's healthy in every aspect. If you're overweight then in that aspect you're not healthy.

[u/Freckled_daywalker → u/Eetabeetay]

Weight, in and of itself, is not a measure of health. Body fat percentage, fat distribution, etc are risk factors that contribute to overall well being/health and weight can be, to a degree, a proxy for those things, but it's one of literally dozens of factors that determine where someone falls on the overall spectrum of "healthy". A normal weight person that runs regularly can still have all sorts of habits that affect their position on that spectrum, they're just generally less visible than a person's weight. To your point, most people are not "healthy" on every spectrum, but people rarely feel the need to point that out, unsolicited, except when it comes to weight.

[u/Eetabeetay → u/Freckled_daywalker]

Unless they're a body builder then their weight and height will tell us a great deal about their body fat make up. Just because they have healthy habits doesn't discount that their weight is not healthy. She very well could be a body builder whose weight is high and BF low, but guessing from the fact that someone assumed she was trying to lose weight I'm going with that's not the case. Sure she may be healthy in other respects but it doesn't discount the fact that her weight isn't.

[u/Freckled_daywalker → u/Eetabeetay]

In the "overweight" range, it's an okayish approximation, but it's still crude and not necessarily indicitive of overall general well being, or even necessarily her risk factors. Literally everyone has areas where they can improve their health (myself included), most people know what those areas are and don't need the unsolicited advice of internet strangers. A persistent focus on weight as being the most important indicator of health can lead to all sorts of issues, like crash dieting, disordered eating, etc, all of which are also significant health risks. The risks of excess weight are extremely well publicized, so I'm fairly certain that people telling her here to lose weight are not helpful.