I dropped from a size 18 to a 6 but I wish I’d known 7 nasty side effects
WITH so many ‘weight loss transformation’ stories out there, you might be left with impression that life will bed of roses once you drop some pounds.
But a TikToker who shrunk a whopping 12 dress sizes said there were a number of things she wished she’d known beforehand.
Meg Stier, an actor and motivational speaker who goes by the username @megmackenzies on TikTok, revealed some of the things she wished she’d known “before [she] lost a bunch of weight” in a new video.
“And to be clear there was nothing wrong with me when I was a size 18 and there’s nothing wrong with me at a size six,” she caveated at the start of the clip.
1. You might feel cold
Meg’s first point was: “I’m cold literally all the time, I’m just cold always.”
Viewers picked this point up in the comments, with one writing: “the coldness and sleeping with bones rubbing together….it’s a thing. ugh…..”
2. It won’t solve everything
“Losing weight didn’t solve all of my problems,” the TikToker stated.
3. Thinner does not equal ‘better’
Meg said she didn’t necessarily feel better once she’d reached a smaller size: “Some days I liked my body a lot more when I was bigger.”
4. People treat you differently
Meg said she gets treated very differently now she’s dropped 12 sizes, stating: “Skinny privilege is a thing.”
She added that people seemed to respect her more when she lost weight, which she called ‘disgusting’.
Meg addressed the topic in a separate video, pointing ways in which she’d experienced ‘skinny privilege’ since reaching a size six.
These ranged from being confident she’d be able to buy clothes that fit her to people looking her in the eye or listening to her and not being considered ‘lazy’ or ‘unmotivated’.
“There’s a serious bias against fat people and unless you’ve lived on both sides of the spectrum it’s hard to fully grasp what that means.”
We need to change the way we view people because ‘fat’ doesn’t mean ‘bad’ and ‘skinny’ doesn’t mean ‘good’.
5. Loose skin in a thing
“There’s a lot of skin,” Meg stated simply, with many viewers saying they’d also dealt with loose skin once shedding weight.
6. People will talk about it
One thing Meg wasn’t prepared for was “having my weight loss be the main topic of conversation everywhere I go, instead of my successful career, me education or anything else about me.”
7. Your feet might shrink
Another thing Meg found mind boggling was the change in her shoe size.
“My feet got smaller, I’m almost an entire shoe size smaller than I was,” she stated.
This was another point that resonated with viewers, with one sharing: “I really thought I was going crazy thinking my shoes don’t fit the same anymore.”
The video, which has since been viewed 3.8 million times, and has struck a cord with many.
“Yesss all of this!” one viewer wrote. “I went from a 16 to a six. And the feet really got me. And I really had no idea how expensive it would be… all new wardrobe.”
“Size 18 to a 2 here,” another commented. “You forgot jewelry. Rings and watches had to be resized. But yes to everything else!!!”
A third person pointed out that “the being cold is totally true- and the fear of gaining it back”.
Speaking to The Independent, Meg shared she had filmed the video “so many times over the last few months but never posted it because [she] didn’t want to be judged”.
But she decided to post it “after seeing so many people on TikTok struggling with body acceptance and weight loss”.
“It’s SCARY to talk about your own body on the internet. We spend so much time being told not to post things that don’t show us in a positive way (Photoshop, bad angles, no makeup etc.) But I want to encourage people to share the good and the uncomfortable,” Meg added.