Cake or Death?

I am morbidly obese. At least, according to any BMI calculator I am. But here's the thing, if I stayed at this weight forever that would be a very good thing. While my weight has been stable for the past few months, the massive rise in the preceding two years was definitely cause for worry. I can deal with my current weight-related health problems. I don't want any more.

But, being severely overweight, I can actually give you the lowdown on this ridiculous image and variations thereof:

Usually by the time this gets to my little bit of tumblr, it has another picture stuck to the bottom of someone devouring all the food in their house, which sounds like much more fun than standing around being thin. However, I think I can put this into even more perspective by telling you how much weight I would have to lose for this picture to consider me "perfect".

Hipbones/flat stomach: at least 50% of bodyweight. Actually, that would get me down to a "normal" weight for my height, but my pelvis is quite large (ah gots me some birthin' hips) and I'm assuming some of my mass would be muscle, which would get me not a flat stomach, but the outline of my abs visible at least. (I have a feeling an actual "flat" stomach indicates some serious muscle wastage). If I lose this at a healthy rate, it will take me over a year if I don't accidentally put on a stone at Christmas. Actually, that is less time than I thought, but when losing 30% of your body weight and keeping it off is a huge achievement that only 1% of people who try ever accomplish, you can see how this might be a tad difficult.

Collarbones: the upper chest, like the hands, is a place where some people just don't put on fat. One of those people is me. In order for me to see my collar bones, I would have to lose pretty much every scrap of fat on my body, since it follows the "last on, first off" rule. As an average-heighted female with a skeletal structure that is also pretty average, this would probably take me to about 7st7, causing me to have lost 55% of my bodyweight

Thigh Gap: Here is where we start getting into muscle wastage. My thighs are currently the size of a "normal" size person's waist, and it's not all fat. I pretty much have to poke down the same distance to meet muscle as on my stomach, and I'm naturally hourglass shaped. Now, there will be some fat wrapped into the muscle (this is what happens on everyone's calves, for instance), but particularly if I'm losing weight with some form of exercise, there will still be a substantial amount of muscle on my thighs which has to waste. This would probably take me under 7st* (98 pounds, 44 kilos) and cause me a lot more health problems than I experience now.

So yeah, not exactly perfect. This isn't even going into how I would look like this:

Because skin just does not shrink past a certain point.

But that's not the kind of body I fantasise about having. I want to be able to just lift people up without even trying. I want to be able to swim really far. And to be honest, I just want to be able to cycle for more than ten minutes without massive lactic acid buildup. Try doing that with a thigh gap.

*If anyone has better estimates please correct me, research for this was done on a "how much do various people I have encountered weigh" basis