u/AggressiveVictory1

I dont have an active close girl-gang to express these feelings to and hence sharing them here. i hope it benefits anyone who needs it

I am a 36-yo millennial woman who thought that losing fat and getting ripped would be enough for a glow up. When I was overweight, I always thought that I will fit right in between the "hot girls" once I get leaner and more toned.. It's incredible how wrong I was

For the last 4 years, I have kept the weight off and now I'm a size 2 but I only wear black, basic jeans and top. I have zero sense of style /makeup/ "things" hot girls do.. until recently i've decided to lock in the way i locked in when i was size 14 and in my early twenties.

This pivot of locking-in for my glow up happened one day when my devoted husband told me - "why does this tshirt make you look flat.. when actually you are curvy in other clothes" .. We had just come back from an outing and I wore a nike sports bra (that obv flattened everything out) and an older tshirt which i just put on...

My cheeks stayed flushed for the whole evening. I obv shrugged his observation off and changed the topic but I was left feeling - lost. It's like the realization just hit me that everytime I see a hot girl in aritzia or my new pilates class, I look away and feel some shame inside. Actually it stings coz i know I should work on my beauty and appearance but i dont care much.

So now that you have context, i wanna share what i've done for the past month to lock in & beauty-maxx.

1. I got a 3rd piercing in my ear, right next to my main earring spot - the moment I got it and looked at myself in the mirror, I felt 10% more hotter. then i bought a bunch of jewerly from Claire's and have been wearing it everyday and also playing around with the options.

2. I spend 30 min in the AM on my morning face/body care. I wake up and first wash my face in cold water for 2-3 min. Next I use the brightening toner pads from some korean brand - under my eyes and on my forehead. Then i floss/brush/mouthwash. By then the pads are dried up so i remove them, wash my face with a facewash, apply serum, do gua-sha, apply moisturizer, use a spooly for straighening my eyebrows and eyelashes. Then I apply suncreen. Then I use a moisturizer and apply it to my arms, legs, shoudlers, glutes and core -while doing a simple massage. Then i immediately get dressed for gym/pilates in activewear. This routine centers me. I think only about myself when im doing this routine. Kinda like a workout. I have a similar night routine too with night eye cream, retinol.

3. I get my nails done every month - no excuses. Yes initally i felt it was expensive, but i managed it by cutting out a few meals outside. This makes me feel put-together and pretty.

4. Getting ready everyday as though I am going out. I WFH so I could lay around in pajamas all day but that really lowers my vibe. I feel fat, ugly and irrelevant. I also dont leave the house at all on those days...So it's been a week since I have been getting ready daily and i am feeling more productive and relevant. I plan to do this forever.

5. I made a to-do list of things I wanna do next. I need to research and book appointments and get them done. Here it is

• Bra-fitting
• Laser hair removal - whole body except face.
• Fresh hair color - need highlights that match my face tone
• Find a decent stylist and revamp my wardrobe
• Red light mask for anti-aging
• Glycolic acid to remove Keratosis Pillaris from arms/legs - I have soo many and this is why I hate wearing skirts
• Make-up - learn to move beyond a thick eyeliner and do something creative with eyeshadow
• Make-up - learn to apply fake lashes
• Collagen face mask for glowy skin

I know this feels like a lot of effort for a casual comment - but that statement woke up a sleeping dragon inside me. I always felt "not enough" around hot girls, as though they were better than me. Kinda like a "beauty complex" (like inferiority complex). I wanna improve how I look coz I dont wanna get that sting when a really pretty girl passes by. Of course I am not challenging natural beauty, I am referring to the feeling when you know you could have done your hair a bit better, but you chose to be lazy and not do it ...

I guess this post became more of a mix. I hope this helps anyone who is feeling stuck

Hi Ladies,

I am in love with this subreddit .. I have learned a lot about maintainign personal style and devleoping my own.. For eg: i used to always wear round neck tees, but now I am exploring with V-neck and even square and it did feel wierd at first but I got used to it

This little experiment has make me wanna explore a professional stylist. Someone who can truly "level my style up"

The issue is - I dont know how to interview one so I dont get scammed

A couple years ago, I paid an "image consultant" off thumb-tack and we went to Winners for shopping. I paid her $600 and came back with very average pieces. She essentially picked them out and in the changing room we made a decision of "does it work or not".. and I just went along with it because I have ZERO SENSE of style in that moment. It usually builds when others tell me "Yeah you look good" or "no this is not flattering"

My current style is very Aritzia/ Athlesuire. I have a good physique as I am a 35 year old bodybuilder (size 2-4 ) but my closet still reflects the older version of me where I was size 14. I rarely pick skirts and even if i do, I dont know what tops to pair it with. I often scroll on Lulu's or Revolve to get some ideas but those clothes seem too fancy to be worn out. My goal is to look put together, expensive & kinda feel like I have cracked my own style. The confidence that comes from knowing that what you're wearing is the best you possibly could - just hits different. I know this coz this is how I learned how to do my makeup and what suits me...

So I guess I am asking two questions here

1. How do I identify what I personally like ? Develop my own sense of style ?
2. I have been exploring glamhive for finding stylists but again, apart from choosing those who look "stylish" I really dont know how to separate one profile from another.

I would typically only filter on cost but this time I dont mind paying if it solves my problem.

BWT, if you have experienced something similar, please share tips. My girlfriends are too kind (and kinda unbothered) about giving me feedback about my style or even helping when I go shopping. So I wanna learn this on my own. Thanks for reading my mini-rant and I am really glued to reading all the comments.

I f*king keep making mistakes. one after another and another. it's not that I'm dumb, I lead a team of 10 full time employees, run my own business but literally a lot is on my plate. I've been giving myself some slack and so has my business partner. but today he just cracked. coz I messed up a big project. the contractor was scheduled for next Thursday but I put her on for this week's Thursday and we moved all the big plans to accommodate her. How could I mess up something so small ? I promise I live by my calendar. I live and breathe it. so how did this happen ??? and Im so scared now of making more mistakes. help.me

Hey, I'm a CS engineer + CS Masters grad (from the US), planning to do all the MND prerequisites at UBC as a non-degree student before applying. Anyone gone this route? Curious how registration actually went, whether you got into the courses you wanted, and any stuff you wish you'd known going in.

So my current physique looks like this (i know its mid). I am open to suggestions for taking it to the next level. I know its mid physique especially my core and.I am training abs 3 times a week minimum. I am eating 1600-1800 kcal per day, lower carb but higher protein.  Walking avg of 5-7k steps. I play a tonne of racquet sports (badminton, pickleball) - 6-8 hours per week so don't feel the need to do extra cardio

My ab routine looks like this (3x per week)
- 15 min youtube vid by caroline girvn for abs
- weighted cable crunch - 3-4 sets
- cable woodchopper high to low (or low to high) - 3-4 sets

I do this circuit before my actual lifting session. My actual session is a combination of 2-3 compound movements + 2-3 isolation movements. I have good upper body definition. Looks flat here but If i increase carbs slighly it looks much better.

My goal is to shred my core but i do have this wierd loose skin from being 50+ lb overwieght before.

I have heard so many advices around bulk, cut or recompose -- and im just not sure what to do now.

https://preview.redd.it/fkdoklqic8yg1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4fcecbac4a3e201ecb72bc37fc27f8f49bb7d63

Something I didn't expect about your mid-thirties .. you can have the relationship, the career, the house that finally feels like home, the dog who somehow completes the picture, and still notice this quiet little shape of something missing. Not in a sad way!! More like, oh, this is the thing nobody warned us we'd have to actively build from scratch as adults... Cool, lets build it i guess

So hi 🙋‍♀️ I'm 35, my husband is 35, and we've moved across four countries together which means every single move meant leaving behind people who actually knew us. The kind of friendships where you don't have to set up the context before getting to the thing you actually wanted to say. We've been in Vancouver 3-4 years now. Long enough to know the freeze is real... and frustrating. Long enough to stop waiting it out

We're looking for other couples in the Tri-Cities (Port Moody, Poco, Burquitlam, Coquitlam, Burke Mountain as far as Maple ridge) who might be somewhere similar.

A bit about us - we love hiking a lot. Badminton (I'm a beginner, obsessed and mildly competitive about it, he is the calm zen one who's actually genuinley good and takes the sport seriously, it's a whole thing). Our dog runs the household. We cook, we host, movie nights, casual dinners, the occasional "we just opened a bottle, come over" text on a random Tuesday. Both of us take care of our bodies. Both night owls, we genuinely come alive after 7pm which we're aware is borderline unhinged for this city. Child-free by choice. Always down to drive into the city for something worth driving in for. Love concerts and tours. Recently attended

The other stuff is harder to pin down. We follow politics closely (the kind of closely where we have Opinions but also know when to shut up and listen). we love Office (Us version), rick and morty and usually keep up with new shows. We send each other podcasts at 11pm and actually talk about them the next morning. I'd rather have one real conversation than five polite ones, my husband is the centered grounded one who'll quietly drop the sharpest observation of the night and then go back to eating. We notice things. We like people who notice things.

What we're not looking for -- a social calendar that feels like a second job, or the kind of friendship where someone's keeping a quiet tally on who texted last.

What we'd love -- the kind of couple friends you eventually end up on camping trips with. People who get that plans fall through sometimes and don't make it weird. People who can hold a real conversation and also just sit in comfortable silence halfway up a trail. We wanna celebrate small milestones and vent over first-world problems..

We've mutually decided that the vancovuer freeze ends with us..

Have you felt this way too?? Have you been sensing a kind of void but never done anything concrete enough about it? DM me and lets see if we can be your tribe 🫶

Something I didn't expect about your mid-thirties .. you can have the relationship, the career, the house that finally feels like home, the dog who somehow completes the picture, and still notice this quiet little shape of something missing. Not in a sad way!! More like, oh, this is the thing nobody warned us we'd have to actively build from scratch as adults... Cool, lets build it i guess

So hi 🙋‍♀️ I'm 35, my husband is 35, and we've moved across four countries together which means every single move meant leaving behind people who actually knew us. The kind of friendships where you don't have to set up the context before getting to the thing you actually wanted to say. We've been in Vancouver 3-4 years now. Long enough to know the freeze is real... and frustrating. Long enough to stop waiting it out

We're looking for other couples in the Tri-Cities (Port Moody, Poco, Burquitlam, Coquitlam, Burke Mountain as far as Maple ridge) who might be somewhere similar.

A bit about us - we love hiking a lot. Badminton (I'm a beginner, obsessed and mildly competitive about it, he is the calm zen one who's actually genuinley good and takes the sport seriously, it's a whole thing). Our dog runs the household. We cook, we host, movie nights, casual dinners, the occasional "we just opened a bottle, come over" text on a random Tuesday. Both of us take care of our bodies. Both night owls, we genuinely come alive after 7pm which we're aware is borderline unhinged for this city. Child-free by choice. Always down to drive into the city for something worth driving in for. Love concerts and tours. Recently attended

The other stuff is harder to pin down. We follow politics closely (the kind of closely where we have Opinions but also know when to shut up and listen). we love Office (Us version), rick and morty and usually keep up with new shows. We send each other podcasts at 11pm and actually talk about them the next morning. I'd rather have one real conversation than five polite ones, my husband is the centered grounded one who'll quietly drop the sharpest observation of the night and then go back to eating. We notice things. We like people who notice things.

What we're not looking for -- a social calendar that feels like a second job, or the kind of friendship where someone's keeping a quiet tally on who texted last.

What we'd love -- the kind of couple friends you eventually end up on camping trips with. People who get that plans fall through sometimes and don't make it weird. People who can hold a real conversation and also just sit in comfortable silence halfway up a trail. We wanna celebrate small milestones and vent over first-world problems..

We've mutually decided that the vancovuer freeze ends with us..

Have you felt this way too?? Have you been sensing a kind of void but never done anything concrete enough about it? DM me and lets see if we can be your tribe 🫶