Ohio Man Mistaken For WOMAN After Rapid 250 Pound Weight Loss Leads To Undesirable Side Effects

An Ohio man who lost a whopping 275 pounds experienced an unexpected side effect: he was mistaken for a woman.

Joshua Hart, 23, has loose skin around his breasts, giving the appearance of having boobs. He has lost weight from 420 pounds to 150 pounds in just over a year.

If you lose weight too quickly, the skin cannot shrink at the same rate as the fat cells, leaving behind loose, sagging skin that can only be removed through surgery or laser therapy.

Mr. Hart initially didn’t mind people assuming he was a woman or transgender, but this confusion affected his self-esteem and confidence as a new parent.

Mr Hart said being compared to a woman or a transgender woman has taken a toll on his self-confidence, which harks back to a childhood marked by bullying and severe anxiety

Mr. Hart, now a father, underwent a drastic transformation in about a year.

He underwent gastric bypass surgery to reduce the size of his stomach, which has been shown in research to be more effective than breakthrough obesity drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic in maintaining long-term weight loss.

The surgery changed his life for the better and he finally found relief from his severe anxiety and the trauma he had suffered from being bullied for most of his life.

Even before the life-changing surgery, he was mistaken for a woman because of the excess padding around his breasts, which made it look like he had breasts.

He is also sometimes mistaken for a transgender woman.

He said: ‘I’ve always had long hair, I’ve never had short hair. I’ve always been called a girl, and it never really bothered me that I was heavy, and I think that’s because I looked like a girl.

‘But now that I look like who I am, a man, it’s almost insulting when people still say to me, ‘No, you’re not, you just took testosterone and had a sex change.”

For Mr. Hart, being called a woman didn’t stop after his transformation. The mistake, he said, is insulting and brings to mind his childhood, marked by fear and bullying.

‘People can clearly see that I’m not a girl and that almost only hurts more.’

Joshua Hart, who weighs 427 pounds, was constantly mistaken for a woman because of the excess fat around his chest, which made it appear as if he had breasts

Even after losing 276 pounds with the help of bariatric surgery, Mr. Hart is still mistaken for a woman

He was constantly bullied as a child and it caused him so much anxiety that he dropped out of school, a decision he now regrets.

At one point, when he was at his heaviest weight, 425 pounds, and at his psychological lowest point, a full meal at Wendy’s wasn’t enough to satisfy him.

Mr Hart said: ‘I was very unhappy with my weight. I was very insecure and had a lot of social anxiety. I never went out. I was a child who didn’t really have a childhood.

‘In high school, I isolated myself and took myself out of the equation. I didn’t really give myself the opportunity to make friends.’

Mr. Hart also used to have long hair and occasionally wore makeup, which made him look more feminine

Since losing nearly 300 pounds, Mr. Hart has been encouraging viewers on social media who are struggling to lose weight and sharing good news about young people who are losing weight to live healthier lives.

Still, Mr. Hart hopes to undergo a tummy tuck to remove excess skin around his abdomen and chest, a procedure that will cost as much as $15,000.

Even after the surgery, he still had loose skin on his arms.

Excess skin can cause you to gain unwanted pounds on the scale, which can be discouraging for people trying to lose unhealthy weight.

People who managed to lose 65 to 100 pounds or more described surgeries in which doctors removed 5 to 20 pounds of excess skin.