I'm "5'2" and hovering around 190 right now, which I'm not comfortable with. This past spring I got down to about 176 with a combination of regular poling and watching my diet. I've been going to pole class one day less per week than I used to and haven't been doing as good job counting calories, so I think that's how things started to get out of control.
Anyhow, pole dancing has been positive for me despite my weight ups and downs. I started out in an easier going class for full-figured women. After doing that for several weeks, my instructor told me that I was strong enough to just go to the regular classes with everyone else (I was doing well with climbing to the top of those long poles...they're somewhere between 15-20 ft). I had wondered if I was out of my league trying to do stuff thinner women were doing, but I quickly progressed. Within a year, I was in a level 3 class (there's five levels at my studio). Now that I'm in level 3, I think I'll be stuck there for a while, but that's okay with me.
I just got my first at-home pole a couple weeks ago. It's already helping me increase my activity level and my skill set. They haven't taught me to invert in class (that's only for the advanced levels 4 & 5). I toyed around with it at home, but haven't been able to do it. I think my size is likely hindering me. I'm just going to keep up my strength exercises and hopefully it will happen one day. There's actually a lot of impressive looking stuff you can do without inverting, so I'm not going to get down about it.
Overall, this type of exercise seems to offer a lot of mental health benefits. I do feel sexier, more confident, and less stressed. Going to pole parties and studio sponsored events seems to have improved my social life. Even though I'm struggling with a recent weight gain, I think does help me to drop weight when I keep up with it enough days per week and keep my diet in check.
