Tag: weight

“I still have bad days body-wise, but realising that I am, for the most part, normal, and doing my best in a society governed by warped ideas of female fitness and beauty always helps.”

I’m 23. It’s taken me this long to have some semblance of acceptance of my body. For a period of about 18 months I really liked it, because I lost a lot of weight and was the lightest I’d been since I was 13. Still podgy, you understand, but from 13 stone to 10st 7 in a year and a half pretty much by accident felt pretty good. For a variety of reasons (moving back to Glasgow, Stodgeland; illness, new relationship, etc.) it’s crept back up to the high 11st-ish. So I don’t like it as much any more, because I know I used to look “better”.

BUT. Given that I had absolutely despised myself and my body since I was in nursery school, I reckon that’s pretty good going.

So what changed? Basically, I came to the realisation that there were different body shapes. This sounds incredibly stupid, I know. Bear with me.

I’d spent my entire life wanting to wear the same clothes and look the same as tall, willowy teenage models, as seen in Topshop, New Look etc. Indeed when I was a teenager I hated myself because I wasn’t delicate and skinny. If only I could get rid of my belly, if only I could make my arse smaller, if only I didn’t have such a round fat face…you get the idea. Then two things happened: the “ 1950s vintage style” thing- i.e., dresses that suited people with hips. And I got told I had PCOS. So I found a style that I felt good in, and got an explanation for why I looked the way I did.

PCOS – Polycystic Ovary Syndrome – has two effects which affect me in a concrete sense. Having children will probably be a bit problematic, and it makes me carry weight round my middle, which is also harder to lose. I’d like to think I’ve reconciled myself to the “probs no kidz lol” thing. The only time it’s caused any problem to anyone is when I went for a GP check-up and a demented duty doctor phoned me 2 hours later saying, “Your hormone levels are insane, get to hospital now!“ It was a Friday night; I wasn’t even ill. I told him that, and poured myself more wine.

But the weight thing – hallelujah! I can now accept that I will always have a big stomach, always have a big arse, always have hips. They may fluctuate in size, but they’ll always be there. And when I try to lose weight, I don’t weigh myself any more. I’ve done that for too long, I know that to lose any great amount of weight, personally, I need to cut out carbs and drink only water. I did it when I worked abroad out of necessity, because I was poor. But now, frankly, I have a life to lead. Fuck me if you think I’m gonna subsist on pulses when I have a boyfriend who makes good quality, mostly healthy, food for us.
I do get a bit down about myself still- especially my face. It’s round, and I hate that I always look fatter in photos than I really am, because of my face. But I’m working on that. And yeah, I’d like to lose some weight. So I joined a gym, for the first time ever. And finally, the fear and anxiety engendered by years of bullying in communal changing at school has disappeared. I might not be lighter, but I will tone up. I don’t care how much I weigh. I care how I look.

So to sum up: 5’ 3”. Big arse, big hips, big stomach, round face, small breasts. But I have a great waist, I’m not a blob like I always thought. I love my long, thin fingers. My shoulders are nice. Small breasts are useful – I can run for buses! Yay! And I’m fit – I had always thought, “Oh I’m podgy, I must be hideously unhealthy”. This is BOLLOCKS. I’ve been walking uphill for about 45 minutes most days since 1998, when I moved into a house on top of a fuckton of hills then didn’t bother learning to drive. I might not be fast, but I have stamina and I’m strong. So I needn’t have worried about being shit at the gym, the crosstrainer and rowing machine hold no fear. I might not be skinny and delicate. I might be clumsy and flabby. I’m overweight, but I’m not ugly. I wish more people realised that being skinny isn’t the only option. There are so many issues bound up in the “must be size eight to have self worth and be attractive to men” thing. If I started I’d never get off my feminist soapbox. Since I left school, I’ve never had any problems finding boyfriends when I’ve chosen to look for them, nor any complaints from them about the size of my arse/chest/face/stomach/occasional PCOS beard/insert other cause of neurosis here. I still have bad days body-wise, but realising that I am, for the most part, normal, and doing my best in a society governed by warped ideas of female fitness and beauty always helps.

Posted on by taithannah 0

“We’re so alien to the nude figure here, unless in some perfect representation of the Western ideal, that people think they have the right to judge when they’re challenged with something regular.”

I have a really confused relationship with my body. In some ways, I love it. It works very well, does everything it needs to and that in itself is something to be thankful for. Other days I look at myself and wonder if surgery really could make me look better.

For most my teenage/young adult life, I’ve been around size 16. My parents would bring up my weight with every conversation, it felt like, and at school, I couldn’t even bring myself to stand on a set of scales for a science experiment. I felt so confused when I was younger. I was brought up with my parents telling me that intelligence and creativity were so much more important than make-up and clothes, and I still feel that way, but when you get to a certain age, your physicality becomes an issued whether you want it to or not. I couldn’t understand why my achievements in school or my hobbies wasn’t enough for my parents to be proud of me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents, and they have supported me so much over the years through thick and thin; and I can see their logic even if I don’t think they’re right. The way they saw it was my unhappiness was down to me feeling “ugly” and not dating guys like every other girl that age, and being skinny would fix that. In my head though, it was always “I am what I am, why should I change for someone that can’t appreciate who I am now? And on top of that, is a man actually the answer to all my woes?” And to this day, I still feel like that. I’m not sure I’d want to date anyone who was held looks in such high regards. Not saying they have to be completely nonchalant, but I’ve always put intelligence before looks, and I’d hope to be with someone that felt the same.

So these days. I’m still the same size. The way I see it, my weight sits mostly in the right places, so I’m curvy as hell. I’ve got a reasonably pretty face and in it’s own way, I own my weight. I’ve made it suit me. I’ve started going to the gym recently, but not really to lose weight, but because studying art does leaving you sitting down for hours on end and I just want to move more. I’m going to say something strange: I’m terrified of losing weight. I’m scared that everything will just head south, or my body won’t firm up and I’ll be this bag of skin. Saying that, if I do, it’s just another change in my body, not the first and won’t be the last, I’m sure.

I really hate the attitude we have towards nudity in this country. When I was 18, i went skinny dipping with a German friend in a lake, which totally changed my views on nudity. I loved it. I loved being liberated from this idea that your body is a sexual organ, instead, your body is a living, moving natural being. Since then, I’ve had a lot less qualms about being naked in front of people, and travelling in Scandinavia has reinforced it for me. The sad thing is, I don’t know if I’ve got the same confidence here. Even last night, I was at a screening of The Room. I love the heckling, but there was one scene where the crowd were shouting “Jabba the Hutt!” because when the main actress leaned over, she had a few rolls, despite being a very normal sized woman. We’re so alien to the nude figure here, unless in some perfect representation of the Western ideal, that people think they have the right to judge when they’re challenged with something regular. I’m not sure if there’s a way that body issues will never exist in the way they do, but I’d be a lot happier if it was something for us, as women, to discover ourselves our feelings and we could remove patriarchy from the whole equation.

– Anon.

Posted on by taithannah 0

“I have faith in my naked body for all it can do, and I look forward to what I’ll go through with it – as scary as it all does seem.”

I think what I’m struggling with is the fact I am a lot slimmer now than a few years back and I’m not used to it. I still feel chubby and squished. People often tell me how slim I’m looking and I don’t really get it. I don’t feel any slimmer, and I sure as hell don’t eat like I’m slim – I enjoy cake and pizza on a regular basis. So although I am slimmer, I still wobble and have podge because I don’t really exercise (because I don’t want to, I’m a waitress so am on my feet all day and I tend to walk everywhere). Sometimes I wonder if I should exercise, my body would be healthier, I could be toned or at least shape up, but I don’t want to lose weight, I often feel embarrassed when people comment on my weight as I don’t fully understand why I am this size.

I used to be pretty curvy, although I had a small waist. My boobs were massive, as were my hips. I don’t really remember it bothering me to the point where I did much about it, although I recently found a diary entry where I’d written tips from a ProAna site, and that sort of bothered me. It was like I wanted a quick way to get slim, but I was too lazy to even do it properly. The weight did start falling off me when I was about 18 though, I was dancing a lot more and changed my eating habits unintentionally – I stopped snacking, which was a big problem for me when I was 14-17 (echo bars and a lot of cheese especially). Then I think I had another unintentional weight loss after the break up from my last boyfriend. I just sort of lost my appetite, and it’s not really returned. I basically eat what I want when I want, which is usually little and often, and I think my body reflects this. Thing is, I talk here about losing weight, and my weight is often on my mind but, I really don’t care. I find that I am happier when I eat and do what I want (or not do if it involves exercise), my body constantly changes and I try not to keep up with it and be too involved but I think that is where I need to change. I don’t see myself as slim because I don’t know my body, I don’t even feel like I have much control over it. But yet, sometimes I worry I may be too controlling. I would never not eat another biscuit or cake because I was worried of the fat content, but sometimes I just forget to eat and a small voice inside says “that’s probably a good thing considering all the crap you ate last night”. It’s like the chubbier girl I once was is wanting me to be slim and the person I am now doesn’t care but is still listening to that part of me. I went from no hips or boobs when I was 13 (I vividly remember being laughed at for not having to wear a bra due to them being so small) to having these massive boobs and curvaceous hips, and then to lose them (sort of) – part of me is like ‘yes!’ and part of me is like ‘no!’. I’m still as self conscious of my body, which makes me fully aware of the fact that being slimmer does not equal happiness. I think being healthy does though. I don’t want to look like models or actresses or whatever, but it doesn’t stop me from gazing at their smooth blotch-free legs and wishing mine were a bit more like that. But it’s fucking unrealistic and what I’ve recently come to believe is that flaws are what make woman beautiful. Real women can never look flawless and that is a good thing! That’s what makes us beautiful.

I guess what I’m trying to say is my feelings towards my body have been quite confused, are quite confused, but I’m hoping to sort that. With time, I know these things don’t happen over night, nor do they stay consistent, but I have faith in my naked body for all it can do, and I look forward to what I’ll go through with it – as scary as it all does seem.

Posted on by pinkapplejuice 0