The One With No Pictures

I've been thinking a lot about body image recently. What really inspired me to start blogging about what I wear was the multitude of Fat Acceptance websites, and fat fashion websites. I've always struggled with body image. Its something that has kept me very insecure on a personal level. I think the average person I meet would consider me confident and self-possessed. But I have always felt like the "fat friend" among a host of beautiful, awesome girls that I am blessed to call my own. My mom's weight has been all over the scale since she was little. I know she dieted a lot at a young age. And my grandfather used to call her his little dumbo. My grandpa's not a bad man, either. My mom and I share a history of father's who tend to say the wrong thing. After my brother's birth she gained a significant amount of weight due to health complications. She now works out almost every day, and she looks really good, but she always wants to lose more weight. I think she's trying to get her BMI lower, but when I look at her I don't see how she could possibly lose any more. I know my mother's body image is tied very much to the numbers. My father is overweight, with high blood pressure and cholesterol. My mom's mom has had double bypass surgery, and my grandfather is very heavy. My grandparents' weights clearly affect their health and their activities in life. My journey with body image has been long, and I think its a rather complex, multi-layered road. I never played sports, but I did take dance up through 7th grade. I went to summer camp for years, did all of the games and sports just like everyone else. After I stopped taking dance class, I started going to Jazzercize. At 12, I was definitely the youngest person in the room. My babysitter, who was probably 16 or 17, had been taking the classes and for a little while we went at the same time . I went maybe twice a week. It was 2 minutes from the house. My mom would drop me off and pick me up an hour later. Thinking about it, it seems almost crazy to me that I was working out at such a young age. I always find it weird when I hear about children working out. I also did Weight Watchers when I was in middle school for a brief period of time. I didn't attend meetings, I just used the points curriculum that my mom had. So I had tried dieting at a very young age. I need to pull out the pictures from those years. I know I wasn't an obese child, I didn't have to wear plus-sized children's clothing. I'm not sure why my parents pushed me to lose weight. I think it instilled shame about my body in me from a young age. My parents, though we rarely talk about it, worry about my health because they consider me overweight. We don't talk about it because my dad is brusque and my mom is very sensitive to the issue and doesn't want to upset me. I struggle with hiding snacking from my dad, because sometimes when I eat outside of three daily meals, he makes comments, asking if I really need a fourth meal or how can I be hungry, which makes me feel terribly guilty. I know he says things not to hurt me, but because he is insecure about his own weight and health, and in turn projects his worries onto me and doesn't know how to tactfully express them. At least, this is the opinion of my mother, grandmother, and various therapists (I'm a big fan of counseling, by the way). I gained a lot of weight last fall at college very quickly. I didn't feel good, I felt gross and bloated. I was the heaviest I had ever been. Over Christmas break my mom had a tearful "intervention" with me, offering to do anything I wanted because she was worried about my health. I started Weight Watchers, this time with a monthly plan using the online account. I also was using the Couch to 5K running plan. I like lists and charts and other organized things, so I really enjoyed the online tools available. I quit smoking, I was running 3 times a week, I was watching points. I lost twelve pounds in two weeks, and more followed. However, I didn't stay with the plan for very long, because of various events and stresses. The constant counting and structuring had an adverse effect on my life, as I am prone to creating too many markers for myself to reach, and I tend to overburden myself. I didn't gain back the weight, as far as I can tell. I don't weigh myself anymore. I think I've settled back into the weight I've been for about 3-4 years. I'm 5'4", and a size 14. Right now, in this moment, I feel pretty healthy. I eat three balanced meals a day. Its easy in the summer, when I work all day and don't really go out on weeknights. There's no Sheetz in my hometown, either. Its harder at school, with fast food, and drinks at parties, and late night ramen. Not to mention the open cafeteria. But I've been learning to listen to my body's hunger cues, trying to recognize when I'm hungry and when I'm just bored or social eating (much like social drinking, haha). That's a lot about the physical aspect of my body image. Its been very cathartic for me to write all of this down. There's so much more that I could say, so many anecdotes and instances I remember that affected me negatively. I carried a lot of pain, shame, and unhappiness because of my body, which I mostly kept to myself. This summer has been a major time of self-reflection. Emotionally, I have always felt like my weight was preventing me from dating. I'd always pin these dreams on losing weight. Every summer I imagined losing lots of weight, becoming a size 4, and returning to high school in the fall svelte and sexy and every guy would want to date me then! I even thought that way at the beginning of this summer. Like 99.9 % of women, I worry that I'm not pretty and not desirable. I had a lot of "if only"s in my life. I think dating and acceptance from guys were the biggest things that hung on my weight. Its very Freudian, it has a lot to do with my dad. I caught myself this summer thinking, "oh my god, I hate my body." That was probably one of the most shocking things I realized. How had I gotten to the point where I hated my own body? Where I didn't want to see it in the mirror, where I saw nothing beautiful in it? It was around the same time when I started finding fat acceptance blogs. I can't even remember now how I stumbled upon the links that led me to YFF, Shapely Prose, and Axis of Fat. All I know is, as I read these blogs, I felt a growing peace that I could accept and love my own body, and stop placing so many disappointments on my physical self. That I could work out and do yoga, not to push and pull myself into a smaller shape, but because it made me feel good and happy. That I should stop trying to cram my ass into smaller jeans and just buy the jeans that fit me best, and screw the rest. I realized that I wasn't defective. I hiked mountains just like everyone else on my trip to England. I fit very comfortably in airplane seats. I can ride every ride in amusement parks. I am out of shape, that's true, but lots of people are skinnier and me and in worse shape. I have really great hair, naturally straight teeth, and good posture. I've been at an adult reading level since eighth grade. I do want a boyfriend and I'm not going to lie to myself about that, but me gaining or losing weight is not going to affect the outcome of me finding an awesome guy. The guys that I've really cared about who didn't feel the same way about me, well, I was a Marc Jacobs coat, but they were looking for good cutlery. I looked at my body and was happy. I've been seeing so much beauty in the women whose blogs I've been following, and its just overflowed onto mine. I guess I needed to hear it from people who understood what it was like to just be bigger. Sure, my friends can tell me they think I'm pretty and not fat until the cows come home. But a) they have to, because they're my loving friends, b) they're all size 6 and under (not that I begrudge them of that), and c) I'm not skinny and svelte. I'm curvy and fleshy. I guess I should say, fat, since its fat acceptance. But I'm trying not to put any labels on my body, except for mine.