The first time I can remember being concerned about my weight, I was 13 years old.
I was at a water park with my family and friends and I had just polished off my second Twinkie when a family friend who is amazing, but equally as self conscience about her own body said 'you better not eat so many Twinkies they will make you fat." She didn't mean to make me worry, she was use to worrying needlessly about her weight. But I shit you not when I tell you I haven't eaten another Twinkie since.
A few summers later a boy who I liked at the time told me he was going to date his ex girlfriend and not me because she only weighed 89 pounds, to this day 89 pounds has remained in my head as the perfect weight.
That year I started exercising. which is what started my hatred for working out. I would use the family treadmill as punishment not as a means to be stronger or more healthy. I ate three pieces of pizza? I had to run a mile. I ate a snickers for lunch? I had to run a mile. I also started stealing diet pills from the same family friend with the Twinkie advice. and I didn't like the idea of throwing up so I would just chew a lot of the foods I wanted to eat but knew I shouldn't and then spit them out before swallowing. It seemed easier and less likely to rot my teeth out of my mouth. I was maybe 15. It got to the point that I hated my body. I didn't have boobs and that's what boys wanted, I wasn't thin enough or athletic enough, and on top of that I was friggen weird.
This self hatred accumulated with my trying to throw up 4 pieces of dominos pizza in the field across the street from my house one night. I found myself on my hands and knees in the middle of the field with my finger in my throat because that pizza tasted so good, I couldn't bring myself to spit them out. I knew this self hatred was not healthy. I walked home feeling like a failure for not being able to get those 4 pieces up. Instead of being impressed with my amazing gag reflexes I felt weak for not being one of those girls who is dedicated enough to just not eat anything at all.
I would like to say I had an epiphany where I decided I was really super awesome and I should love myself. But that moment never really came. I just got more interested in my life then my body. I got involved with an organization that sent me overseas to stay in orphanages and help people and for some reason that seemed like a more worthy thing to work towards then my goal of 89 pounds. I got really into music, taking piano and guitar lessons, and I decided at 16 not to date until I graduated high school because I wanted to focus on finding out what I thought about the world and who I was, So I figured since I wasn't going to be dating I didn't give a shit who wanted me to be 89 pounds right at that moment (being the procrastinator that I am I figured I would just work on that when I graduated and then try to land me a man).
at one point in my teenage years at lunch, I would make my best friend hand me photos of girls in bikinis I had torn out of magazines when I wanted to eat. I would tape these photos all over the fridge and my room as motivation to get a body like the ones I saw in the images.
and then I took my first digital photo editing class.
my world was rocked.
It took me seconds to look like those models. Seconds. with a brush and a clone stamp I stopped seing my body for all the things It wasnt and giving it a little grace to have some flaws, because they werent permanent.
It became a personal vendetta of mine to show every woman I knew that these girls I wanted to look like, these girls I beat myself up over, these girls I would skip meals to look like... didnt even look like those photos.
I felt like the wool had been lifted from my eyes and I felt freedom in knowing that I was ok just the way I was.
this has been a growing process for me ever since.
worrying about what I put into my mouth, how often I exercise then beating myself up for not being enough, and then having to remind myself that not even Britney spears looks like Britney spears all the time.
and that weight is such a cliche', unproductive, and relative thing to stress out over. People who have revolutionary self love know that they have far more important things to worry about.
Loooove this and the fat rants!!!
ReplyDelete