Self-Image
For the last few weeks, I have been toiling over the assumption I needed to lose weight for my health. As in, if I didn’t lose the weight or at least begin to make a change, I would shorten my life. On the contrary, other than the doctor saying I am a higher BMI (which is full of shit anyway), all my blood work has come back normal. I might have a vitamin D deficiency, but I think the majority of us have it. I don’t really go outside as much as I used to. Living a hermit’s lifestyle. I don’t have high cholesterol, I am not pre-diabetic, and my blood pressure is fine, so why do I keep telling myself I HAVE to lose weight?
I have been reading a lot on this subject of our society and how we view the mythical perfect body. We have celebrities going under the knife to achieve some semblance of what they think to be perfect. We have people who have loads of money to have someone follow them around give them the food to eat when they need to eat it and make them go to the gym. These are all poor examples of regular individuals working 8 or more-hour days and taking care of their families.
I started to gain weight when I was in 5th grade. You know when puberty starts to hit, and your body is going through some major changes? Well, that is when I started to be of the larger variety. I have been bigger ever since. I starved myself. In my sophomore year of high school, I was down to 140 pounds, and I STILL thought I was fat. Why? Because I was comparing myself to the other girls. Which is not fair to me as some were taller, shorter, or predisposed to a different body type. I would kill to be 140 pounds right now.
If you have read any other part of my blog or listened to my podcast, you have already heard that my life was not always rainbows and butterflies. With that came depression. I didn’t have any self-esteem and I believed I was just an overall waste of a lifeform. I did use some foods as a crutch, but it wasn’t the main problem. I didn’t go out. I locked myself away. I slept a lot. I lived a life within my imagination to keep me away from the horrible thoughts and people that reality offered.
Along the way I lost my dad, my brother stole my dad’s collection of coins, we lost our house of 29 years and I quit my long-term job, under my own volition I might add. I was at an all-time low in 2018. I gained more weight and kept myself busy with moving our things and then just sleeping. I finally got up and got a job in August of 2018 at UPS as a loader. I drank so much water and worked each night sweating my ass off. I lost probably about 50 pounds, give, or take. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Now see, even though I was fat, I still was able to move, pick up things, and work a laborious job.
In March of 2019, my mom, my son, and myself were involved in a bad accident. The car was totaled, my mom had 6 staples in her head, I ended up with a herniated disc and my son has anxiety anytime he hears loud noises. Fun times. I was unable to lift anything anymore. Well, anything with any significant weight. There went my paying gym membership to UPS.
I gained it all back plus some. I got a desk job and then COVID hit. So, I have been feeling pretty piss poor about myself regarding my outward appearance. I was working at school, getting a new position at work, helping my mom who has memory problems (not yet diagnosed), and making sure my son was taken care of. I would look in the mirror, catch a glimpse at myself in a reflection, and just be disgusted. Because in my head and what I have been taught to believe is that if you have a stomach that wasn’t flat, a secretary spread, and excess dangling bits, you were, therefore, disgusting and undesirable.
I know that this viewpoint is being challenged in today’s world. We have celebrities embracing their curves, even though those curves are just that, some curves. I am talking about having an ass that you need to have one of those beep backup alarms to let people know you are coming through.
It is a struggle growing up in a generation where “heroin chic” was a thing. Well, sorry not sorry, I like food and I will never be a skeleton. At least until I have rotted enough after I am dead. Even now, there are so many filters that we use to make us look like what we think is good. Instead of just taking us for who we are and running with it. I am working on this and while I still want to at least become healthier, in a sense that I move around more and not scarf down a whole bag of Smart Food White Cheddar popcorn all by myself. But I am not going to stress the scale. If someone tells me I am pretty, I need to accept that and not just wave the compliment away thinking it means nothing.
For all those out there who are dealing with the same thing, you are enough and unless you have some major health issues that need to be addressed, just be you. Accept this is who you are. With that extra attached. We are on this journey together and we will get through it. Here is my inspirational post for the month. Now go out there and be you!
