I kind of offered up myself a challenge that would benefit me psychologically, and that was to accept my body at the size it was. Check out my first blog entry for the information, but I’ll remind you of the basics. I lost 83 pounds over a period of approx. 10 months. But then my eating habits gradually started getting worse. At first, I had gained 4 pounds and I was at that place for a couple weeks, feeling like that was so much. I can’t believe it now that 4 lbs. sounded like a lot. At the time of writing the blog on December 12th, I had gained 13 pounds.
Having gained 13 pounds, I felt crushed and defeated. I blamed myself terribly. But then there was the healthier part of me that realized, for my very mental health, I had to accept myself for whatever size I was. I know I am not my body. I know people say I am also smart, witty, creative, loving, strong, kind, and even cute. Hey, I don’t have to believe all the compliments, but I’m first working on simply accepting them and not negating them, which is also dismissive to the other person. Aren’t those more important things; the characteristics I possess?
No matter what positive things we try to tell ourselves, it’s almost impossible to get rid of negative conditioning. It was drilled into my head by society that thin was good and fat was bad. And I didn’t always get the most consistent views on this growing up. Even if I didn’t buy into this potentially self-hating paradigm at first, others did and treated me thus. When I was thinner people treated me like I was more attractive, and when I was heavy people treated me like I was invisible. That invisibility is silent, but I felt it yelling, “You’re fat! You’re gross! You’re ugly!”
Let’s just say I was fat, gross, and ugly. (Also, I am holding the incorrect assumption that fat equals gross and ugly, which is not true. I know this not because of high self-esteem, but because I am attracted to women and have seem some heavier women who are very attractive). Okay. Well, does that mean that because someone is not visually attractive, that they are not a worthy person? If someone asked me this question about another person I would right away say: “HELL NO”, but if asked the exact same question about myself the answer would be a little closer to this, and in a quieter voice: “Well, um, I guess, oh, sure I am a worthy person”. Do you see the big difference in those answers? They don’t sound that different, but they are huge. My weight has always played a huge part of my mental health and self- esteem. Yes, people might have treated me different when I gained 100 pounds and then some. But those 4 pounds, or even those 13 pounds, most people didn’t notice.
Now that I have gained more weight, I notice the changed in my face as well.
The reasons I am updating this topic of my personal weight journey is because now I have gained 30 pounds. I wanted to write that in giant font, but I already see it in my head in giant font so there’s no need to do that. So, let’s keep up with the math here. I lost approximately 80, gained approximately 30, so that puts me at a 30 pounds weight gain, is what I would say. That only sounds like a redundant sentence because that's where my mind keeps getting stuck. But others say that’s not how you do the math. It’s a subtraction problem. It still means I lost 50 pounds. There is no low self-esteem-math in which I can ignore that there still is a 50-pound loss.
But whether I am being positive about myself or not, 30 pounds is noticeable on most people. At 13 I could technically fit into most of the things I was wearing. They were just tight and or not as comfortable. But now that I got to the point of being 30 pounds overweight I didn’t have as much to wear. When I was losing weight, I brought clothing to Goodwill twice. When something was too big for me, I put it in my closet on the floor and let it sit until I had a good pile I could take there. I knew there might be a little fluctuation in weight, so I didn’t get rid of things right away. A good test that my clothes were too big was, for some of my shirts that are scoop or V-neck, was that a decent part of my bra would show and a good test for pants was when I held my baby on my hip the pants would start to, or simply just fall down all the way right there in the kitchen. Luckily, I hadn’t made a Goodwill run for a while, so I had to drag some of the clothes from the closet floor to wear since some of that clothing now fits again. I liked wearing the comfortable baggy clothing again instead of things that fit me which felt tight, and I hate tight things for two reasons. One, because it’s just not comfortable, and two, is because it sometimes shows too much of my body.
I started to change the way I was dressing. I had changed the way I dressed gradually as I lost the weight, and then again as I gained. As I lost, I dressed differently because I felt more comfortable with my body, and some of my body parts didn’t stick out as much and I felt more freedom. I was told I was dressing better by more than one person and my old style for so long had been frumpy.
So now that I have gained these 30, very noticeable pounds to me, and probably slightly noticeable to others (because I have to remember I was proud when I lost my first 30 pounds but was disappointed most people didn’t notice, so they might not notice this). I have once again started wearing my frumpy clothing. I had just got to the place I could wear shirts that weren’t tunics and wear the top size, or even one size down from that, at “regular” stores that didn’t have plus size clothing. But recently I have bought myself two outfits that are my size. You can see the one above with the purple shirt and grey textured leggings and here is a red shirt with skinny jeans. Some people may argue the shirts are a little big, but I like shirts big to hide my stomach. These outfits are trying to say I am okay the way I am.
So why am I writing about this weight gain of mine? It’s certainly not a well-organized post. I am writing it for a couple reasons. One, is because in case someone had read my first blog they might want to know if I was keeping my weight off and if I was accepting myself which was what I was daring to do. I am still working on this issue. I catch myself about to say something negative about myself to someone often, but it’s the messages in my head that I say silently to myself that are one hundred times more in quantity. I can be very down on myself, and especially as it applies to my weight. Another reason, is because of accountability. I wrote that first blog, knowing I would keep updates. I hoped they would be about lots of weight loss. I will want to make updates on this post and talk more about weight issues in general, and how even though weight affects both men and women, it’s not so ingrained in men’s heads from a young age that they must be thin, and I am guessing, if you take a large sample of overweight men and women, that a much larger portion of women have based their self-esteem on that extra weight.
I’ll end with my final reason I want to talk about weight. That is because of you, the reader. You, or someone you know probably struggles with weight, or eating issues. I wouldn’t mind discussing this issue with others. I support you in accepting your body the way it is, as well as support you in losing weight because it is healthy and will help your self-esteem, and not because it defines you. I want to join a huge group of women in this discussion, so it doesn’t just feel like suffering in this alone. I know women deal with this issue and we can support each other.
Having gained 13 pounds, I felt crushed and defeated. I blamed myself terribly. But then there was the healthier part of me that realized, for my very mental health, I had to accept myself for whatever size I was. I know I am not my body. I know people say I am also smart, witty, creative, loving, strong, kind, and even cute. Hey, I don’t have to believe all the compliments, but I’m first working on simply accepting them and not negating them, which is also dismissive to the other person. Aren’t those more important things; the characteristics I possess?
No matter what positive things we try to tell ourselves, it’s almost impossible to get rid of negative conditioning. It was drilled into my head by society that thin was good and fat was bad. And I didn’t always get the most consistent views on this growing up. Even if I didn’t buy into this potentially self-hating paradigm at first, others did and treated me thus. When I was thinner people treated me like I was more attractive, and when I was heavy people treated me like I was invisible. That invisibility is silent, but I felt it yelling, “You’re fat! You’re gross! You’re ugly!”
Each individual woman’s body demands to be accepted on its own terms.
- Gloria Steinem
Let’s just say I was fat, gross, and ugly. (Also, I am holding the incorrect assumption that fat equals gross and ugly, which is not true. I know this not because of high self-esteem, but because I am attracted to women and have seem some heavier women who are very attractive). Okay. Well, does that mean that because someone is not visually attractive, that they are not a worthy person? If someone asked me this question about another person I would right away say: “HELL NO”, but if asked the exact same question about myself the answer would be a little closer to this, and in a quieter voice: “Well, um, I guess, oh, sure I am a worthy person”. Do you see the big difference in those answers? They don’t sound that different, but they are huge. My weight has always played a huge part of my mental health and self- esteem. Yes, people might have treated me different when I gained 100 pounds and then some. But those 4 pounds, or even those 13 pounds, most people didn’t notice.
The reasons I am updating this topic of my personal weight journey is because now I have gained 30 pounds. I wanted to write that in giant font, but I already see it in my head in giant font so there’s no need to do that. So, let’s keep up with the math here. I lost approximately 80, gained approximately 30, so that puts me at a 30 pounds weight gain, is what I would say. That only sounds like a redundant sentence because that's where my mind keeps getting stuck. But others say that’s not how you do the math. It’s a subtraction problem. It still means I lost 50 pounds. There is no low self-esteem-math in which I can ignore that there still is a 50-pound loss.
But whether I am being positive about myself or not, 30 pounds is noticeable on most people. At 13 I could technically fit into most of the things I was wearing. They were just tight and or not as comfortable. But now that I got to the point of being 30 pounds overweight I didn’t have as much to wear. When I was losing weight, I brought clothing to Goodwill twice. When something was too big for me, I put it in my closet on the floor and let it sit until I had a good pile I could take there. I knew there might be a little fluctuation in weight, so I didn’t get rid of things right away. A good test that my clothes were too big was, for some of my shirts that are scoop or V-neck, was that a decent part of my bra would show and a good test for pants was when I held my baby on my hip the pants would start to, or simply just fall down all the way right there in the kitchen. Luckily, I hadn’t made a Goodwill run for a while, so I had to drag some of the clothes from the closet floor to wear since some of that clothing now fits again. I liked wearing the comfortable baggy clothing again instead of things that fit me which felt tight, and I hate tight things for two reasons. One, because it’s just not comfortable, and two, is because it sometimes shows too much of my body.
I started to change the way I was dressing. I had changed the way I dressed gradually as I lost the weight, and then again as I gained. As I lost, I dressed differently because I felt more comfortable with my body, and some of my body parts didn’t stick out as much and I felt more freedom. I was told I was dressing better by more than one person and my old style for so long had been frumpy.
So now that I have gained these 30, very noticeable pounds to me, and probably slightly noticeable to others (because I have to remember I was proud when I lost my first 30 pounds but was disappointed most people didn’t notice, so they might not notice this). I have once again started wearing my frumpy clothing. I had just got to the place I could wear shirts that weren’t tunics and wear the top size, or even one size down from that, at “regular” stores that didn’t have plus size clothing. But recently I have bought myself two outfits that are my size. You can see the one above with the purple shirt and grey textured leggings and here is a red shirt with skinny jeans. Some people may argue the shirts are a little big, but I like shirts big to hide my stomach. These outfits are trying to say I am okay the way I am.
“Women who love themselves are threatening; but men who love real women, more so.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
So why am I writing about this weight gain of mine? It’s certainly not a well-organized post. I am writing it for a couple reasons. One, is because in case someone had read my first blog they might want to know if I was keeping my weight off and if I was accepting myself which was what I was daring to do. I am still working on this issue. I catch myself about to say something negative about myself to someone often, but it’s the messages in my head that I say silently to myself that are one hundred times more in quantity. I can be very down on myself, and especially as it applies to my weight. Another reason, is because of accountability. I wrote that first blog, knowing I would keep updates. I hoped they would be about lots of weight loss. I will want to make updates on this post and talk more about weight issues in general, and how even though weight affects both men and women, it’s not so ingrained in men’s heads from a young age that they must be thin, and I am guessing, if you take a large sample of overweight men and women, that a much larger portion of women have based their self-esteem on that extra weight.
You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.”
― Amy Bloom
I’ll end with my final reason I want to talk about weight. That is because of you, the reader. You, or someone you know probably struggles with weight, or eating issues. I wouldn’t mind discussing this issue with others. I support you in accepting your body the way it is, as well as support you in losing weight because it is healthy and will help your self-esteem, and not because it defines you. I want to join a huge group of women in this discussion, so it doesn’t just feel like suffering in this alone. I know women deal with this issue and we can support each other.
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