*Phew* this is a difficult one.
I’ve had this post in my drafts for months now, but I’m feeling the fear and doing at anyway.
Do you know how hard it is to say that word? “Fat”?
How society has depicted the word to be a negative connotation. Akin to being ugly, undesirable, worthless and unlovable…
How I’ve managed to internalise society’s standard of beauty and thus ended up hating the way my body looks.
It’s taken 26 years of life to realise just how deep my self-loathing goes. And it has taken 26 years of life to finally acknowledge my “fatness” and not cringe. It’s taken 26 years of my life to start unlearning all that society is telling me and to love myself in every stage regardless.
It’s hard. Very hard.
It’s nice to know I’m not alone though.
You know what else? It’s awesome to actually start believing that I’m beautiful and that being “fat” and weighing more than the next person is just one aspect of my identity, not the all-encompassing factor that affects everything else.
Bodies change. But my personality, spirit and soul that God took His precious time to sculpt and create? That will always remain stellar.
So the word “FAT”. What does it actually mean?
Fat: “(of a person or animal) having a large amount of excess flesh”
I listened to a podcast months ago, and it really helped me look at my body in a different way. It talked about how words used to describe your body e.g. fat are just a word describing your body; it is not the identity of your body and thus yourself. So instead of saying: “I am fat”, you say “I have fat” – and this dispells the negative connotations that society have reinforced about body image.
When I would say “I am fat” – it was like I was being self-deprecating and negative; which would be reinforced by the ignorant response: “no, you’re beautiful”. And I’m here like, I didn’t say I was ugly!!!
The reality is, I have fat on my arms, on my thighs, and more-fat-than-I-would-like on my stomach. And that is just one of a million things about me. Just one.
I know when it comes to weight, there is the importance of health [which I agree with] – but I have come across too many people who see that you have a little or a lot more fat in some places; and make it their duty to speak on that persons’ health [or lack thereof]. How someone’s body looks is not a full-proof indication of someone’s health; and furthermore it’s not anyone else’s business but theirs.
Sidenote: do you know how triggering it is when someone mentions weight [whether positive or negative]? Very freaking triggering. I have had family tell me I’ve put on weight [this is very common among ethnic families, usually coming from the aunties]; and I’ve also had people congratulate me on losing weight and to “keep it up” – the pressure coming from that statement is crushing.
From as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a complex around my weight, body image and food.
I would recall family members talking about my body – and ever since then I would look at my body differently. No longer in an objective, matter-of-fact way, but in a negative, problematic way.
I have always thought I was fat – but that was never an issue, the problem was that because I thought I was fat; I also thought my body and thus my existence to be an inconvenience. Something to hide away, something to make smaller, as small as possible even.
I have been through many phases of how to combat my body image and how I feel about myself; and to be honest I’m still figuring it out.
I have tried most diets, the problem is they were very restrictive, and I could never stick to them. I have tried intermittent fasting. I’ve tried the gym, at-home workouts. My problem has always been remaining consistent.
My best stint of trying to lose weight was in the first lockdown in 2020, where I was calorie-counting and exercising most days [I lost a signifcant amount, but it didn’t last]. However, during this period, I learned a lot about what I was putting in my mouth – and really about just how many calories I was consuming regularly [entirely too much].
Nonetheless, taking all of this into account, I realised I have a disordered relationship with food. I would always be aware that I like to comfort eat, but I never realised just how extensive a complex I had with this.
Because I started comfort-eating at a young age [childhood trauma etc.] I had conditioned my body and mind in a way whereby I was able to ignore when my body itself was full and satiated, and continue binging. Also, I could no longer tell when my body was genuinely hungry, or if I was just craving for something/trying to fill an emotional void.
So for the longest time, I have been ‘yo-yo’ing between severe restriction and then binging. It’s really quite volatile for my body and mind. I begin in a miltant mind-set whereby I restrict myself to a certain amount of calories [and I manage to keep this up for a week or two] and then the weekend comes, or I travel to see someone, and my regimen falls apart and I eat whatever. Not only that, but it’s when I get back to my own place, then I want to binge on all the sweet and salty things. Then I end up feeling guilty and hating myself all over again.
It’s important to note that “binge-eating” is not the same as overeating or having a craving – it’s a disordered form of eating or eating disorder. And I have been doing it for years…
This is definitely the hardest blog post yet…
I am still figuring out the reason for this post, maybe to shed light on something more common than I realised…
I think this is so hard because I am still battling with this. I am still learning what having a healthy relationship with food is like. I have seen other people [online] talk about it and mention that they are seeing a professional. I have no idea why the prospect of maybe having to do this myself scares me so much; as I am an advocate for counselling. I think it’s because my issue with food has been a secret and it’s scary to tell someone about it. Really freaking scary. Nonetheless, I am seriously considering it because I want [and low-key] need this.
I really do not like giving labels to things, because I feel it can sometimes encourage stigma; but this is a safe space and I’m all for disspelling all that negativity.
So body dismorphia anybody?
As I have said before, I believe everything can be measured on a spectrum, therefore I feel I suffer with this a fair amount. I find myself comparing myself to other women who have more fat; and wondering if I look like them or if I’m bigger or smaller. It’s bizarre.
I am so very critical of my body and how other people perceive it. Over the years, it has progressed to the point where I prefer to put my body in baggy clothes and fade into the background. When I look at buying new clothes, not only do I hate the ordeal (finding something I like, trying it on, and it not fitting the way I like); but I also look at certain clothes and automatically write them off, because I think “I’m not skinny enough to pull that off” or “I’m too fat to wear that”.
Society has really done a number on my mindset.
As we have been shown society’s standard of beauty to be a “smaller body type” and more recently, as well as the smaller bodies, the curvy, “plus-size” bodies are being more represented. However, even the plus-size has a certain aesthetic (which is not common for people who carry more fat on their bodies), this being the hourglass (thick thighs, average arms, and a flat stomach). It’s the flat stomach that gets me.
Erm… how common is it for a bigger woman to have a flat stomach? Not common at all, so even with this additional representation, I still feel somewhat “wrong” in my body because of this.
This is all multi-faceted and complex, but I am addressing it bit by bit and I know I will eventually come to a place where my relationship with my body and food will be healthy.
Do any of y’all suffer with comfort-eating, body dysmorphia, just generally not liking the skin you’re in?
You are not alone!
One of the more unconventional ways I have begun to de-stigmatise my weight is to take more full-body images of myself. I realised that on my Instagram, all my images would just be of my face [really reinforcing the whole “pretty face” narrative of bigger girls]; and I was just so ashamed of how I looked. I genuinely thought I was ugly.
I needed to alleviate that negativity and start taking and posting full-body images. Even though I was scared at first, I have slowly but surely become more confident in how I look and owning it.
I just really wanted to share, this almost life-long journey I have been taking; in case any of y’all are going through a similar process.
We got this!
We are beautiful. We are not fat. We just have more fat than others and that’s just one thing about us. We are worthy of love and all the other wonderful things afforded to “beautiful” people. We are so much more than what we weigh [whether it be more than average or less].
I am still learning about this, but for anyone who suffers with binge-eating visit the Instagram page: @break.binge.eating – It’s a great resource coming from a professional Dr 🤓
I hope you’ve enjoyed my vulnerability. I feel more empowered now I’ve shared. Stay beautiful people x
Meanings of terms used throughout this post:
– Comfort eating: “the practice of eating to make oneself feel happier.”
– Binging: “indulge in an activity, especially eating, drinking, or taking drugs, to excess.”
– Body dysmorphia: “pathological preoccupation with an imagined or slight physical defect of one’s body to the point of causing significant stress.”
– Worthy: “having or showing the qualities that deserve the specified action or regard.”
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