Hottie w/ a Body
Ayooooo my lil twinkies - long time no GAB! AHHHHHH, the weather is turning and that heavy weighted blanket of seasonal depression is slowly lifting off of us. BUT - with that, comes the anxiety of summer clothes and “bathing suit bod” mentalities. Well I’m here to say that FUCK that and I have a little bit to dive into today about eating, dieting, body image, and all things around the subject of being “thin”. STRAP IN BECAUSE I’M KINDA PISSED.
My therapist - the lovely unicorn that she is - never fails to make me absolutely break down during a session…something I like to call an emotional breakthrough. Today we were talking about when I weigh myself, I feel such a sense of accomplishment when I see that number drop because it’s an actual - tangible change that I can measure. I can see it right in front of my eyes. BARFFFFF - I would launch my scale right off the edge of the earth if I could. The messed up thing is that I know it’s not good to weigh yourself every day - I KNOWWWW - but that doesn’t stop me. I got really emotional because my therapist stopped me and asked what I look for in a friend - I thought about it and I replied that I like my friends because they all have big hearts and would do anything for each other. In that moment, I realized that no one in my life that I hold near and dear to my heart, likes me solely because of the way that I look. So this standard, that I am so desperately trying to reach, is a made up ideal that realistically only matters in our own minds. And, if I didn’t spend so much time trying to skip a snack, count my calories, or weigh my carbs, I could focus all of that energy on bettering who I actually am on the inside.
WOW RIGHT - what a trip. I was like - uh bitch u done did it again! I got so overtaken with emotion because I realized that super hot BF Joe, my family, and all of my buddies love me because of MY BIG ASS ATTITUDE, my bananas sense of humor, and my HEART. Not because I have a thin waste when I skip a big dinner the night before. AND MAY I ADD - being healthy, in a physical sense, comes in ALL DIFFERENT SHAPES. Skinny, like fat, is just an adjective that people use, but some how one of them got turned into an insult, while the other is a compliment.
WOW FEEL LIKE I STILL HAVE A LOT TO COVER. Hope you’re still strapped in.
As most of yall know - I’m super Italian, which means that my relationship with food is a very social thing. Yes, I said relationship with food. Most people don’t want to think of it that way, but when you boil everything down, the way that we interact with food makes up a hugely significant part of our lives. In my life, food was always around my family. If I didn’t eat my whole plate at dinner, it was sometimes considered rude. If I didn’t munch on a cheese plate when we had company over, people would look at me like I had 5 heads. Where there were loved ones in my life, there was a killer meal to go along with the event. AND I want to emphasize that this doesn’t make food the enemy. It’s important to have a good relationship with food throughout your life. Once you start depriving yourself of certain things altogether, you begin to hinder that relationship. That can end up leading to binging tendencies, which in the end hurts us way more than having a small helping of something unhealthy. The key is to balance and that’s where we can find a healthy lifestyle where building healthy HABITS is most important.
*sucks in a major deep breath* LEMME TALK TO YALL ABOUT SOME SKINNY PRIVILEGE.
Skinny privilege is real and people don’t call it for what it is. It is 100% true that women with smaller builds are looked at as more attractive, healthy, and all around more “appealing to men”. They are portrayed that way in mainstream media and have been for my entire life. Even in modern days with a shift in “the ideal image of beauty", plus sized models have curves in all of the right places and look like a blown up version of skinny models. This drives me absolutely crazy because such a small percentage of women actual look like that. Where is the representation??? When I buy something, I don’t want to have to click on the “plus sized” clothing tabs or wander to the back corner of the store where my size hides because my bust is bigger than average. It singles me out, makes me feel shameful of my body, and makes me want to lose more weight. THE CYCLE OF MADNESS and it’s all based around a created ideal that people get sucked into.
I’ll finish with this rant: When bigger girls dress the way they want, and show it off, people say this: (I’ll try not to scream)
“I love how confident you are.”
BITCH WHAT. That IS NOT a compliment. You’re insinuating that because they’re bigger, they need to have more confidence to show off their body ?? NOPEEEE. Listen, I know that it takes a lot to share pictures of yourself, for someone of any size, because social media has turned into a cesspool of “who’s picture can have the most comments”, but DO NOT single out bigger women for sharing their photos/videos by reminding them that it must have taken such courage to do so in the first place. Listen to me when I say, every single women deserves to be the most confident person when they walk into any damn room. I won’t speak for anyone else, but I have fought so damn hard to love myself, to keep myself alive through low points in life, and be proud of the woman I am today. SO YEAH, I will wear a crop top when I damn well feel like it - BECAUSE I CAN and I’ve earned the right to feel good about myself. (Not that it’s something that needs to be earned in the first place).
SO with summer around the corner - do not focus on dieting and counting your calories. If you’re concerned about your body, make healthier life choices that will give you more energy, make you feel happier, and push you to a brighter self image. It’s not just about the food either. Being healthy is a wholistic thing and it starts with the mind. Focus internally and the external results will follow. The first step in breaking the ideal image of beauty starts with you. Every individual has the power to make small changes that encompass an all inclusive idea of beautiful. Trust me when I say that when you enter a room, confidence glows from the inside REGARDLESS of what you look like on the outside. #happyspring and stay GORGEOUS DARLING.
