Friday 20 January 2012

The Jump to The Other Side

I’m not sure when I was introduced to their idea of beauty or how it was planted in my head; I just always remember beauty in women as being skinny. Not necessarily even fit. Skinny. Perhaps it was all the 90’s Kate Moss Heroin-chic Calvin Klein ads. Yes, modelling in the 90’s was all about looking like you were on drugs. Something every teenage girl should aspire to. I’m also not sure when I was introduced to fat being a negative thing; I’ve just always known it. Skinny=beautiful, fat=ugly. Did I agree with it? I’m not sure. My father always had a belly and I always loved that about him. So, if fat is ugly is my father ugly? Hell NO! Yet I did tease him about his belly and was never told that was mean or hurtful. It seems like weight is that last acceptable thing we can discriminate against. Think about all the movies where over-weight people were the butt of the jokes, think Eddie Murphy’s “Nutty Professor” for a perfect example. Now not only were the Klumps overly exaggerated as morbidly obese but they also made sure they ate extreme amounts of fatty foods all the time and were the gassiest people to ever eat. Ever. There you go ladies; if you’re overweight everyone will think you’re a fatty-fast-food lovin’ fartin’ machine. Oh, and forget about finding love unless you’re skinny, we’ve all seen the movies, you gotta drop the weight before your love interest will see you for the amazing person you are. Great message Hollywood, thanks for that too.
So imagine the predicament I found myself in as I went from my teens into early 20’s and slowly putting on the party weight, but hey, I had boobs and hips with that little extra weight. Guys do like a little junk in the trunk women are told, emphasis on little. I guess that’s when I began to look at beauty as not necessarily being skinny, but being shapely, thin mind you, but shapely. This is where we saw Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Beyoncé really making a splash in pop culture. But don’t kid yourselves, these are still size 2 ladies (or smaller).
You would think I’d nip it in the bud when I hit 25 and was 20 lbs heavier than my high school graduation day. Nope, I talked myself into that fact that I looked fine, I believed it to, the media and perhaps people in my life thought different, but I believed it. I have never had a problem with confidence until that extra 20 turned into an extra 30 and I find myself going from 120-150 lbs in 10 years. The funny thing is that’s when I found the love of my life, the man who would be my husband. The man who made sure to tell me how beautiful I was every day, yet, I was hardwired from youth to not trust this. Nope my stomach is flabby and my waist is looking more and more like my hips every day. The size 2 I used to wear has stretched into a tight 8. Despite what he tells me there is no way this is beautiful.
Finally it hits me that I cannot eat with no cares, I cannot watch soaps all day and dramas all night with little to no activity in the middle (what do you mean walking from my desk to the copier is not a work out?). And you would think I would get serious about it all, but maybe it’s because I was never doing it for the right reasons that I could never wrap my head around how to get skinny again. How I could to cut out the deliciously bad for you foods and incorporate healthy foods. Maybe it was because I always did it for vanity not my overall wellbeing and health.  So, despite going to the gym 3-5 times/week tack on another 5 lbs and there I was 155 on my wedding day before getting pregnant.
Pregnancy was bliss when it came to food; I did not deny that child anything she craved. (Yes, it was for the child, not mother, ha!). And by the time I gave birth I skyrocketed up to 225llbs!! 225! I couldn’t believe it! ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE POUNDS IN 11 YEARS! How does that even happen? Well it did. I lost 30lbs almost instantly by getting that 8 lb beauty out of me, but what about the rest? And how do I change my daughter’s future so she doesn’t look at overweight as fat and ugly? How do I take the pressure off of her to be skinny? And how to I make sure she values the other side of beauty; her mind, her soul, her family, her friends, and of course her body? To value her body in a different way than my generation was taught, to keep her strong and healthy, not to define her beauty.
Please join me as I try to discover the answers to those and find a new way to look at beauty and look at the journey that made me a used-to-be-skinny girl and why I’m better because of it.  Wanna contact me? theothersideofbeauty@gmail.com is where I get my mail.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. You sooo nailed this. I was always the 'skinny girl' and had the exact same thoughts as you. Although, after meeting/falling love with/marrying the man I did, my whole perspective changed. Skinny is not necessarily beautiful, just as fat is not necessarily ugly. I had my moments after our first child, going from the size I did, to the size I ended up at. It was a bad moment in my life. I have since realized that the way I look doesn't change who I am as a person. I'm still me whether I weighed 160 or 120. I'm definitely going to instil those values into my kids as well. As long as they're healthy, they're beautiful, which is where I'm at. Yes, I started working out regularly again, eating WAY healthier then I was and I'm happy with the way I look because I did it for all the right reasons, not just to be pretty.

    And PS....I think you're beautiful as well. ;)

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