What I’ve learned from being called ‘fat’

tips

babe  • 

What I’ve learned from being called ‘fat’

I know I’m not skinny and I’m OK with it

I have a terrible relationship with food. When I was younger, I used to eat when I was bored. My anxiety got really bad as I entered high school, and I used food as a shield and comfort source from all the negative thoughts running through my head.

I always compared myself to my skinny friends. They were beautiful and everything the boys wanted, while I was the funny friend who hid herself behind a confident personality. I even told myself when I received a compliment it was just someone lying to make me feel better like some kind of charity case. I was comparing myself to everyone and somehow I always ended up on the bottom of the list.

Even when I was an athlete, I felt like I wasn’t quite right. Swimming for eight years started my body issues. My thighs weren’t lean and long like my teammates’ were, I wasn’t tall enough and my shoulders weren’t quite broad enough for all the strength I needed.

A career-ending injury started my upward climb of weight. I was eating and acting like I was burning all the calories in the pool without actually burning them.

Fast forward to now, I’m so self conscious of my weight. I have never really dealt with the fact that I’m constantly in competition with every woman in my life.

I was shopping with someone I loved one day and she was talking about her recent weight gain. She said something along the lines of “Hell, I’m almost as big as Emily,” which sent my world into a downward spiral.

It was if I was the standard no one wanted to be. I tried to laugh off the comment as if the words hadn’t felt like bullets straight to the heart. I tried to catch my breath and pull back the tears I could feel right behind my eyes. I cried in the restaurant bathroom. It was the lowest of the low.

I spent the next few weeks angry at the world and hating myself. Every time I looked in the mirror I hated myself a little more. I went to a school where girls where beautiful and fit.

I was always comparing myself to the women in my classes and ones I passed on the street. I compared myself to the thin members of my family coming to the conclusion I must be the troll of the bunch. I constantly told myself my boyfriend was way out of my league and he would break up with me because of my weight.

I hated my arms, my thighs, my butt and especially my stomach. Hating all of these things on the outside made me hate the things that I used to love on the inside.

Then, out of the blue, I decided I am beautiful. I decided I could get up every day and hate the way my body looked, or I could learn to love it and see it in a different light.

After almost two years, I listened to and believed my boyfriend calling me beautiful as he had from day one. I know I’m not skinny and I’m OK with it.

I have what some would call thunder thighs, but get those things in a good pair of jeans and I can conquer the world. My arms have a little added fluff, but they let me do my job well and hug all the amazing people in my life. My butt, well I could do some more squats to fix that region, but why get up and hate myself because of it? Lastly, my stomach. Though I still hate my stomach more often than not, I’ve realized this is an aspect that makes me who I am.

We’ve all come to the definitive conclusion that skinny is the only form of beautiful there is. Well, I whole-heartedly reject that.

I know so many women who are gorgeous on the outside, but more importantly,beautiful on the inside, people society would never deem fit for a magazine.

I’m done body shaming myself. I know I have some things to fix on my body. The gym will always be there. I know I have to handle my relationship with food. But I’d rather be confident in myself now as this beautiful plus-sized person than hide because of what I look like. I’m beautiful. I’m tired of thinking otherwise. If you don’t think so, it’s your loss!

@TheTab