Thoughts on Body Image

After reading Frassy’s post on body image last year it really got me thinking. It got me thinking so much that it took me 8 months to finish this post. I debated whether or not I should post it, because I wasn’t sure of what I really wanted to say. Alas now I’m posting it.

You have two legs, arms and a heart
– the shape of them is so laughably secondary,
quite in the same way the socks underneath your shoes are

– Frassy

It is secondary, it should be secondary. It shouldn’t be all consuming as it is for so many women. Am I a victim of this whole body image issue? Sure. But not as much as I used to be. I do feel like I am happy with who I am. Yet, I know I want improvements. I’d like to lose some weight, but that’s it. That’s “all” I want to change. I actually used to be very unhappy with my body image. However, a few years ago (probably about four) I decided I needed to love me for who I am, plus size or not. It simply seemed like a waste of energy not to accept myself. Ever since then I’ve been pretty happy with who i am.

However, in one way I am more affected by it than I’d like to admit. I have never really liked my body on photos. In a way I guess I don’t share body photos because it isn’t skinny and thin, like so many other people’s (also I find it hard to take photos of myself since I don’t own a tripod). And I’m a bit scared to be judged. But why should I care? Why should anyone care about what other people think? Why does it bother me? If it bothered me so much wouldn’t I be at the gym all the time? I believe so. So obviously it doesn’t bother me so much, only on photos. “In real life” I am perfectly comfortable and happy with myself.

I haven’t always been plus size. But even back then as a teenager I wasn’t happy with my body. I started gaining weight when I was around 18-19 that was when I also found out I had a thyroid gland problem (in short it’s the thing that controls your metabolism). I had tried to lose weight by going to the gym and I even went to a nutritionist; nothing worked. If my grandmother hadn’t dragged me to the doctor’s I would have never found out that I was sick; I was told I could have even died from it if it hadn’t been discovered. I’m all “healthy” now though. And my thyroid works as it should again. But back then it was a lot to take in. It was strange to have to be on medicine and it changed my life. I lost a lot of confidence through-out that whole journey. There are of course more details to this part of my life, but I think the rest of that story is for another time.

Back to today. I do have days where I don’t feel good about myself. But there aren’t many of those. I will say that since my boyfriend Richard passed away I have had more bad days than good but that isn’t down to my looks, my looks can just become a part of it. Part of the bad day. If that makes sense?

In the end all this means I need to simply look aside what the “norm” is. Because I will never be a size zero (not that there’s anything bad about that at all!). I, also realize that I have to accept that some people won’t accept me for who I am – but fuck em’. If we worried about what strangers thought about us all the time we’d lose our minds. I do plan to lose some weight but I do not plan to reach a size 0 or a size 2. I’d be happy with just going down a few dress sizes. I would just like to become fitter, not necessarily thinner, but all in good time. I am in no rush – not as everything is right now. Right now I am focusing on reeling the loss of Richard.

I’m not sure what my goal was with this post, maybe I didn’t have any. I just wanted to share my thoughts on body image. So, basically… Just… Love YOU for who YOU are and not for what you think you should be, or what others think you should be. Life is truly too short to worry about things like that.

Here’s a few links to some recent posts containing more full body pics of me, if you’re curious:
1, 2, 3.