This isn't what I want for my body
an exploration of feelings surrounding my fatness
“This isn’t what I want for my body.”
And they took it to mean, “I didn’t want this body.”
“But this is the one you have.” “Be kind to yourself.” “Show yourself some grace.”
How do they paint my words with brushes of their own choosing, their own design?
“This isn’t what I want for my body.”
Not the extra skin that must cover the layers of fat I have grown over the last several years. Not the skin that once hung on fat when it starts to vanish. Not the breaths I struggle to make up the stairs. Not the way my lungs feel when I speed walk to the mailbox. Not the way my chest sags so low that it takes my neck and head with it.
Not the way my body bellows in pain and I tape over its screams with food. The mind will momentarily trick the body and I feed it cheese because my brain will associate the pleasure I feel from devouring it with overcoming that pang of sadness that swirls within me. That “knowing” feeling I have that this isn’t what I want for my body.
The cheese will please my mind but crucify my stomach, and then spread these hips farther than having two children did.
“But it tastes so good.”
Food a drug that I used to replace alcohol. And with every heavy step and heavy breath I told myself, “no more.” And then did more. Plus more.
I learned to angle those photos. Arch that back. Hold that phone here. Tilt it a bit. Turn that head slightly this way, no…the other way. Teach your son to take your pictures from positions that make you look smaller. Only, don’t tell him that. Surely, you don’t want him to get the wrong idea. Say, “if you hold it like this, you’ll get Mommy’s whole body in the pic.”
Yeah, that’s better.
But this isn’t what I want for my body.
And they make it seem like to have the thoughts of being within a body that you know could be better but isn’t because you chose to not do right by it, is harmful to others. Do they not care about the harm done to me? I wasn’t made to carry this much weight in this manner. In this way. For this long.
I have read in several body positivity spaces to not share progress photos because it is damaging and offensive to those who are fat or infinifat. They tell me that it promotes the idea that being thin is what is ideal. Something that the majority strives for. Only how do the know the individual motivations behind the those shares? Does this assume that one would like to be thin because society deems it more aesthetically pleasing, affording those who are privileges that those who are not cannot acquire? Or do they think about how many love themselves, but they need to love themselves back to health and this is one way that helps?
I would never want to offend someone but how can I exist as I need to exist without being true to who I am. I have refrained from progress shots. I probably will continue to do so. I don’t have an issue with keeping them to myself. I just don’t know if I agree that every person who feels as though they need to share this part of their lives or journey should be made to feel as though they should hide this part.
I made the comment that “I didn’t want this for my body.” And it was not received well. I speak for my own. And I choose the words I chose carefully. I still might get it wrong, but I wanted to make sure that these words were of me, by me, and for me.
I love my body, and they are correct, it is the only one I have. It has birthed two humans I love with every part of this body. This body has carried me through health crisis after health crisis. This body isn’t healthy but it has fought so hard for me. So very hard and it continues to fight for me, day after day after day.
But one day, it might not fight as hard as it is now. One day I might have done too much to it. One day it might just tell me, “enough.”
I love this body, but I fall out of like with it so much. I am not strong with the concept of body positivity, my health is impacted by my weight, and I do want to lose weight to not only feel great but look great as well. I feel as though these feelings are the antithesis of the body positive spaces I have frequented. It doesn’t matter that you think I look good as is, I have to feel that way. I don’t dislike my current looks, but I do feel I could look better. To me.
I feel as though I cannot have a problem with being fat. And I absolutely have an issue with my being fat. No one else’s, just me. Am I ashamed of being fat? I do not like the way this fat causing me so much physical pain. I don’t like the health risks it poses. Many spaces will inform me that being overweight doesn’t contribute to so many of the conditions that our healthcare industry would have us believe. Those spaces that inform me that I don’t need to lose weight to feel better about myself. My worth to others shouldn’t be tied to my weight. I am a worthy person because I exist. Simply because I exist. How I feel about myself doesn’t require an external presence. I think that a of the time people feel that the decisions we make about our bodies and how to feel about them is rooted in the perceptions of others. This might be a scene but it isn’t the whole movie.
So, I want to be healthier. Healthier, for myself, would mean more pounds shed. This isn’t for them. This is for me. This isn’t me being ashamed of this beautiful, marvelous body of mine, this is me knowing that it is beautiful, marvelous, and unhealthy at the moment. That is just facts. Are there those who are larger than me and more healthy than I am? Yes. Are there those who are smaller than me in worst health than I am? Absolutely. But I cannot live by another. I cannot take on the standards of others. I have to get to a space where these health issues I face, and the risks that are increased, trend downward.
And…I do not like how I look in clothes.
Not certain clothes, but most clothes. Sure, I could spend more time, spend more money, finding clothing that fits my body better. Or I could do what I could to get myself to a weight that I feel good and look good.
I am opting to do the latter.
The decision to lose weight is most definitely partly my health and partly because I feel I haven’t even hit my best looking yet. Why do so many people feel as though that doesn’t matter? I don’t have to be the prettiest person in the world, I won’t be, but I want to LOOOOVE what I see when I look at myself. How I feel about me matters. I love myself at this weight AND I would love myself at a smaller one that was more reflective of the person I wanted to be.
I feel fraudulent in each and every body positive space and with body positive people. I love myself. I think I’m am gorgeous. But I also know I am unhealthy. And I feel it’s because I haven’t taken care of this body the way it deserves. I feel I look good now, but I am not where I want to be where I would feel I looked my personal best. I don’t carry the confidence to wear certain things. I bought shorts that I probably won’t wear because I don’t like how my legs look. I’m saving my shorts days for when my legs are slimmer.
At first I felt as though it was because I would worry what others thought, that I carry the words of previous comments made to myself and others, but then I realized that maybe that stuff is true, but I truly don’t care for how I look in shorts. Much the same way brown colored items I don’t think look good on me either. Or how I am not the biggest fan of flowy fabrics. I hardly wear shorts or shirts that would show too much of my arms. This is in part due to my skin rashing up at the mere touch of sunlight and that I have issue with the extra fat and skin I carry. And I feel the worst for feeling that way.
So for a body that fights for me as hard as it does, can I also fight for it? To give it the best version of myself that I feel will perform at its best, will make me more comfortable with myself, and more healthy? Like I feel gorgeous now, but I don’t like having two chins, y’know? This is not something that I think looks good on me whereas there are others who can rock the shit out of some extra face skin.
I don’t share much about this or my journey with weight-loss. I don’t know what is appropriate to say or feel when it comes to my own body, and I hate that for myself.
People should love and care for me no matter my size. I deserve to feel I am beautiful, no matter my size. My worth should not be determined by my size. But I also deserve the right to feel comfortable and safe and happy and at my most beautiful in this body. I deserve to live a life where people don’t enforce their politics upon my body.
I worry about the comments one could have on something like this, but I do welcome them.
Thank you for writing this. I feel like I could have written something extremely similar even though I'm in a very different body from yours - I love myself but not the sensation of my body with abdominal fat pressing skin against skin, my knees complaining when I try to do too much in a day, my barbell scraping against a protruding belly when I do a weightlifting workout. I get *exactly* where you're coming from on food being the replacement for other addictions and a source of short-term comfort and long-term pain. This is an essay that could have been about me, and I'm sure you're touching a lot of hearts by putting it out there.
I'm grateful for your photos, because I went through the thought process of looking at both the beauty and empathizing with how you look at yourself, the things you want to change... and it's really difficult to try to strike a balance between acceptance and a desire for self-improvement. I think you deserve validation for what you're doing for yourself, and progress photos are a way of finding that for some.
This wouldn't be an issue if you were doing something for yourself in another sphere, like furthering your education for instance - even though not everybody wants or needs more school, and education is a privilege that not everyone can access, and some people do it for the wrong reasons or stress themselves out by overloading themselves, there's not such a deep insecurity about making a choice to do so. We don't say "I'm getting another degree, you should too or else you're lazy/unfit/whatever judgemental word." We also don't say "stop posting about how your studies are going, you'll give people with a high school diploma anxiety." I'm not sure how far I can work the analogy, but maybe it resonates a bit with someone.
Really, I just want to thank you for this awesome essay and for sharing all of this with us - you've gotten me thinking about my own self-perceptions and internalized issues.
This is everything I feel. My body isn't healthy, and it's not happy. I have health issues I didn't have before. It struggles when it didn't before. Yes, I want to look in the mirror and be comfortable with myself looking back at me. Yes, I want to walk up the stairs and not be out of breath. I don't hate myself or my body, and I also want better for myself and my body. And that's okay. Thank you for sharing this.