Ever since I began my weight loss journey (I've lost 60 lbs to date, and have 40 more to go), I've been confronted with cultural and personal ideas regarding feminine beauty. When I was a bigger girl, I knew that I was overweight and was extremely self-conscious. I disliked my body, and as a result, I consciously chose to invest my worth and my time on other aspects of myself. I knew that potential partners wouldn't be choosing me for my body (at the time I wasn't aware of the somewhat substantial portion of the population that is attracted to people of size, and even if I had been, I wouldn't have been okay with it, since I wasn't okay with the size of my body. I wouldn't have wanted to be celebrated for something I so desperately despised). I'd often surmised by frequent observation of couplings occuring in my immediate social vicinity and, of course, pop culture and celebrity culture, that if a woman was beautiful, she could get away with murder. In other words, if she was beautiful, it seemed that her other attributes didn't matter as much--she would still recieve privilege and opportunities because of her face and body, and she didn't have to work as hard to be smart and charming. But I knew I wasn't drop dead gorgeous, and add to that the extra weight I was carrying around and I knew that I'd have to have a killer wit, intelligence and charm, as well as a healthy dose of fucking submission to be a desirable partner. As I write this, two rather disturbing things occur to me:
1) I valued being a desirable partner above all else--above being a kind, ethical, and worthy person. I also did not value myself as a whole and entire being--in other words, I was (and to some extent still have a tendency to) value myself in terms of other people's (particularly sexual and romatic partners) approval.
2) My insecurity about my apparent "valuelessness" due to my weight, combined with some heavy-handed cultural and religious indoctrination in my youth, led me to be extremely apologetic for my thoughts, feelings, and actions, especially those that were assertive, brave, or in any way went against prevalent cultural and social perspectives. This lead me to all too frequently submit to my partner's desires and opinions and suppress my own, with a resulting great deal of resentment and a fucking huge inability to say "no." Saying no deserves its own post, as I know I am not the first, nor will I be the last woman to struggle with this small and incredibly powerful word.
Furthermore, since I disliked my body and my appearance in general, I didn't spend too much time adorning it. I hated clothes shopping--who likes reminders of being a size 18 or 20? Similarly, I avoided scales at all costs, and preferred to simply clothe my body as quickly and as simply as possible. I did spend some time on my hair, and wore lip gloss, as my lips and hair were, at that time, my favorite features.
This lack of time and money spent on beauty rituals allowed me to instead spend time reading, writing, thinking, and engaging in coversation. I valued my personal and intellectual development above all else, and the efforts paid off. I was proud of who I was as a person, and prided myself on being a deeper, wiser, and more compassionate woman than women who were merely externally beautiful (I realize that now, this assumption is itself, flawed, as possessing external beauty does not preclude a person from having internal beauty and depth). This is something I did not want to recognize at the time, as I so desperately needed to believe I had value despite my more than generous curves.
Finally, one night, while talking to my partner, I broke down in sobs, confessing as I'd done many times before, that I hated my body. I said it out loud: "I'm fat. I know I am. I'm heavy, overweight, no matter how you want to put it. It's not just that I'm insecure, though there's lots of that too. I was heavy when I got pregnant, and then I kept on the 30 lbs I'd gained after the pregnancy. I'm just so sick and tired of putting on all this weight. I'm tired of carrying it all aroud--both the physical and the emotional weight of it. I want to find out who I am underneath."
And so there it was. For the first time, I said aloud that I was fat and wanted to lose weight. Acknowledging it was painful, and the process of learning to control my emotional eating and get my body moving has been long and extremely challenging. But that isn't the focus of this post. I had the suspicion that my weight was about more than just overeating and lack of excercise. In fact, I had the sense that some part of me had intentionally put on the pounds in order to hide who I really was. I was so deeply afraid of being rejected by a lover, and by the world at large that I did everything I could to make myself undesirable. I felt that I could just hide away from the world in my books and journals and learn to love myself--alone, safe, and sequestered away from all those who might hurt me, push me away, or tell me that I was fat. Fuck them, I knew I was fat and flawed, and at least I kept to myself so no one would have to see it. Or fuck it.
Furthermore, growing up, as I've written in other posts here, I was very volputous from the tender age of 11. At 11 I started bleeding, and overnight I had breathtaking curves and C cup breasts. I, of course, thought I looked absurd, but there was an instant change in the way boys and men began to look at me--and treat me. My mother started to shame me and acted as if I was overly sexual--even though nothing about my demeanor or behavior had changed. My father acted strange around me and stopped talking to me altogether. Boys teased me and teachers stared. This sort of behavior continued through middle school, and when I hit high school I started to gain weight. I wanted to hide my breasts and hips and curves and become invisible. There was something about me that was different, bigger, louder, and more powerful about me--and I was terrifed about it. I just wanted to fade into the background. And so I put on weight. Ironically, no matter how heavy I got, my curves never went away. My breasts just got bigger, and my hips got wider, but the hourglass figure remained. Of course, less and less people noticed me, and when they did look, their gaze did not linger.
And so, some part of me was afraid to allow me to be ME. I gained weight in order to hide who I was (and am) and ate emotionally in order to avoid my passions, desires, and deepest dreams. And over this last year and a half, the process of shedding the weight, pound by pound, has not merely been a process of diet and exercise, but rather a painstaking and excruciating process of removing all the pain and shit and dirt that I'd caked onto myself to hide my body and soul. Peeling off all my armor, and all the flesh and skin that encased my true being has been so fucking messy and hard. And in the last year and a half, not only have I lost 60 pounds, but I've had to take a good hard look at myself and make some tough decisions. I, the girl who is terrified of stability and commitment, proposed to my boyfriend and married him. I accepted a job that I knew was wrong for me, and finally gathered the courage to leave it. I enrolled and began classses in the Women and Gender Studies Department at the local university. I wrote about motherhood and sexuality, and wrote my first "book" project (still unpublished and unedited as yet) on sexual health and first time experiences ( a manual for the soon to be sexual) in honor of my youngest sister's graduation from high school. I've begun stepping out into the Kink community and will be attending my first AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists) conference next week--the first step in the long process of becoming a certified sexuality educator, and oh so much more. I just don't know what yet.
And though there is far too much to say than I can manage in this one post ( you can be assured many more on the subjects of weight, body image, health, and beauty), I have been overwhelmed by the way the world has treated me since losing so much weight. I am no longer invisible, and that scares the shit out of me. People STARE all the time. I get hit on just about everywhere I go. And to be honest, I don't really like it. In my day-to-day life, I'm still that girl that prefers to go about her buisiness and not be noticed. I don't need people trying to get in my pants while I'm picking up a gallon of milk in the gorcery store in my sweat drenched workout clothes. I really fucking don't. All this male looking at my body, and forgetting that I have a soul and a life, and an inner person really sucks. Why is it that only fat girls are allowed to have a soul???
And finally, weight loss takes LOTS of hard work. And so, a good deal of the time I used to spend on soul-betterment is now being spent on body-betterment. I work out at the gym 6 days a week, for anywhere from 6-7 hours a week, not counting driving time. I cook 90% of my meals at home, and have overall become more vain--weighing myself regularly, examing my body for changes, and taking pleasure in my appearance. There is a certain obsessive quality that comes with the determination to lose so much weight. Counting calories, pushing harder and harder at the gym, resisiting dessert, and so on. I struggle with the intention behind my habits--am I losing weight becuase I HATE my body, or because I love it and want to take care of it? I began this journey becuase I hated who I had become, but try to continue it because I love who I am--whoever that turns out to be.
Stay tuned for more.
Lots of love,
Inanna
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