I love food. I love all food. Well, I love almost all food. I really can’t stomach sea food and most fishy fish and I’m a tad too delicate for fastfood. But these aside, I love food. Always have, and quite possibly always will.
This is a great thing, but also a curse. A great thing as it’s never been an ordeal for me to find something enjoyable on any menu, in any country. Plus I was raised with one of these motto “you cannot say you don’t like this if you haven’t tried it”. Along with “children in Africa would be happy to eat this” – ah the guilt of having food when so many children are starving in Africa was a card often played for me to finish my greens. But again I digress.
I love food. I love sweet as much as I eat savoury. I’d pass on spicy food though. Although it’s a crazy thing, I love and hate spicy food equally. I like the buzz of feeling the spicy food and I hate the feeling of molten lava going down my digestive tract. I eat when I’m hungry, obviously. But I also eat when I’m frustrated, stressed, bored, happy… I sometimes feel like a bottomless walking stomach.
This isn’t great.
I’m not morbidly obese, but I’m no skinny minnie either. I do try to control my cravings, I’m usually good 3 out of 4 weeks, there’s that one week when if anybody tried to stop me from hitting the maltesers, cheese, cakes, M&M’s etc. they take a chance of being annihilated. PMS can really multiply my strength all the while reduce my rational thinking.
But this aside, I try to exercise, and if I over indulge, I’ll aim to walk longer/faster, do some more exercises and such. Getting fit to get into my wedding dress was one of the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I had to be so focus, following a meal plan, going to the gym every single day. well 5 days out of 7. That’s good going. I even stopped eating dessert and chocolate.
I just wonder why do I have to go through this to have what is considered normal body shape/clothes size, when some people are just effortlessly trim.
It’s frustrating. I’ve read about some studies explaining the skinny genes thing. Well, I’m not only big boned (I have x-rays to prove it, I have a big bone structure) but I definitely have inherited some fat genes. I believe I have already mentioned my bum being big enough to have its own postcode. Actually, my bum isn’t that big these days. It’s mostly my hips.
It’s agonising. The crappy part is that I’ll work out, live on rabbit food with a decent intake of protein, hit the gym every other day, be super active everyday, and still I’ll put on 2lbs. And everywhere I look, TV, magazines, posters around the city, in the street, all I see is skinny girls drinking starbucks Frappucinos with cream on top. Do you know when it was the last time I got cream on top of my frappuccino? heck, do you know when I last drank a frappuccino? It’s so long ago I can’t even remember it.
I’m just pissed off because I know I’m not the only one going through this, my best friends are going through the same crap, the same cycle. We spend more time crying in the fitting rooms than most, always going for the low fat, small portion stuff, counting calories, following a weight watcher diet here, or the fasting diet. Ok maybe we don’t go as far as crying in fitting rooms, but you know… It’s tough when you find “your” size, but try it on, and it doesn’t fit because it’s Italian sizing, or Chinese or whatever.
But feeling the way I or we do, if hardly ever mentioned anywhere. I see everywhere all about being skinny, being tall, being trim, being toned, about being perfect. But we’re not. Who can raise their hand and say, hands on heart, I’m perfect. and that perfection doesn’t come from photoshop, living in the gym, counting calories and making me sick after I’ve eaten. What is even perfection?
When I was a kid, being perfect was wearing a tiara and being able to make some fancy moves with a lightsabre that would make Yoda proud. Being perfect was having great grades, and not ruining my Sunday’s clothes within the hour of wearing them.
When I was a teenager, I don’t think I really thought about being perfect, I was far too much into getting good grades, going to uni and all that.
When I became an adult, I guess the living on my own away from the protective bubble my parents created, I became more aware of what society considered as ‘perfection’. I was still obsessed with my grades heh. But I started paying attention to fashion, make up, trends, magazines. And that’s when it really hit me that my big bones were never going to be my allies. Neither are big patterns, moo-moo, synthetic fabrics and fake fur. But hey, you live and you learn.
I know I am not perfect, and it’s ok. I know that getting skinny isn’t the key to my happiness. I am happy. I’ve achieved a fair amount of things thank to my quest to academic perfection and the balance I’ve somehow sort of found between who I am and who I’d like to be.
But there’s always that part of that wonders, would things be better if I looked more like those girls in the magazines? Would I have a better job? It’s a well known fact that pretty girls always get the job, the promotions and such.
small bracket: when I got the job, I found out that it was a close call between myself, short, brunette, plump, but smart and able to do this job AND a blonde, skinny, with big boobs, but not as qualified as myself. The PA I was replacing used all her persuasive skills to sway the balance in my favour for that job. They did offer a different position to Blondie. She lasted 1 months, went on holidays and never came back.
So yeah, I do try my best to look smart, try to find closed that create the illusion that my waist is somewhat smaller. I sort of think that unless I don’t try to become smaller, say a couple of dress sizes smaller, just to see of that would change anything, if that would make me happier.
So there, tomorrow I’m going to start it all over again, like I did before the wedding. Will I succeed? I don’t know. But I’ll try. My motivation isn’t so much about getting into a dress, but more preparing myself for a bigger role in my life. Say, the next chapter of my life. But that’s another post.
I just wish people could over look the shell we inhabit, and not judge one another about whether or not we look perfect according to the latest perfection’s standard. I wish Fashion was such a dictatorship. Yes I use a strong word, but it’s true. Try to find clothes that will fit you perfectly outside the UK size 10, clothes that won’t cling to your belly, be too tight around your thighs, won’t make you lose your dignity if you lift your arms or bend over OR make you look frumpy, like a granny. You tend to have to make a choice between comfort and style when you’re a size 12 and up. You never get the same choices of clothes, patterns, fabric even. I’ll have you know that by 18th century standards I’d be perfect.
So yeah, here’s to the start of protein shakes for breakfast and dinner, salad for lunch, plentiful of water, apple and carrot batons for snacks, more exercises, and lets see what happens.
And this is a lonely path. Nobody wants to be around you when you eat healthy, and trust me, you don’t want to be around people when you eat salad and they have a burrito! It’s lonely because it’s hard to explain why I put myself through this. It’s lonely because if my other half joins in, he loses weight like magic, it falls off him without much efforts. To lose 1lb he just need to eat one less piece of toast a day. To lose 1lb, I need to go on the protein shake, stop all sweets and cakes, hit the gym like my life depend on it. He’ll lose it in a day, I’ll lose it in 2 weeks.
and it’s lonely because nobody admits to it. Everybody go through this, but who openly discuss it? Who? I have only one friend, we acts as each other motivator, who knows my weight, my ups and downs and vice versa. Would you admit how much you weight? Wouldn’t you fear that by doing so, you’ll place yourself in one of those position which would make it easy for other people to judge you? to redefine you, no by who you are, your achievement etc, but by how you don’t comply with the norm?
I would be a big fat liar if I was to say that I can openly tell you about my weight. I’m not quite there yet. I don’t wish to be defined by my age, I don’t wish to be defined by my nationality, I don’t wish to be defined by my job, and I sure don’t want to be defined by my weight. I already feel judged by the salespeople in shops, their judgemental glares say more than words what they think of me trying on such and such items.
I really do wish though, that someone would come forward and tell me what their thoughts are. Whether they agree or disagree with my views. That’d be handy.
In the meantime I’m going to enjoy a most refreshing glass of water with a slice of lime – oooh check me! – and then I’ll get clothes ready for the week ahead.
