The Waist

The way women are supposed to look—our bodies in particular—changes at the same rate the decades come and go. Our figures go in and out of style like bell bottom jeans or one-piece swimsuits. While a slim silhouette was all the rave in 2002, the year 2016 would gift us with a fad of Brazilian Butt lifts and breast enlargements.

Most of us know this but—for some odd and subconscious reason—we still have the desire to fit into whatever mold is presently expected of us. Why do we do this? Why do we accept this?

Why did I accept this?

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When I was younger (well, I’m still “young” technically but when I mean “younger” I mean around age 10) I grew up immersed in Bollywood movies. Being a little Pakistani girl growing up in Canada, my mother always tried her hardest to make sure I had a connection with my roots. I had no complaints though. I adored these films. My body would shake with excitement every time I saw Aishwarya Rai or Deepika Padukone dancing on my screen. They would waive their full hips side to side and belly dance while wearing their rolls with pride. I’d mirror their moves, never once thinking about how my skin folded or how my stomach jiggled.

These women I grew up with were the most beautiful people I had ever seen, at the time.

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Fast forward a few years, I think around age 13 or 14, I made the grave mistake of opening up the app store and clicking the download button under the Instagram application. I remember it so vividly. This was the back in the day when the app had that iconic brown camera instead of the new pink hue. My phone was on “bright mode” but at the time that was the only mode available. My cat was resting on my lap as well.

God I was so naive, but so so excited.

I never even planned on opening an account till I was 18, until I found out lying about my age wasn't illegal. Or maybe it was. Whatever the circumstance, all my friends had accounts so I wanted one too. I felt left out, so I needed to catch up.

At first there wasn’t much wrong with the app. Not at all actually. It really did just start as a place for people to share pictures of their lattes and brunches. Some showed off their new blonde balayage and others made makeup tutorials. I spent my time posting pictures of my cat and watching nail art videos. That specific era was calm; it was a simple showcase of talent, nothing like how it would soon become.

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Eventually I turned 16. The big old 16. 11th grade. Junior year. The infamous hardest year of high school. You'd think we'd be focusing on our studies, right?

That's funny.

At this point, people had started switching their accounts from private to public. Follower counts went from 10 to 1000 while friend counts stayed the same. It was kinda weird—now that I think about it—having all these random people following me and my 16 year old friends. Nevertheless, with all these eyes upon us, we had to look our best.

I mean, who else would you want to look good for if not random strangers on the internet?

It didn’t take long for me to notice that the girls who gathered followers at an exponential rate all shared a commonality. It wasn’t their skin tones or facial features. It wasn't their hair colour or fashion sense. It most certainly had nothing to do with their talent. So what was it?

The waists. They all had the same waist.

These waists had a very specific look to them. They were wide at both the top near their busts and at the bottom near their butts. The middle dipped in like an hourglass as both sides completely mirrored the other. Their bellybuttons were long and seemed to trace across the middle line of their abdominal muscles.

Something about their flat stomachs was just so mesmerizing. They looked good in every top and low waisted pant. This perfect waist became branded as a standard into my mind, completely warping my vision.

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The Bollywood women I once praised began to look fat to me. I no longer liked their hips and rolls. They just seemed so big. These perfectly healthy and curvy women started to look plus-size through my eyes.

Now, I praised the girls who had millions of followers just because of their waist. I thought it was ridiculous at first—that something so stupid would give them so much attention—but I quickly realized I was a hypocrite. I myself would spend hours staring at them with admiration and envy. The boys would not shut up about their tiny little waists, how they could fit them in their hands and carry them around. Everyone, including me, was jealous of them. Girls would be begging for their workout routines and diets. I swear I'd see some of them following these "influencers" into the gym just to see how they structure their exercises.

I wanted what they had. The waist. The attention. The boys.

I needed it.

So, I forced myself to work towards it.

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Going to the gym regularly is obviously healthy. It increases dopamine or something like that. I didn’t care about the health aspects though, that stuff barely crossed my mind. I just wanted a small waist. You know, the waist.

I did a lot of research in regards to what exercises to perform in order to reach my goal. I learned a few things, like how abs are made in the kitchen and how cardio burns more calories than lifting. I learned about progressive overload and plateaus in weight loss. But, after hours of surfing the internet, I learned that the most important thing I had to pay attention to was my caloric intake. I had to eat less calories than I burned: a calorie deficit.

God, just typing out that word gives me flashbacks. Caloric deficit; I took this concept way too far.

Cardio burns calories and—I learned—different forms burn different amounts. 1 hour of swimming can burn up to 800, 1 hour of walking can burn about 200-300, and HIIT (high intensity interval training) can burn upwards of 900 in 30 minutes. So, in order to utilize this information to coincide with my goal, I developed a routine. I swam 5 times a week, walked for 2 hours every day, and did a 20 minute HIIT workout every other day. Now, I didn’t have an apple watch, so I can’t be completely sure, but I imagine I was burning around 1200 calories a day just through exercise. On top of all that I was hardly eating 1000 calories a day.

I was definitely in a calorie deficit alright. A deadly one.

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At this time, still age 16, I had no idea genetics had an effect on your body. I didn’t know that bone structure affected your width or that everyone distributed fat differently. I didn’t understand the concept of slow vs fast metabolisms or that muscles looked different on everyone. I had never heard of a "healthy weight". I thought the skinnier the better, regardless of the pounds. I truly believed that my only excuse for not having the body I wanted was that I wasn’t working hard enough.

So, I worked harder.

I weaved in a few days of weight training throughout the week—around 3 days—where I would focus entirely on leg and ab workouts. I believed that if I accidentally ate more than MyFitnessPal allowed me to, it would go straight to repairing my muscles. In addition to that—and I’m truly embarrassed about this one—I adopted a nicotine addiction. I had read somewhere that the reason so many smokers are so thin is because the addictive ingredient, nicotine, acted as an appetite suppressant. I didn’t use cigarettes—like the paper one that gives you tar lung—but I did use e-cigarettes, or vapes. You know, like the ones young people use because we’re convinced it's “healthier” than the real thing. Nonetheless, it worked. I ate a lot less.

A lot less.

Slowly, I began to lose weight. Not that I was ever really fat in the first place, but any fluff I did have began to disappear. My love handles started to flatten; I could now wear low-waisted jeans. The flesh meant to protect uterus quickly followed; now my crop tops could ride a bit higher. The thin muscles that hid under my fat began to reveal themselves; I could now look toned under the right lightning and proper angles.

I finally had the waist.

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I constantly flaunted the progress I had made, the waist I had made. I wore the bikinis and crop tops I never thought I’d fit into. I bought size 00 jeans and extra-small pants. Everywhere I went I wore the most skimpy clothes I could find just to show off the waist, even when it was freezing cold. I took pictures of myself in uncomfortable positions while flexing my abs to ensure they were my most prominent feature. I uploaded these photos to my feed, just like I had always wanted to.

And guess what? I got the boys and the attention.

Everyone asked me how I did it. Those same girls now wanted my routine. They asked me for recipes and cooking tips. Boys who didn’t even know I existed a few months earlier were messaging me daily. They'd come behind me in class and wrap their hands around my waist.

I had all the things I wanted. Right?

I should have been happy, right?

Oh you silly silly girl.

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My hair began to fall out; now I could no longer tie my hair up unless I wanted to display my bald spots to the world. My skin started to fall off; the softest touch would leave me bleeding. My lungs were practically collapsing because of the vaping; I’d hear popcorn sounds every time I coughed. I couldn’t stand up without having to sit back down; my head would start spinning, forcing my body to the ground.

The waist was supposed to make my life better. I was supposed to be a prettier girl. I was supposed to fit in the mold.

I was supposed to be happier.

But I wasn't even close.

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The boy's attention didn’t satisfy me the way I thought it would. I hated being groped. I knew they just wanted me for my body. My friends’ admiration didn’t make me feel confident or proud. I didn’t want to tell them how I did it; I couldn't stand the thought of them going through the hell that I put myself through.

All of the perks—all the life enhancements—I expected to come along with the waist seemed to be a hoax. Nothing got better. Sure, certain things changed. Events I once dreamed of had started to occur. But, the feelings that coupled them did not meet my expectations.

I hated myself. All because of this stupid waist.

I was so sick. I spent most of my time in my room hiding in baggy clothes because, unfortunately, confidence didn’t come with the new body. I was more insecure than ever before. I was throwing up every few days. Not much was coming out though, just bile. My head was pounding every morning when I woke up and every night before I went to bed. Sleeping was my only escape. I hated waking up and would wait all day just so I could go back to bed. I was so, so tired.

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One night, after I had woken up from my sleep, I stumbled across my mother in the kitchen. She had woken up too. I began to steep my classic diet drink—green tea with no sugar—when my mom asked if she could warm me a cup of milk. I declined her offer, explaining that the calories were too much.

Suddenly, she broke down.

I never see her cry, and I mean never. She was always so strong and resilient. I couldn’t understand why milk had such an effect on her.

She came and hugged me. I felt the sobs become stronger

She had felt my bones in my back and arms. The thick hair that used to define me was now gone. I quickly realized that I wasn’t just harming myself. I wasn’t the only one affected by my sickness. My poor mother had to watch her daughter disintegrate into nothing.

It washed over me like a wave, all in one moment. All the times I threw away her dinners or stayed in my room for lunch. All the times I skipped breakfast and declined her Starbucks invitation. When I wouldn’t even eat any cake on her birthday. These moments finally hit me.

She was hurting too, possibly even more than I was.

After that night I made a promise to myself. I was done.

Done with the restricting and stupid fad diets. Done with the over lifting and excessive swimming. Done with vaping and addiction to nicotine. I was done with it all.

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Slowly, but surely, I began to eat more and more everyday. I never turned down another one of my mom’s meals again. I tried my hardest to clear my plate every time.

I even began to snack again. I’d have chips when I felt like it and chocolate mochi for dessert. It felt amazing. I had no idea how much I missed it.

I still worked out but not nearly as much. I sort of ditched cardio all together and focused more on building muscle mass. I still walked, but only for about 10 minutes as a warm-up. My workouts now only last about 1 hour and I go to the gym only 4 times a week. Now, I enjoy working out. Lifting makes me feel strong and powerful, unlike before when I felt like my bones would snap at any minute.

Although it took a hefty amount of time paired with intense discipline, I quit vaping. I no longer needed to suppress my eating so there was no reason to continue. I now feel lighter and less nauseous. I can finally walk up and down the stairs without feeling like I participated in a marathon. I’m not sure if my lungs will ever fully recover from the damage I put on them, but its okay. I've learned to forgive myself for this mistake so I can thank myself for stopping before I fell any further down the rabbit hole.

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Initially, it's true, my reason for recovery was due to my mom. I hated seeing her pain and stress. I was focused on making her feel better, not necessarily myself. But, overtime, I began to come across realizations that I never would have met if I hadn't decided to heal.

Now that I was feeling healthier, I felt happy. That happiness I was yearning for, it finally came. I felt full of life again. I like to think choosing this path released me from the shackles of societal pressure. I no longer care about how I look. I go to the gym because I love my moving my body. I eat brownies because they fill me and my stomach up with joy. My body shape isn’t a concern for me anymore. I’m just thankful she’s still functioning properly, working hard everyday to keep me alive. Food is fuel to me now and all food is good food.

Sure, I don’t have the waist anymore, but I have a different waist. I have the waist my healthy body is supposed to have, the waist I look and feel best in.

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Not everyone is supposed to look super skinny. Some might have it genetically, some might not.

I do not.

I am meant to look like those women in the Bollywood movies. We’re from the same part of the world and share the same genetics. None of us are very thin and we aren't very fat either. But even if we were, who cares? As long as we're healthy, none of us should change ourselves to fit the trending mold.

No one in Bollywood changes themselves, so why should I?

Now, I'm not saying I'm some sort of actress. What I'm saying is that I am beautiful just the way I am. The body I have when I’m healthy is my true self and—even if social media and beauty standards want to dim it down— I will always let it shine through.