I'm Fine With My Body

I've never really been one to call myself skinny. Ever since I was a kid I've always had a little bit of meat on my bones and I was perfectly okay with it. Unfortunately I was the only one. I grew up in a culture where as a child and as a young adult you are supposed to look a certain way and be a certain weight. Now if you were a little on the older side, it was okay to have some weight to you. But as a child I was always nitpicked at how chunky I was. I felt ugly, unloved and an outcast all because I was a chunky kid.

This was made worse as I got into my teenage years. One of my family members (who I will not name out of respect) always commented about my weight and I hated it. As a teenage girl that can destroy your self confidence like that, no matter how confident you are. And it also came at a time when I accepted the fact that I was always going to be a little chunky for the rest of my life and I was willing to live with that. After those comments I did the typical teenage reaction to being called fat. I exercised excessively and I barely ate a damn thing just to make sure I lost weight.

I did lose about 20 something pounds in about 4 days. You read that right. 4 days. I kept the weight off for about a month and a half and I achieved that by calorie counting and being obsessed with what I ate all the time. I hated it. I absolutely hated it. Mainly because I absolutely loved food and I felt like I was denying myself one of the many things that I loved. I finally decided forget it, my love of food was more important than my need to be skinny and accepted by everyone else. I gained that weight back and some. I felt great. One average I gained about 5 pounds a year and I was perfectly okay with that. It's not like I was trying to impress anybody or anything so it didn't matter to me.

But then a certain family member made a comment about my weight again, this time adding in the fact that nobody will ever love me because I was a little overweight. As much as that hurt me I honestly didn't care. By the time I hit college I was at a weight where I felt the most comfortable. When the work really kicked into high gear I honestly ate anything and everything that came my way. I ended up gaining weight but that was okay. I was perfectly okay with it. I was still me. Yeah I got a little chunkier but I was honestly okay with it.

But man let me tell you this family member did not let it go. Every chance she got she commented on my weight. Did it hurt me? Yeah. Did it kill me? No. Did it change the way I saw myself? No.

Did I still love myself after all those comments?

Absolutely.