Remember in my first blog post when I said that I have blogged before? Well, it turns out that I saved the content of my old blog so now I can share some of the best bits here – hooray!
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Weighing Success
We live in a size obsessed society. The thinner you are, the more successful you are deemed to be. Pick up any women’s magazine and you will find at least one article on how to lose weight (for the party season, the beach, your birthday, to get a man – anything!). We are a nation desperate to reduce the size of our waistbands and, if you are a woman, you probably have a desire to hit that elusive size 8. But does one size really fit all? I once thought it did, and just a few years ago the most important thing to me was losing weight.
Who needs food anyway?
And so the journey began. I restricted what I ate. I didn’t eat anything that wasn’t considered healthy food. I was in complete control. When the going got tough, I simply pictured my idols: Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Mischa Barton. If they didn’t need to eat, then neither did I.
Thin and miserable
I lost three stone in as many months. My lowest weight was 7 stone (98lbs) but most of the time I maintained at around 7 and a half stone (105lbs). I was as thin as I had ever wanted to be, and thinner than I ever dreamed of becoming. I will admit, that for a moment I was happy. But after a while the happiness faded and so did my spark.
Unfortunately the dream did not live up to the reality. I wasn’t adored. I wasn’t seen as successful or pretty. In fact, most people said I was too thin. This left me confused. I was as thin as the celebrities that were adored: Cheryl Cole, Victoria Beckham, Nicole Ritchie, but I wasn’t adored. I just didn’t get it. Wasn’t this a massive double standard? A huge contradiction? Here we are looking up to and emulating celebrities and when we manage to do so successfully, people actually don’t like it.
Everything comes at a price
Another thing the glossy magazines don’t reveal are the side effects of being underweight. As a general rule the thinner you are, the more uncomfortable your life will be on a daily basis. I’m not just talking about the obvious side-effect of being hungry. It goes further than that. Here are a few things that I found out first hand. You will feel cold all the time, your hair will fall out, you will suffer from insomnia, your periods will stop, you will have gastro-intestinal problems and be constantly tired and lethargic. Even sitting down becomes uncomfortable when you can feel your bones. You feel invisible. You don’t occupy any real space and all people want to talk about is your weight or what you do and do not eat.
Being thin didn’t change my life
After a while I came to realise that it just wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t normal to weigh the same as a child. It wasn’t normal to not be able to get a good night’s sleep and it wasn’t normal for a fully grown woman not to have periods. I had to admit that I had been fed a lie. Being thin didn’t change my life. It didn’t stop me having low self-confidence and it didn’t stop me feeling fat. I felt exactly the same as I always had but now I had other problems.
So I began to eat, which opened up a whole new can of worms. You will never know how good unhealthy food tastes, when you have forbidden yourself to have it for years. I went to town on junk, which upset my mind and my emotional balance even more than restricting ever did. And the real kicker? Once you have been that thin, anything more feels fat. I have to work on my body image every single day; slowly and surely I have come to accept it.
Believe in yourself
The moral of this story then, if there even is one, is not to wrap up all your hopes and dreams in being thin. Your life will not change if you lose weight. The images we see every day of unhealthy women are both unrealistic and unattainable so stop worshipping at the alter of thin. It just isn’t worth it. Be proud of who you are, in the strength that you have and of what you are able to achieve. Always remember that life isn’t any different in a smaller size.
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