I don't think that I've ever been as heavy as I am right now.

Saying that statement a few years ago would probably have made me curl up into a ball and sent me into a tailspin of self hate.  I would have probably worked out and restricted my food or just give up eating altogether.  I probably would have done whatever it took so that I wasn't "as heavy as I am right now." 

I think I might have been this heavy at one point in high school, but I remember hooking up with a guy and he said something along the lines of "I like a girl with extra meat on her bones" and then it was just a downward spiral of thigh pinching and salads, and more importantly sadness until I wasn't a girl with "extra meat on her bones."  Who wants to be a girl with extra meat on her bones? I didn't.

It isn't until years later, as I'm almost graduating college that I can remove myself enough from that situation to say what do you mean "extra"?  More than what? He knew nothing about the weight I am healthiest at, and therefore nothing about what is or is not extra meat on my bones.

Me around 110 lbs

See I have a pretty curvy frame. Even at my thinnest weight of around 109-113 pounds (which I had pretty much starved myself to get to) I had a butt and I had C cup breasts.  I also have always had thick legs, no matter my weight.  The thick legs part is something that has literally taken me years to come to terms with.  Up until a year ago wearing shorts in the summer was equated to an existential crisis.  I'm not exaggerating.

So when I put on weight last summer after going on birth control, I started to retain water.  I was riddled with anxiety, wondering how my already curvy frame could handle the weight.  I crippled under the extra pounds that I felt on my body.  I had panic attacks if I couldn't work out every day.  I began to resign from my boyfriend, I burst into tears at various times probably from low blood sugar.  I didn't lose too much weight, I fluctuated due to water retention.  Not that it matters because I did lose my sanity, and my boyfriend, for the record.

Clearly I have had disordered eating habits throughout my lifetime, I know plenty of women in this country can relate to that.



To simplify things, my boyfriend and I broke up for a bunch of reasons including my insecurity.  When we broke up I hit rock bottom.  See he represented so much more than a boyfriend to me, he was my validation.

I managed to scratch and claw and fight to get myself out of the hole of depression I had entered.  I started to really address how my body was impacting my identity, and it was a long process.  After that experience I vowed that the number of pounds I weighed would never again quantify the amount of worth I held to myself, or to the world.

It has not been easy getting here, but I am the most secure I have ever been in my life. I am not happy all of the time, but I do not endure that type of self hatred that fluctuated with my weight.

So today, I am probably the heaviest that  I have ever been.
I am also the happiest.

I put on weight this summer although I was regularly working out and running around 3-5 miles a few times a week,  because I turned 21 and started working at a bar.  I was drinking a lot and not counting my calories (gasp!) and guess what I had a fuck load of fun.  I stopped caring about people calling me "curvy" or "full figured" or whatever other words would have previously sent me into a tail spin.

I gained 15 pounds, and I also gained a sense of myself. And I am not ready to shed the pounds until I know my self esteem will stay intact at any weight. 

Being able to hold extra weight on my frame and also hold my confidence is something that means the world to me.  It is an accomplishment that a few years ago would have been seen as a failure.  While it is something that most people in this society probably don't understand, it is something that has given me more self assurance than any amount of compliments or weight loss could have done a few years back.  It isn't entirely easy, either.

There are times that I want to give in to the monster. That I want to stop eating or start smoking again and do all of those things that I thought were pretty and alluring because I equated them with being thin, with becoming smaller, with disappearing.  I would be lying if I didn't say that at times that nasty little voice in my head pops up again, telling me I'm too fat, telling me I'm not worthy until I lose weight.  It's there, and it's real and it's probably not going to go away. But I'm not going to give in to it.

See we are so positively reinforced for these habits that slowly tear at our souls, that tell us that we are not worthy of love because of an abundance of flesh.  Because when we lose weight we are heroes and when we gain weight we should be ashamed.

But I am not ashamed.  Or at least I am fighting everyday not to be ashamed, and sometimes the fight is against myself.

Sometimes, I look back on the pictures of myself where I look really thin, and I think back to the day that I took the picture.

This was Halloween of 2010. Halloween posed a lot of self doubt for me. I wanted my boyfriend to think I looked better than everyone else. I hadn't eaten for two days before I took this. I also looked at myself in the mirror ever 5 minutes to make sure I looked okay.  I don't remember having fun that night, but I remember the pang of self doubt I felt every time I saw a girl skinnier than me.

I was pretty skinny here.  I was also partying a lot and was really sad over my boyfriend and I breaking up during that summer. I was drinking often, and smoking cigarettes.  I don't remember much about anything else over that summer except that I was skinny and I was sad about my boyfriend leaving me.  Two things that I today I would probably not rate very high on my list of priorities, especially considering I don't have a boyfriend.





So while I looked fairly skinny and happy in all those pictures, when I really think back to those nights  my main memory is self doubt, self doubt and how much I weighed.  I got sort of tired of measuring my life in those terms, of measuring my self in those terms. These days I spend my time worrying about more important shit.  For example, my job or my activism, or I don't know, my school work.  I have gained weight, but I have shed my dependency on both men and on being thin.

I was going to upload some more recent pictures to prove to you all that I'm still attractive even though I'm heavier but I'm not going to do that.  But what I can promise you is that when I look at pictures these days I look at them and I smile.  I think about the people I was with and the memories I have created.  I don't think about my weight.

This is not to shame girls who are dieting or want to lose weight, or struggling with their body.  This was only my path, and it is not everyone's path.  But for me, accepting my weight was what it took to find myself.

Because I am starting to work out again I will probably lose weight, but it will be on my terms and it won't be because some voice is nagging in my head telling me that I am not good enough, that I am not beautiful.  I refuse to rate myself as if my worth is somehow inversely related to the number on a scale.  I will start running again because I like the endorphins and it relieves stress. I will NOT allow my work out to be extended by self hating mantras.  I will love my body, no matter its abundance.


I vow that I will never again lose myself to a desire to lose weight.