[Guest Post] You Should Lose Some Weight

Please make welcome the lovely Katerina Edwards who is guest posting today.

The moment I take off my clothes, the feelings of self-worthlessness creep in.

“I think you should lose some weight,” the massage therapist murmurs.

Her words hit me right in my fleshy, untoned, cortisol-bellied stomach, right in the most sensitive, guarded and protected part of my psyche. She sees my white, blubbery, red marked body and I am ashamed.

I have done many a mirror meditations, but still I’m not pleased with my body. I don’t like the way my thighs rub together, it’s uncomfortable. I don’t like the way my arms lack definition. I don’t like that my stomach sticks out over my pants. I don’t like that I have an extra chin in my videos. I don’t like my acne marks. I don’t like this, I don’t like that.

And most of all, I don’t like when other people don’t like how I look. I worry that in the midst of sex, my partner would become repulsed by me and pull away.

I know I am fat – curvy, thick, whatever you want to call it. I have known this since I was eleven years old.

That summer, as I approached puberty, I remember watching young models in their stylish clothing on television. I envied their svelte figures as I sat there munching on sour patch kids and soda pop. I realized then I was chubby. I didn’t want this, I wanted to be loved and appreciated like the girls on television.

That summer, I vowed that I would stop eating sugar and cookies and candy, and decided to ditch carbs. I was eleven years old, and my mother didn’t say anything.

By the time I was sixteen, I was anorexic. Two years after that, I went into recovery and gained weight. My whole basis of being lovable was shaken with every pound I gained.

“I think you should lose some weight.”

All of my focus for the past ten years has been to avoid these seven words, the words that I see devastating the women in my country and abroad. These words, cutting through all semblance of self-worth and self-esteem, had the power to turn me into a superficial artificial woman, striving for a plastic ideal, for a well sculpted, chiseled ideal of a woman.

The pain I feel is overwhelming. In a culture where body insanity is so rampant and afflicts the minds of the youngest among us, who is really safe from feelings of insecurity? If my massage therapist’s remark can send me back to my past, how can I ever be free of this prison?

During these past few months since the massage therapists remark, I’ve realized a few things. Despite how far I have come from the shadows of the eating disorder, I must remain vigilant in my resolve that I am worth more than my body fat percentage and BMI.

I have friends who love me, a partner who adores me, and more energy and health than I ever experienced being “thin”. My life is vibrant, expressed, and authentic – something I could not say when I was obsessed with calories, numbers, and scales.

My body and my life have gone through changes during my recovery, and they continue to. The self-respect I’ve gained in choosing to value my health over the sold ideal in the media is the thing that keeps me going even in the midst of “fat talk” around me and triggered memories from darker days.

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About the author
Katerina is a self-empowerment coach who guides others into the fuller and more expressed lives they’ve been hungry for.
Blessed with the gift of seeing through bullshit, she helps unravel the web of lies and doubts that have been choking your creative spirit.         www.katerinaedwards.com

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