Full breasts, a rounded stomach, soft sweeping curves from waist to thigh. These are the symbols of womanhood we try to erase through diet. We are told that the soft layer of fat that arrives when our sexuality blossoms in adolescence should be eradicated. Western society tells us our bodies are more beautiful when they are sharp, angular and stripped down to bones and muscle.
Every day, millions of women fight a battle against their womanly shape. They want the androgynous silhouette of a child complete with the muscle definition of a man. Some women even pump testosterone into their bodies to help win the war. Other women applaud them for their efforts complimenting the fact that they are “in great shape”. Women compete with each other and with themselves to be the leanest, the most muscled, and the strongest. It gives them a sense of accomplishment, a win on the battlefield of womanhood.
Unnaturally low body fat is not beautiful. It is contrived and fake. If you find yourself having to go into “weight loss mode” when your weight creeps up then your notion of your ideal weight is below what your body wants. If you take great care of yourself, eat healthy nutritious food, and eat in a way that honours your particular food strategy, then you should never have to worry about gaining/losing weight. So why are we never done? Why does the fat creep on over time and then has to be dieted away again?
It is because we want to be thinner than we were designed to be. And it’s because we fool ourselves when we say we have our relationship with food under control. A healthy relationship with food means that the rules you choose to live by are never broken. You don’t “fall off the wagon” or go “off plan”. The way you decide to eat, if it’s right for you, should be habitual and instinctive. The smell of freshly baked bread shouldn’t make you salivate or the sight of cheesecake shouldn’t evoke longing if gluten/sugar/fat are outside your idea of healthy.
But yet we fight with ourselves every day. We control our physical and mental urges, dismissing them as indulgent and destructive. We spend enormous amounts of energy enforcing the rules. And then we break them, the fat that is our birthright comes back, so we gather up our strength to do better in the future.
You are beautiful just the way you are. Your curves make you a woman. Your body is not the enemy, your needs and desires don’t have to be controlled like a naughty child. Eat however you want — be your own guru. You’ll know you’ve got it right when you no longer gain weight. It might be your thing to count calories and to have a purely scientific relationship with food, and if that works for you then that is wonderful. But if it is truly working, you should never have to worry about gaining weight because you’ll always stick to the plan.
I’ve finally figured out what works for me. I’m loving my female shape and have no desire to ever see my abs again. It doesn’t matter what it’s called or what the rules are, all I know is that I haven’t broken my rules for over six months and as a consequence, I am not one single gram heavier than I was six months ago. The way I eat is habitual and instinctive. There are no mental gymnastics every meal time. I choose, I eat, I move on.
There is nothing intrinsically good in having no fat. Small isn’t more beautiful than large. Bones aren’t better than breasts. But you are perfectly entitled to strive for leanness if that is what makes you happy. But for me, if staying that size requires a way of eating that I can’t maintain 100% of the time then I’m trying to be something I’m not. If conforming to society’s ideal means digestive problems, hormone disruption and physical discomfort then it’s not for me. I get to decide if I’m beautiful. I get to decide what I eat. Life is not a fight, it’s a wonderful adventure that is far too short to waste worrying about how my body compares to those models in Women’s Health and Fitness. If I’m going to compare myself to anyone, it will be the beautiful nudes painted by the Old Masters.