Weight – May, Myself And I #6 (Catch Up)

May 6: Weight

I don’t think it will be a surprise to anyone that I am concerned about my weight. The fact that women are concerned about the way they look is something that we just accept as normal and, dare I say it, even expect.

Think about how you, your friends or the media reacts when a woman owns who she is. We all become a little outraged when we see a fat girl in a bikini or a woman who clearly isn’t bothered about what is going on with her face or body.

On the other hand, we also become outraged when a woman cares too much about how she looks. If a woman goes under the knife to adjust her face or body; if she wears too much makeup or spends a long time getting ready then we deem her a superficial and stupid.

Honestly, as a woman it really does feel like your fighting a losing battle with everything you do.

Personally, I started to feel weird about my body when I got into secondary school. For most of my childhood I didn’t really care how I looked, but I did always think that I was different to other girls and that was a bad thing.

I’ve always had insecurities, even as a little girl. The very first thing I remember being concerned about was my voice. In nursery, at which point you are around three or four years old, I remember worrying that I didn’t sound like other girls because my voice was deeper. This naturally meant that I mustn’t be good enough.

The insecurities I felt about myself got worse, as I think they do for all of us, when I became a teenager. At around fifteen or sixteen I honestly thought I was the ugliest, fattest, nastiest person that had ever been born.

I spent so much time as a teenager faffing on with myself, trying to make myself prettier. I’d like to say that now I’m in my twenties it’s all gone away – but I still have my moments. Many of them.

For the past few years, my weight has been a huge concern for me. I have always been quite big, quite chunky. I have wide shoulders, wide hips and wide thighs as it’s just the way I’m made. My family is quite broad, so there was no way I wasn’t going to be.

Since going to university, getting into a relationship and going on contraception I have piled on the pounds (stones, should we say). From the ages of eighteen to where I am now at twenty-three I have put on so much weight.

These were very transformative years in many ways and so much has happened to me during this time. Almost all of it, whether good or bad, has been punctuated with me feeling bad about my weight.

I don’t think our obsession with weight and how other people look will go away soon, but you can start to make a difference with yourself. We are always our own worst critics and I know that I can be horrible to myself.

At the moment, I am actually trying to control my weight a little bit. I haven’t been treating my body the way I should – falling into bad habits of binge eating and not moving. Not only has this caused by body to get bigger and my jeans to feel a little tighter, but it has always hugely impacted my mental health.

I am currently on a journey of relearning everything I thought I knew about my body and how I should treat it. Old habits die hard and I am finding it quite hard to look after myself the way I should; the way I need.

But I’m determined.

I just want to say that your weight is not all that you are and it is something that shouldn’t hold you back. I don’t even want to be cliche and say that you should be looking after yourself properly, because what you do and how you eat is none of my business.

I think we all just need to take on that attitude – what other people do is none of your business. It’s hard, because I am as nosy as they come, but it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

I hope you are okay and are treating yourself kindly. You deserve it.

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I think this may be the longest post from this challenge and I certainly could have went on for longer. I’m sorry it’s late, but I knew I had a lot to say and simply didn’t have the energy yesterday.

Let’s see what the rest of the challenge brings!

Speak soon,

Rachael.