My amazing
friend Annabel sent me a copy of “Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall: How I Learned to
Love My Body by Not Looking at It for a Year” and even though I am just a few
chapters into it I’m hooked. I remember reading her (the author- Kjerstin Gruys)
blog when I was first starting out on my journey. It was amazing to see what
she was going through living without mirrors but at that time I was nowhere
near being mentally ready to take on a feat of that magnitude. I was just
starting out, I still was using my training wheels J
And no, I
am not saying that now I am ready to live for a year without mirrors. I don’t
think that is something I would ever do. But I do think frequently about living
without a scale. It’s funny how I went from never ever never weighing myself to
weighing myself (almost compulsively) daily which was how I spent about 2 years
of this journey- weighing myself every single day. Now I have moved from daily weighing
to weekly and now (because I am trying to help my husband out with his weight
loss goals) weighing in twice a week- Friday and Monday.
When Paul
and I had the discussion about the need for him to stop weighing daily I really
wanted to push us to weighing just once a month. That wouldn’t work for him (you
know, since his job actually depends on his weight) so I said how about once a
week. He said that he liked the idea of twice weekly, at least at first,
because weighing in Friday (after a week of hard work) and then again Monday
(after a weekend of celebration/excess) will help to show the impact of our
weekend decisions and hopefully lead us to make better choices over the weekend
and reinforce some good habits. And I agreed with that logic and said ok.
So that is
where I am today; weighing myself twice a week. And I am ok with that. I’m not
(for the most part) obsessing about it either. And I think that is key to my
happiness with my weight. I know I have said it here before but I don’t want to
sacrifice my happiness just to reach some arbitrary number on a scale. Yes, I
would love to be at a healthy weight but when I think about my life and my
goals my main focus is on being active, doing the things I love, and setting
plans in action to help me achieve my goals. All while still having an occasional
beer or cupcake. J Balance, right?
You may be
wondering where I am going with this post- this rambling about my weight and
the scale. I’m getting to the point…hopefully soon.
In the
book ‘Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall’ Gruys cites this statistic (and I am not
sure how accruate/current it is but it’s a great reference point) about the
average American woman; she is 5’ 4” and weighs 165 pounds. This is me, more or
less- I’m a smidge taller, I am the average American woman. The average runway
model is 5’ 9” and 110 pounds. This will never be me. Obviously, I will never
gain 4 inches in height, but I know I will also never get to that weight. Hell,
I would never want to be that weight. Even for my height, 110 lbs. is
underweight which is also bad for your body just like being overweight.
But this
ideal, this constant reinforcement, through campaigns and magazines and
television ads, that beauty is 5’ 9” 110 lbs. is where it all starts. And I am
not saying that models aren’t’ beautiful. They are. But there are so many
different bodies and shapes and sizes that are also beautiful. And I want them
all to be accepted and adored and loved. I want pictures in magazines to represent
all women, not just one body type. I want media to stop making women (me) feel
inadequate because I am not a size zero, because I have curves, because I have
pudge. But is it really the media that’s to blame?
No, it’s
me. I am the only one that can make myself feel inadequate. Yes, seeing images
everywhere of beautiful women I will never look like doesn’t make it easy. BUT
it is up to me to define what is beautiful. It is up to me to stop being afraid
of my body, of being judged, of feeling not good enough because I don’t need
to.
See, I am
her- the average American woman. And you know what? That’s good enough.
Strike
that.
That’s
beautiful.
I’m
beautiful. And so are you.
Whatever
shape or size.
Inside AND
outside.
If I want
the world to look at me and see beauty then I have to see it for myself first.
It starts with me, not you. I can’t expect others to change their definition of
beauty if I cannot change mine first.
And so I
have.
I have committed
myself to seeing my beauty every day and I have committed myself to seeing the
beauty in others. Always. No more judgment. No more picking other people apart.
No more self-hatred. No more competition. No more.
And so
this average American woman finally felt the freedom to take her average
American body out to the beach this past weekend…in a bikini nonetheless.
Because it
was time for me to stop hiding my body. Because I am not ashamed of how I look.
I’m proud. I stopped seeing my body as having flaws but instead I think of them
as just my personal characteristics. Just like my eye color or my height or my
tattoos.
It has
been a whirlwind transformation internally. Just two months ago I wore a
bathing suit in front of a friend (my very, very close friend AC) for the first
time. It was just two months ago that I had enough courage to let someone else
(besides myself and Paul) see me in a bathing suit and now I am out on a public
beach, filled with strangers, in a bikini.
.JPG)
You may be
asking what happened to trigger such a change. Well, I haven’t lost any weight.
Actually if anything I probably weigh more. My body still looks the same. So it
wasn’t a physical change that brought me here.
No I think
I finally had that mental shift I have been waiting for to happen. That release
from an image, a number, a definition of beauty. I stopped obssessing over my
future self and realized that 150 lbs won’t make me beautiful, nor will 140 or
130. Skin removal surgery won’t either. Nor will magically becoming 5’ 9”.
Nope, I realized (over time of course) that beauty is universal. I always had
it. It’s not something I should be striving for because I am already there.
Yes, there
are things I would like to improve about myself. I would like to be stronger
and faster, I want to be more patient and understanding, I want to be a better
friend, a better human. And I try to work on those things daily. But beauty,
particularly beauty associated with a specific weight, is no longer something I
obsess over.
Who could have thought
wearing a bikini would be so liberating?
