Skinny Shaming

We have all heard of fat shaming.  We know that it is wrong, and most of us have no tolerance for it.  There is no argument about whether or not fat shaming is wrong, and we applaud women of a larger stature for being proud in their own skin.  We celebrate that confidence.  But when it comes to skinny shaming, I feel that people are very much the opposite.  You might argue that there is no such thing as skinny shaming, because they should just be happy with how they look.  But why is one ok and the other is not.  NO WOMAN, large or small, should be made to feel ashamed in her own skin, especially not by other women. 

I myself am guilty of skinny shaming, without even being aware of it.  I have always been against skinny shaming, and have celebrated women of all shapes and sizes.  But being a larger girl myself, I have been known to playfully call my thinner friends “skinny”.  I do this as a compliment, because for me, I would LOVE to look the way they do.  But I have learned that these comments are not always taken in such a way. 

I have a gorgeous friend, who has an amazing figure.  She could be a model if she wanted to be, every picture of her looks like an image that should be on the front of a CD cover.  I look at her and I just assume that she is full of confidence.  Why wouldn’t she be?  She’s stunning.  But she’s not full of confidence.  In the time that I’ve known her, I couldn’t tell you the amount of times I’ve seen her get upset because of something that someone has said to her about her weight.  People have told her she needs to eat more (may I add that she eats like a horse), people have told her that she looks like a heroin addict and people (like me) continually call her skinny.  None of these things are ok.  If I told you that someone told me that I needed to eat less because I was too fat, you would agree that that person was an insensitive D-bag.   But why is one ok, and the other is not.

We celebrate singers like Megan Trainor and Nicki Minaj because they are empowering us to be confident in our bodies.  But they are not; they are skinny shaming women for not having curves.  “I’m bringing booty back, go ‘head and tell them skinny b****es that,” shockingly those are lyrics from Trainor and not from Minaj, I won’t even begin to quote her.  If you replaced the word “skinny” with “fat” there would be uproar, and she would be wildly discredited.  But when it’s skinny shaming, we celebrate it because she’s empowering us.

She’s not.  We should be celebrating women of all size.  We should be empowering each other and celebrate that we are all so different.  That’s what makes life interesting.  It doesn’t make a man shallow for being attracted to a more slender woman, just like it doesn’t make him any less shallow for being attracted to a woman with curves.  We are all beautiful in our own way, and hopefully there will always be someone out there that will be attracted to us, but none of that matters if you don’t absolutely love yourself.  We need to empower each other to love ourselves, not body shame and put down, in order to build ourselves up.

I am not writing this to put blame on anyone.  Like I have said, I have been guilty of this in the past.  But knowledge is power, and when I know better I do better.  I know the effect words can have on people.  We need to think not about how we mean for things to be taken, but about how they are received by the people we are saying them to.  We all have the power to build up or tear down, if we build each other up; think of how strong we could be.  Stop body shaming of any kind, and celebrate our differences, they are beautiful. 

Taking my life back!

I’ve talked before about how important it is to me to stay positive through everything that happens in my life.  I always see the glass as half full, and I am blessed as a result of that.  Recently my health has taken a bad turn, though I refuse to let it defeat me.  This episode has scared me into gaining control, and getting healthy.  I am taking my life back.  One day at a time, and I won’t be stopped.

I have been mistreating myself for some time now.  I have an unhealthy body and an unhealthy mind.  I don’t eat the right foods, or exercise and I am 80 lbs. over weight.  I allow worry and stress to effect me in an unhealthy way, and I allow people to effect me more than they should.  I have been abusing my body and my mind, and allowing myself to fall deeper into an unhealthy state of being.  I am thankful that my health was impacted in the way that it was, my body physically couldn’t take the abuse any longer.  I am thankful because it has given me the motivation and determination that I needed to take back my life.

I believe that the people that come into our lives don’t do so by accident.  We meet people when we need to, and they impact our lives positively or negatively for a reason that we aren’t always privy to right away.  I recently met a woman who sells the Herbalife shakes, and runs many fitness activities.  She is also a health coach, and she does this free of charge.  I met with her on the same day that I met with my doctor and learned what was going on with my body.  I began my Herbal Life shakes that night.  Only a few days on, I am already feeling the health benefits, as well as the incredible support from this wonderful woman.

This is the first time in my life, that I have been motivated to lose weight for health reasons.  That sounds crazy, but health was never really a motivational factor for me in the past.  I wanted to be thin.  However, after a few weeks of any diet, I would lose the motivation, because I had never really believed that I would ever lose the weight.  It’s different this time.  Yes, I want to feel good in my own skin, and feel attractive.  But more than that I want to be healthy.  This is the strongest motivation I have ever felt.  Which is why I am certain that I can do this.  I know I can achieve my goals and take my life back. 

I am also making changes in my life to improve my mental health.  V and I have been talking every day since my move to Florida.  He has provided me with a great deal of support in this vast transition in my life.  I am here alone, with no friends or family, and it has been very lonely.  V has helped me get through the days by talking with me on the phone.  He let me talk about my day, complain about what went wrong and boast about what went right.  He provided an outlet, in which I deeply needed.  I was going through some things with my family, and V allowed me to cry and talk with him on the phone.  He supported me in so many ways.  However, if you remember my previous entries about V, you’ll know, he isn’t always so reliable. 

V has the ability to be a wonderful friend, to listen and to support me when I need him the most.  However, he also has the ability to be very cruel, hurtful and unnecessarily mean.  The drastic-ness in his change of moods was exhausting, and I never knew how he would be with me from one moment to the next.  He was hot and cold and there was never any in-between.  He would have me smiling hard from ear to ear, or crying in my pillow.  I knew that I allowed him to treat me badly, but I felt like I needed him in my life.  I would never allow a friend to treat me the way V did, but I put up with it from him because of my feelings for him.  Life with him in it, no matter how damaging it was to me, was better than life without.

That same day that I met with the Doctor and my new wonderful fitness coach was the same day that I said goodbye to V.  I deserve to be treated amazingly by every person in my life, whether it is a family member, friend or a partner.  I shouldn’t settle for less in any of my relationships.  I am a wonderful, loving and loyal person, and I deserve the same in return.  Saying goodbye to V was hard, and I miss him very much.  It’s lonely without him.  But I am stronger than I give myself credit for, I can survive loneliness.  I don’t need him!  I am taking my life back, and in the long run, I will be better for it.

I have a long way to go before I am healthy.  But I am already feeling happier in myself, knowing that I will achieve my goals.  I am feeling the health benefits already, and it hasn’t been a week yet.  It won’t be long before I am feeling better in myself, and feeling stronger on my own.  I can do this.  I am positive I can.  I will take my life back because it is mine, and I deserve it to be the best it can be. 

This is my life, and I’m taking it back!