barefoot athena: beauty

Showing posts with label beauty. Show all posts

Thursday, September 24, 2009

re: my recent weight gain

i have gained 3 pounds. One might think that this has made me upset, but it hasn't. You see, those 3 pounds are pure muscle. i haven't lost any inches around my waist according to the tape measure, but i have gained muscle there (i can open and close my belly button with my muscles now, it's really weird). For the first time since i started losing weight (a little over a year ago), my clothing is truly starting to get loose and fall off me. i have bought several pairs of size 16 pants, and the size 18's i bought right before school started are already getting looser.

Since i started this semester, i have decided that i do not want to be thin. i would like to be thinner, of course, but i do not wish to be a stick or a twig. All the Venuses that i have seen so far in my current art history class are HUGE; they used to be the ideal. Things have changed so very much! So many celebrities and models are too thin and it disgusts me. i will never be curvy, but i am curvier, as strange as that may sound (less flab, more feminine shape). i hope to never stop being an athlete, and i hope to never be so thin that you can see my ribs or washboard abs. Women are meant to be round: i embrace this. At the moment, i think i might be revising my goal to just get under 200, and then see where i go from there. i'm not sure that 165 is as feasible for me as it once was.

Friday, September 19, 2008

musings on body image

i am not trying to lose weight because i hate my body; i am doing it because i love my body. i don't want to show off my flesh, i'm modest, and yes, i'm somewhat ashamed of what other people will think. People in the American culture hate fat, are repulsed by love handles, don't want to look obesity in the face but rather mock the individuals for their weakness and failings while staring at them from the neck down (just look at any segment on obesity the next time you're watching your nightly newscast). i've been dealing with this for a long time; people started telling me that i was fat in third grade, and i believed them. i didn't gain weight until i was almost eighteen, when i moved to Colorado. That was when i became fat... and that was when i started to learn how to love my body.

It seems like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it? It wasn't until i lost my healthy body (that was exactly what i would want to have now) that i realized that i already had it. i don't know what it's like to feel thin because i believed the lies, so i didn't feel skinny when i was. Now i love to curl into bed naked and revel in the feel of my skin, the curves in my body. i hate looking in the mirror because my eyes do not show me what i feel that i am in my heart. i'm not going to take off my clothes and let it all hang out in public anytime soon (unlike some... warning: artistic photos of nude plus sized women), but i refuse to be ashamed of my body. Anyone who has a problem with my body can shove it cuz i really don't want to hear it. i didn't choose to be this way, i fought it kicking and screaming, but you know what, i would rather be fat and happy with myself than skinny and a flirty flake. i don't want to be thin, i want to be healthy, i like having meat on my bones. i don't want to be an anorexic model, i want to be a goddess incarnate, a reflection of what it means to be healthy and truly beautiful.

i am losing weight for no one but myself. Anyone who doesn't like me for who i am obviously doesn't really love me, so why would i want to have anything to do with them? Saying one thing and then saying another, the complete opposite, is just two faced and i have no patience for it. i don't want to let anyone hurt me anymore. i can't stop loving, but i guess it's time to start protecting myself... i'm just not quite sure how.