Curvy Women are Beautiful Too

Have you ever looked at a marble sculpture of a woman by a century's old artist? They are robust and full of curves and character.  They would be boring and not nearly and stirring if they were all stick thin, skin and bones, today's supermodel.  There is so much pressure in society to be thin that I think women spend their lives fighting happiness.  We fight to accept the changes our bodies go through due to age, childbearing, and health crisis. Some women are fortunate enough to be fit and trim, they work out and have a healthy metabolism and become the mark against which other women, the majority of women, are measured.

Most women,  do not fit into the ideal weight and body mass index.  Most women are made to feel inferior because they carry extra weight and are no longer the size they were in high school. Most women will spend every day of their lives, fighting to be something they aren't because society deems it necessary.

I have seen both sides of the coin. I have lived my life at the be thin at all costs spectrum.  I battled anorexia, then anorexia/bulimia, then bulimia for nearly 15 years.  I have tried the extreme diets and taken the prescription diet medications, and I have compromised my long term health and life expectancy for it. 

When I graduated high school I weighed 92 lbs and wore a size 13 in little girls clothes.  I started high school as a size 7, but late in my junior year under the pressures of society and media demands to be not just fit, but skinny, I became anorexic.  I lost my way.  I battled anorexia for nearly 8 years.  When I was 24 and pregnant with my first child, my OB GYN was concerned that I wasn't putting on enough weight, so under the scrutiny of everyone watching, I transitioned into what doctors called anorexia/bulimia, exhibiting behaviors of both disorders depending on my surroundings and situations. After my first son I resumed a size 4-6 figure and though I was unhappy with the extra weight, I adjusted.

Over the course of the next 3 years I shifted my behaviors to bulimia.  It was increasingly more difficult with a small child and a husband, to simply not eat, so I ate, and purged.  (Sorry, I know it's gross).

After the birth of my last child, I again found the need to adjust to a new me.  I was a size 7 intially but found my metabolism had changed and my eating disorder behaviors weren't managing the way they used to. I was soon a size 10 and in desperation turned to the highly popular and later controversial and dangerous , PhenFen.  It worked, but at a cost.

My point in all of this, is that I was beautiful at size 4 (though not healthy), Size 7, and even Size 10, but the pressures of reaching perfection resulted in self doubt and destructive behaviors which had life long effects.  Some simple facts are, that though starvation may work for a time,  our bodies are built to fight for survival.  So when you starve and then eventually eat,  you body fearing future starvation, stores everything.  Your metabolism slows to a crawl in an effort NOT to burn the storage of the calories your body believes it will need to survive the next time you starve yourself.

Today, suffice it to say, I have stores of calories in case of an apocalyptic event. LOL.  I am no longer that little girl with body dis-morphia.  I am a woman, with the curves of a woman & the life experiences of a woman, and I am beautiful.  You can use words like Curvy, Voluptuous, Vivacious, Full Figured, I won;t mind, just please don't call me fat.

Can being overweight be dangerous to ones health? Of course it can, just as being obsessed with being thin can also be dangerous and deadly. I think the key is being happy with who you are.  Don't spend every day starving yourself, depriving yourself of the joys life offers.  You don't have to kill yourself at the gym or go to bed hungry, to be beautiful.  If you want to work out, then do it because it makes you happy.  If you are happy eating lighter fare and you feel healthy, then that's great.  But don't waste your life, miserable because you are trying to meet someone else's expectations for what beautiful is.

I love being me.  I enjoy good food, and great wine, and divine desserts. I am a size 18 and not ashamed to say it. I live by the mantra, Love me or Leave Me, but don't try to change me.