Normally I completely and utterly ignore the ads on the sidebar. Or ads in general.
But this one I saw just now was a lovely modest-swimsuit ad featuring a person who, by irrational American standards, “should” go ahead and lose 20-30lbs before being photographed. Or at least have the decency to be photoshopped to a more appropriate starvation level.
I love that ad so much.
So so so much.
Real, normal people usually have curves. Nice round roly poly snuggly squishy comfortable CURVES. It’s so beautiful.
I spent the last 3 years of my life more or less forcing myself to be content with my lack of chub. Nothing seemed to help. Exercise probably would have, but bleh. Soooo not going there yet.
I didn’t see the scale show me anything higher than 119 for fully 2.5 years. The few times I saw 120 were short-lived. If you’ve ever been “underweight,” you get it. You can feel every pound. There was a world of difference between 115 and 116, and another world between 117 and 119.
There was one time…
Somebody told me with the sweetest, most humble and beautiful sincerity,
“No, really, I wish I could be skinny like you,”
and I totally had to bite my tongue to keep myself from blurting out,
“Oh, but I so totally wish I could be fat like you!!”
I probably should have just said it, but it felt like it might come across as disrespectful. If someone lactose-intolerant longingly coveted your ice cream cone, it wouldn’t be very nice to be like,
“This? Oh, it’s so disgusting. I wish I didn’t have to eat it. I don’t deserve it, I didn’t work for it, I keep trying to order something different. Genetics gave it to me. You really don’t want it.”
I’m sure there would have been a nice, tactful, cheery way to put it, but my brain kind of froze. I just hate when those moments happen where you COULD say something awesome but the words just don’t come. Anyone else do that?
And then what actually comes out is totally socially awkward and probably insulting far more than what you tried not to say?
UGH. Anxiety, thou art the devil.
Anyway, I digress.
That was a pivotal moment for me.
There was something in this person’s voice that really cut me to the core. They had no idea how their being vulnerable with me helped shift me out of my own rut of self-dissatisfaction. Brene Brown would have been proud, I tell you.
Isn’t the world fun that way.
I didn’t want to take the desire for change away from them or anyone else for that matter —
What I *really* wished for was a way to articulate
…how those very same curves this person loathed, if seen in a different light, could be loved. They really could.
…how they are actually gorgeous just the way they are.
…how sick I am of us endlessly coveting something we aren’t. We all need to just stop.
…how unfair it is to ourselves and our children that we worship some dumb standard that certainly didn’t come from the God who created us, nor nature that wisely gives mommies snuggle-places that tend to not go away after giving birth.
Now, I know there are people whose longing to lose weight is a healthy desire. I get that. For some people, I’m sure it’s a great idea. Not my place to judge, for sure!
I like to think my desire to GAIN weight came from a healthy place, too. It’s okay to want positive change. I hope that’s kind of a “duh” concept for all of us. I’m not knocking it.
But this beating ourselves up because xyz isn’t perfect?
This thinking we’re ugly because we don’t look like Barbie?
This being vulnerable to spending all kinds of money and jumping through ridiculous hoops because we hate ourselves, and if we spend and jump, maybe we can love ourselves like so & so does???
NO. WRONG!
I don’t care what shape you are. You and only you can make you love yourself. Or better yet, you and God, since the best kind of love comes from The Source anyway. We mortals are just way too fickle.
So, likewise, was it wrong for me to beat myself up because I couldn’t get that scale up over 120. It really was equally wrong. Perhaps even more wrong, actually, because where I experience serious self-loathing over it, this person might have just been wanting something different.
I could feel the difference there, and it prompted change in my heart. I stopped asking why things were the way they were. I stopped caring what the scale said. I still wanted to be heavier because it just feels better, but my happiness wasn’t riding on that any more.
(Or so I thought.)
And then, a couple months later…
Shopping online with the hubby, preparing to spend way too much at Samsclub. “Click and pull” order.
Costco, if you ever offer that service, I’ll come back to you and your amazing uncooked tortillas immediately — but as you haven’t seen the the fantasticness of the click-and-pull system, we shall sadly remain steadfastly loyal to the Club of Sams.
Never again will I have to push one cart ahead of me, dragging another cart behind me, up and down isles attracting questions about my owning a restaurant. Oh no. I shall simply click, swipe my card when I get there, and let you bring it all out to me so I can pay for that checker’s kid’s college education in one fell swoop without having to drag it around the whole friggin’ store first.
Samsclub, you owe me bigtime for that free publicity, btw.
So anyway. Shopping online,
I fell in love with a super-high-calorie-amaaaaazing granola that was also conveniently organic, which means, of course, that it’s 100% healthy even though cane sugar is the second ingredient. Also, “fair trade” chocolate means 100% healthy, too. Pretty sure.
“How many bags should we get then?” he said, hovering over that box on the screen, “Like, 3?”
“Um, more like 10!”
He laughed.
I wasn’t joking, but reluctantly settled for 6.
If it was love at first sight on that screen there, it was undying devotion at first bite.
I would drown that crunchy goodness in coconut oil before I buried it in almond milk and stuffed my face with it. At least 3x a day.
Oh man. It was delicious.
In a month I ate all 6 bags, gained fully 5 pounds, and that number keeps going up! I don’t wanna brag or anything, but the scale lately shows me ONE TWENTY SEVEN, whaaaaaaaaaaaat????!
So my illusion that “it doesn’t matter what the scale says” completely shattered.
It matters.
It so sooooo matters, apparently, because it freaking makes me giddy every time I see it.
Dangit, I’m just as shallow as the rest of the world. I totally am. #oops
I can’t help it. It’s just so happy!
I squish now!
There’s this awesome fatty CHUB hanging over the top of my now-too-tight-to-wear-them jeans.
Laugh if you will, please, and tell me you have some fatty chub you’d love to donate, but I will laugh right along with you and gladly accept donations. 😉
Or not, actually, because that’s just gross and we both know it, thankyouverymuch.
I’ve been “needing” to go shopping for a long time now, but put it off for.eh.ver because the last time I went I had to go like 4 sizes down from where I’d been and it was so sad…
(Size 2? Really? Surely not. I’m just going to buy these size 4s and “grow into them…” or I’ll shrink into a size 0 and swim in them the next year or two. Yeah, we could do that too.)
But I literally *had* to go shopping a couple weeks ago because I suddenly and truly had no pants that fit any more, except those size 4 dress pants that I used to be swimming in. And everyone with preschoolers knows how often you want to wear your only nice dress pants around the house.
So guess what:
My new favorite jeans are a size 9.
SIZE NINE, people!
Oh happy day, oh blessed coconut oil, oh heaven-sent granola of high-calorie awesomeness, oh adorable muffin top, oh almost-2-digit-pant-size how wonderful it is to squish again!
(They were ridiculously sized. That number really should have been smaller, but does stop me from being so super happy about it? No, it does not.)
Again, with the shallowness! Who the heck cares what size jeans you wear? Nobody!!
Well, nobody except me, apparently.
Darnit.
Again, with it freaking makes me giddy. #oopsagain
My second-favorite pair were a size 6 – and they are allllllmost too big, but I love them love them love them because they are straight-legged, almost-flowy, hard-to-find jeans that completely hide my still-“too-skinny”-stork-legs.
(Again with the self-dissatisfaction. Gah. It dies so slowly. I love my stork legs. I love my stork legs…)
This time I really WILL grow into them (the pants, not the stork legs) because despite my best efforts there’s still quite a bit of granola left in the world.
Not in those original 6 bags though. Those are long gone. We definitely shoulda gone with 10.
So yeah.
This is my declaration that beauty includes lots of FAT.
This is my soapbox and my fighting back against people trying to tell you that your BMI needs to go way down for you to be happy. Stoppit! Beauty can come in other shapes and sizes besides anorexic, k??? God bless the makers of that beautiful, squishy-real-person swimwear.
This is also my confession, because I’m evidently 100% no different, really, than anyone out there wishing and hoping the number on the scale would go down. My wishing it would go the other direction didn’t somehow magically make me happier about my situation than you are with yours.
I’m also no different than anyone wishing for something they aren’t willing to work for, apparently.
It just happened that I quit caring so much about it,
recentered on what I knew in my heart was true,
got (a little) more comfortable in my own skin…
and then I fell in love with something that solved the problem.
I didn’t have to work for it. I didn’t have to try. I didn’t even have to think about it. I just went with it, and this other awesome thing I’ve wanted for a long time… just… happened.
Huzzah!
So… Maybe it works in getting the scale going the other direction? Maybe it works for a lot of other things too? Quit caring so much about it, recenter on what God thinks about you, get a little more comfy in yourself… and a solution will land in your lap that you can fall in love with?
Maybe?
Or maybe just get still more comfy in your own skin, and then you won’t need a solution any more.
At any rate, don’t buy into the dumb ads that feature photoshopped, inhumanely non-squishy stick figures with skin…
The chubby ones are way better.
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