When I was "skinny"
It has been a lifetime of judgement
A friend on Facebook wrote today about telling her girls to not worry about their weight… and boy did that put me down a spiral!
I have have an eating disorder (anorexia) that I got in high school when I was a cheerleader.
I am a short, hispanic woman and no matter how much I starved myself, I was never as skinny as some of the girls on the team… who had a German background and who genetically were always going to be skinnier than me no matter what!
Looking back on those pictures I can’t believe how thin and cute I was!
In my early 20s (late 80’s-early 90’s) we had no trouble losing weight… there was this miracle drug Phen-Phen. It was speed and started out as just Phen, but too many people got heart attacks and died from it so they added the other Phen.
Oh and they started making everything “fat free” so we could eat as much fro-yo as we wanted and stay skinny.
People DIED from taking a drug to lose weight and looking back on those pictures I can’t believe how thin and cute I was!
Enter my 30s and the Atkins diet and Southbeach were all the rage! Get rid of carbs, that is the ticket. My Mother In Law and I got the best selling books on the subject and read through them religiously.
So now I have to be skinny, eat no fat and eat no carbs… check! Looking back on those pictures I can’t believe how thin and cute I was!
In my 40s we adopted kids and sorta kinda forgot about worrying about my weight… it was never far off, but I had bigger problems to worry about!
And I gained weight… but I was still pretty skinny for my body type and looking back on those pictures I can’t believe how thin and cute I was!
In my 50s menopause hit me and my stomach grew and grew out of proportion to my body size. My arms got bigger and I got liver and diabetes trouble.
I am on a mission now to lose weight for my health and wellbeing… no diets, no drugs, just eating better and moving around more!
But today when I saw Sandy say she was talking to her girls about not worrying about their size, my life flashed before my eyes… sigh.
So much time worrying about my weight… 50+ YEARS of obsessing over how much a scale says and comparing that to other people.
Looking back at past me I always just think how cute and thin she looked, but you couldn’t have told her that at the time.
So if I can say something to my girls too… stop worrying about the scale and how skinny you are! Live your life and eat the food you love and screw the culture that tells you that you are ALWAYS too fat!
You are perfect just the way you are!
Hopefully that helps!
XOXO
Tara
PS - Do you have a story like mine? Have you spent your life obsessing about your size? Where are you now? Hit reply or leave a message and let me know!
Hi Tara, I was always skinny until my 30's when it was discovered that after all that time I was born with a kidney malformation. They removed it and I started to put on weight. I came to the conclusion that as all my fathers family are/were short and stocky that is how I was going to be too. I lived with that theory until my 50's when I decided that I hated everything in my wardrobe and declared that I would shift the extra pounds. After many diets and discovering that just the mention of losing weight made me crave bad foods. It did not matter that I didn't like some of them I just ate! After reaching my 60's I decided that so long as I was fit it was ok. I started gym and aqua aerobics and all was fine until the covid shutdowns ( I live in Victoria Australia and we had rolling shutdowns for 2 years!) Needless to say I put on weight. I have gone from 100 lbs to 211lbs in 50 years so I am back on the what will I do train. The gym is to much for me now (I am 78) so I am stuck with diet and hydrotherapy. Good luck all it takes is the will or so I am told.
But as my father always said (he was also A Will) I have plenty of Will power what I need is won't power.
Wil Ross XX