Body Positivity Chat
Hey loves! Sorry I went M.I.A last week and missed last weeks blog. I had a lot going on last Monday and it was all super emotional and mixed into the blues I get when the season changes (it's so cold here and it gets dark at 4 p.m. and it's all ugh) so I took a little self-care week, and while I don't feel completely healed from, but I'm ready to blog again though I'm going to ease myself into things since I'm still a touch raw.
So today I want to talk about something I've been struggling with all of my life, what most people have or currently struggling with: Body Positivity.
I've never been happy with how my body looked. Hell, I've hated my thighs since I was four and have been counting calories since I was 18. My obsession to have the "perfect body" couple with my need for control when I felt I was not in control have completely taken over my life. I've lost and gain and lost again over 20 pounds still haven't found happiness or even self-confidence.
(The left photo is me my senior year of college, the right is me a couple most ago. Was I happy in either picture? Nahhh)
I think we're all taught that there is something inherently wrong with our bodies. From media showing us photo-shopped women and men, giving us diet tips to lose X amount of weight in a ghastly amount of days and even weight loss shows on TV. Not the mention that we've grown up with "diet" talk that I remember as a 5th grader me and my friends sitting around at the lunch table talking about how fat we are and how we should go on diets. In 5th grade. This is behavior we've learned at our mother's feet and have grown to accept as part of our lives. And it never stops. Hell, even at my job a male employee constantly comments on what a female employee (who's kinda his boss) eat and makes fat jokes. And nothing happens. A woman at the same job talks on and on about her diet and how fat she is, all while calling me a skinny bitch, making me doubly uncomfortable.
It's a triggering place to work, to say the least.
And maybe that's why anorexia and other eating disorders are on the rise, becoming as common as autism and the mental illness that has the most fatalities. Yet eating disorder get the least funding, and most likely to be left untreated. Why? Because it's better to be too skinny than too fat and the only people who end up being sent for eating disorder treatment are extremely too thin, making the cultural point that you should only get help when you're too thin to be attractive.
You're too thin, You're too fat. Will the war on weight ever end? Maybe never, there's to much profit in making us hate our bodies, with diet food, deadly weight loss pills, makeup, clothes, anything with the word "slim" or "trim" in it. It's the long con folks: to businesses, self-loathing=$$$.
While we can not fix the whole world (yet, still trying), we can do something about how we view ourselves and treat ourselves, especially around food-focused holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is certainly a very triggering holiday for me, causing me a lot of body negativity, fear of weight gain, and general panic. So here are some tips I find useful while dealing with the most triggering time of the year.
Remember the Facts
Fun fact: Your body is freaking weird especially if you were born with lady parts. Everything affects your weight: PSM, salt, stress, everything. So if you eat a whole bunch of food (because you need food to survive because you're a human and rolls are yummy) and feel your stomach expanding deep breaths, it's just water weight, it's not permanent, it's not going to live there. Sodium and other food typically goes away after a week at the most (water helps de-bloat) so take it easy on yourself during that time, it's not real weight!
Tolerate Yourself
I hate body positivity things that say "love yourself" because honestly, for people who have low self-esteem or worth issues, it's a hard ask, hell it's a hard ask for me to like myself somedays, most days, every day. But tolerating yourself is manageable, by reminding yourself that you're human and you deserve to exist like every other asshole. You deserve to be here, remember that. A good tip is to write a list of all the things that you don't hate about yourself, don't focus on anything about your body, but on your personality. Remember you're a soul attached to a body, not the other way around.
Take a time out
Holidays are stressful as hell ya'll so make sure you take time out to give yourself a time out from all the holiday chaos, especially if you're feeling less than body positive. Make sure it's something distracting like watching a cheesy Christmas movie, playing a video game, reading a good book, drawing, whatever is it, make sure it takes you completely out of yourself. It's you time, and you deserve it.
What gets you through the "less than body positive" feels. Let me know in the comment! And remember dears, I love you guys and wish every day was a body positive day for you.
Stay Stylin'
Elle
P.S.
If you or someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder, please visit the National Eating Disorder Association here: http://nedawareness.org. Remember you don't have to fight this alone.
So today I want to talk about something I've been struggling with all of my life, what most people have or currently struggling with: Body Positivity.
I've never been happy with how my body looked. Hell, I've hated my thighs since I was four and have been counting calories since I was 18. My obsession to have the "perfect body" couple with my need for control when I felt I was not in control have completely taken over my life. I've lost and gain and lost again over 20 pounds still haven't found happiness or even self-confidence.
(The left photo is me my senior year of college, the right is me a couple most ago. Was I happy in either picture? Nahhh)
I think we're all taught that there is something inherently wrong with our bodies. From media showing us photo-shopped women and men, giving us diet tips to lose X amount of weight in a ghastly amount of days and even weight loss shows on TV. Not the mention that we've grown up with "diet" talk that I remember as a 5th grader me and my friends sitting around at the lunch table talking about how fat we are and how we should go on diets. In 5th grade. This is behavior we've learned at our mother's feet and have grown to accept as part of our lives. And it never stops. Hell, even at my job a male employee constantly comments on what a female employee (who's kinda his boss) eat and makes fat jokes. And nothing happens. A woman at the same job talks on and on about her diet and how fat she is, all while calling me a skinny bitch, making me doubly uncomfortable.
It's a triggering place to work, to say the least.
And maybe that's why anorexia and other eating disorders are on the rise, becoming as common as autism and the mental illness that has the most fatalities. Yet eating disorder get the least funding, and most likely to be left untreated. Why? Because it's better to be too skinny than too fat and the only people who end up being sent for eating disorder treatment are extremely too thin, making the cultural point that you should only get help when you're too thin to be attractive.
You're too thin, You're too fat. Will the war on weight ever end? Maybe never, there's to much profit in making us hate our bodies, with diet food, deadly weight loss pills, makeup, clothes, anything with the word "slim" or "trim" in it. It's the long con folks: to businesses, self-loathing=$$$.
While we can not fix the whole world (yet, still trying), we can do something about how we view ourselves and treat ourselves, especially around food-focused holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is certainly a very triggering holiday for me, causing me a lot of body negativity, fear of weight gain, and general panic. So here are some tips I find useful while dealing with the most triggering time of the year.
Remember the Facts
Fun fact: Your body is freaking weird especially if you were born with lady parts. Everything affects your weight: PSM, salt, stress, everything. So if you eat a whole bunch of food (because you need food to survive because you're a human and rolls are yummy) and feel your stomach expanding deep breaths, it's just water weight, it's not permanent, it's not going to live there. Sodium and other food typically goes away after a week at the most (water helps de-bloat) so take it easy on yourself during that time, it's not real weight!
Tolerate Yourself
I hate body positivity things that say "love yourself" because honestly, for people who have low self-esteem or worth issues, it's a hard ask, hell it's a hard ask for me to like myself somedays, most days, every day. But tolerating yourself is manageable, by reminding yourself that you're human and you deserve to exist like every other asshole. You deserve to be here, remember that. A good tip is to write a list of all the things that you don't hate about yourself, don't focus on anything about your body, but on your personality. Remember you're a soul attached to a body, not the other way around.
Take a time out
Holidays are stressful as hell ya'll so make sure you take time out to give yourself a time out from all the holiday chaos, especially if you're feeling less than body positive. Make sure it's something distracting like watching a cheesy Christmas movie, playing a video game, reading a good book, drawing, whatever is it, make sure it takes you completely out of yourself. It's you time, and you deserve it.
What gets you through the "less than body positive" feels. Let me know in the comment! And remember dears, I love you guys and wish every day was a body positive day for you.
Stay Stylin'
Elle
P.S.
If you or someone you love is suffering from an eating disorder, please visit the National Eating Disorder Association here: http://nedawareness.org. Remember you don't have to fight this alone.
I apologise in advance for the length of this comment:
ReplyDeleteI feel for you having to suffer through the much colder weather during the winter where you are - you live a fair amount further north than I do - and I dread the winter myself here in Long Island, NY..
I'm so sorry to know you have struggled so with body image issues.
You looked gorgeous in both the left and right photos in the image above. If you hadn't written saying otherwise, I might have thought both of those side by side photos were taken on the same day.
I also love the outfit you wore in those photos very much!!!
As for my own lack of body confidence, I really ,am quite old, fat, (I agree with my doctor who says I should lose weight) out of shape, and, most disgusting of all, I was born male (ugh). My eating is totally undisciplined. Self will run riot. Except I don't drink.
The fact that photoshopped images get pushed on us by some alleged fashion magazines and some tabloids is unconscionable - but sometimes it can be funny when their most outrageous photoshopping errors get them caught in the act.
Thank you for the tips!!! If I can conquer my laziness and procrastination I may start a list of things I don't hate about myself and on my charmingly crazy personality.
Take a time out and distract myself? You don't have to ask me to do that twice :D NetFlix here I come!!! Kudos to you for including a link in your post to the National Eating Disorders Website!
One of the few things that has gotten me through the "less than body positive" feels is the comments fashionistas have left on my last (October 1st) blog post, which featured four photos of me male-modelling full brief panties (back view only). My post was titled "Lingerie Review of Full Brief Panties by Lucy B and Shadowline with THANKS to Commenters". I don't mind less than complimentary comments and loved the most recent one which merely said "Lol".