While being at college, I’ve lost over 60 lbs. Many people ask me how I did it, but I don’t have an exact answer. I did different things at different points in my weight loss. Basically I did the old-fashioned eat better, cut portions, and worked out. It took two years to get to this point, but I did it. While all this sounds glamorous and great, it certainty was not so glamorous on my psyche. While losing the weight was good for me and I am so proud of what I’ve done, it hurt me more emotionally than I expected.
Even after you lose a ton of weight, the insecurities don’t go away. I became consumed by the process and addicted to seeing progress. I obsessively weighed myself every day. When I didn’t, I feared what the scale would say the next day. When the number wouldn’t say what I wanted it to, it would ruin my whole day. I became addicted to writing in my food journal and every time I’d eat something I wasn’t scheduled to, I’d hate myself for the rest of the day.
I look completely different than I did two years ago, yet I still wasn’t fully comfortable with myself. Insecurities happen in your psyche, and losing weight won’t make those insecurities completely go away. Some days I’d think I didn’t look any different or I’d get upset when someone who I hadn’t seen in a while wouldn’t acknowledge my weight loss. When I’d take a shower I’d pick apart every area that was still a problem and I became so frustrated and unhappy with the way I looked. My diet and weight started to take over my life and I began to realize that I wasn’t happy living this way.
In the fall of last year a new show aired on TLC. Anyone that knows me knows that I have an obsession with TLC. So when the new fall schedule came out, I was so excited. While watching one of my favorite guilty pleasure shows, a commercial for a new show came on – “My Big Fat Fabulous Life.” The commercial featured an overweight woman who had gotten famous for a dancing video on Youtube. What I got from the commercial was that this show was going to be about this woman’s life being overweight. Many people criticized the show at first. I’ll admit, I did too. Having lost all the weight, I was angry that TLC was going to air a show about a woman glamourizing the fact that she’s overweight.
Regardless, I still watched the show. TLC had never disappointed me before and I was curious about the concept. Going into the episode, I was fully prepared to tear the show apart. However, I was surprised by what the show is actually about.
Whitney Thore is an AppState alumna. She’s a North Carolina native and the show takes place in Greensboro. My initial thoughts while watching the show were “how can you be fat if you went to App? There are hills in every direction!” I came to learn through the show that Whitney has Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), which is a disease that causes women to gain a large amount of weight, amongst other things. “My Big Fat Fabulous Life” isn’t the show I perceived it to be. The show features Whitney’s journey to mental, physical, and emotional health, as she promotes her campaign called No Body Shame.
According to the No Body Shame website, No Body Shame “asserts that you do not need society’s permission to seek your joy RIGHT NOW. Love yourself. Live fully. No excuses. No shame.” This campaign is all about learning to love your body no matter your weight, height, skin color, sexual orientation, gender, different abilities, and specific physical attributes.
I’m notorious for putting myself down because of the way I look, and I know some of my friends are the same way. It’s important that we love our bodies. It is hard in the world we live in where it seems like everyone is always talking about the “perfect” body. Whitney Thore’s No Body Shame Campaign is trying to change all that by teaching us to not care about the latest body trend and to love our bodies instead of shaming them. No matter if you have a flat butt, big butt, big bust, small bust, flat stomach, pudgy stomach, you can relate to Whitney’s campaign. Our bodies deserve to be loved. We’re only allowed one body in life, and we need to take care of it, and that includes loving it.
Through learning about this campaign, I’ve started learning how to love my body. I’ve changed my unhealthy habits of obsessing about my appearance. I still workout and try eat healthy, but I’m no longer concerned about what the scale says. I workout because it makes me feel good, and helps my anxiety, not because I’m trying to achieve an unrealistic goal. I still work on my appearance, but I no longer let that affect my mental health or take over my life. I’ve taught myself that I’ve come a long way, and I’m allowed to love the body I worked so hard to get. Though it’s not perfect, no body is perfect. Trends change, and no magazine can define beauty or the “perfect” body.
Since learning about No Body Shame, I’ve become a happier person. It’s still a process I take day-by-day, but I have learned to love my body, and the progress that I’ve made.
To learn more, visit: http://www.nobodyshame.com/
Image Sources:
http://r.ddmcdn.com/s_f/o_1/TLC/uploads/2015/05/NoBodyShame_Logo_trans.png
http://cdn.renewcanceltv.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/MYBIGFATFABLIFE.jpg