Being #thick IRL
I.
I love my body.
I thought I should start there. Because that’s pretty much the beginning and the end of everything.
Let me back up and also tell you that I have not always loved my body. Now as a gen z (I think? The jury is apparently still out) girl, this sentiment isn’t altogether surprising. We grew up with a very specific definition for beauty, on the heels of 90s supermodels and early aughts “it girls”, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes, etc. You’re thinking about low rise jeans now, aren’t you? Sorry for the visual.
When I flipped through magazines, which I did, often. I never saw someone who looked like me. Now there’s a couple of reasons for that, one is that I’m an afro latina with 3c/4a hair and the other is: I’m curvy.
Lest we forget, I also came of age on a little site called Tumblr. In this dark corner of the internet, I scrolled past many a thigh gap post, and remember seeing varying iterations of Kate Moss’ harrowing “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” on too nearly everyone’s feeds.
It’s almost as if the entire (physical+digital) world wanted me to hate and change my body, and for a while I did.
II.
Growing Pains
There were many things to compare myself to as a young girl and the only real life ideal I had to reference growing up was my mother. Now to set the scene for you, my mother is a very gorgeous, fit and slender, and pear shaped woman. She wants everyone to know that she works hard on her physique, because she does. For as long as I can remember she’s been a health nut because it’s what works for her. It didn’t work for me.
From the moment I was able to fit into women's clothing, at about 12 years old, I loved pulling pieces from her closet. Her walk-in was my original play place, where I first fell in love with clothes and what they can do.
For a long time my mother and I shared a wardrobe. In the years between 7th and 12th grade, most of my clothing consisted of my mother’s hand me downs, some items explicitly handed down and some smuggled away unbeknownst to her. I took great pride in fitting into my mom’s favorite Levi’s from 20+ years ago. And I think she did too. It felt cosmic and special to prance around in clothing from my mom’s youth while I created my own soon to be nostalgia in them.
I didn’t develop an eating disorder but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about ways I could disorder my eating often. There were a couple of days when I would try my hardest to taper my eating and fight any cravings but by the end of the day I’d feel lightheaded and miserable, so I gave up. Thinking about my pre-teen internet search history makes me wince, I remember reading somewhere that if you could withstand an ice cold shower for a certain amount of seconds each day you could burn calories and lose weight. Every night before showering would be spent ritually hating myself, I would stand in front of the mirror and tug on skin, suck it and squeeze every part of me, unhappy with what I saw.
As a teen I was usually a size 6/8, in the early years of college I was a 10. but after being away from home at university my body began to change. Lifestyle shifts, fun new eating habits, no rules, coupled with a slowing metabolism brought me a practically new body in 2018, by 2019 I had grown two pants sizes and several cup sizes.
This typically wouldn’t bother me too much while I was away at school but when I would go home to my parents house, I’d find myself the subject of *well meaning* discussions about the importance of exercising and moderate eating. From my parents to my brother, it seemed like everyone in my house had an opinion on my changing body. I started to feel ashamed when I couldn’t fit into my mother’s hand me downs anymore, suddenly hated going shopping (can you believe?) and dreaded the thought of sharing a dressing room because I didn’t want to explain that something didn’t fit.
I remember feeling really bad about myself when I made the jump from size 10 to size 12, in fact, I specifically remember denying the fact that I needed to size up, because I was so concerned with still fitting into a “10”. Whatever that meant. Today I am a gorgeous and juicy size 14/16, 44” 37” 49”, I’m thicker than I’ve ever been and that’s okay. I’ve decided to love my new body, simply because it’s my body.
The difference between being hashtag thick and being thick irl, still sometimes baffles me. Digital society seems to tell us the new Kardasian/Instabaddie ideal is all about having big boobs, big hips, a big butt, and the most snatched waist. In other words, fat in all the right places, as opposed to all the bad ones?* Some of the women who have these #thick bodies also have access to dietitians, personal trainers, and very skilled doctors, which are all great for them. I don’t have those things, and frankly, I don’t want them. I have stretch marks, arm fat and back rolls, I’m a Botticelli babe if you will.
III.
What changed? Not much. Just my mind.
Here are a few things I did to help change my mind:
Found power in knowing my measurements - I stopped being afraid to know my measurements and started shopping based on my measurements on each brand’s size charts, instead of letting my preoccupation with being “x” size govern how I shop/make me miserable.I stopped frequenting stores/boutiques that make me feel like shit, and started shopping in places where my body type is celebrated. Sorry @ Urban Outfitters and Victoria Secret. To be honest, I can’t really shop locally at any of the cutesty vintage boutiques in my city because they rarely carry anything for people my size either. Here are some places I do shop: Everlane, Old Navy, Gap, ASOS Curve
I set boundaries with my family. This one was tricky and took time, but it’s possible.
I started being grateful for my body and all the things it can do. I found a local barre studio, Maiden Motion, whose philosophy of movement I believed in. Remember how I told you I began to resent anything fitness related as a teen? Well, here I committed to physical activity in a way that I never, trust me, ever have before, because it was fun. And Because it was healthy. I was excited to work out because it was for the right reasons, not to be smaller, to “shave off the inches”, or “lose the pounds”. It was to be stronger, saner, happier.
I took nudes. No seriously. I got them professionally done by one of my favorite lights in this world, KYN. For the first time, I got naked with someone who wasn’t my mom or my man. And it felt really good. I remember just after wrapping, I felt wired the rest of the day, and I hadn’t even seen the shots. When I got the photos back, it was like I saw myself for the first time. And it was glorious.
I changed my algorithm, literally. I’m a fashion/beauty gal, I love instabloggers, but I noticed all the bloggers I was following were thin and white, which is fine, but it isn’t me. Because it’s all I was seeing I began to think it was impossible for someone who looked like me to exist in these spaces. And I began to resent that. So I unfollowed all the accounts that made me feel that way (yes even your fav) and redesigned my digital reality. I longed to see fabulous women who are beautiful and powerful in their fields. Women who inspire, speak, create, mother, shine, and happen to have rolls and stretch marks. It has helped so much. Here are some absolute babes I follow:
A couple of months ago, I found myself swiping through pictures of myself from high school and early college. I kept thinking about how skinny I was then, and how big I was now. But then I remembered that even back then, I disliked my body. Back then I thought I was “too big”. Back then I wasn’t happy. Why would I ever want to go back to that? I realized that I had once again, clung too tightly to a mis-remembered version of myself. At that moment I swore that I would never let myself get that low again, never let myself romanticize an idea of reality that never existed. I’m not perfect, in fact, most days I’m a mess. Being #bodyposi isn’t always easy, but like all kinds of love, it’s a decision I make every single day.