A couple of days ago someone made a very rude comment about my belly on the tube, and it made me laugh. Not with joy, neither with shame. It was just amusement. I hasn't and wouldn't affect me negatively, and there's a reason for that. Some things can be changed, others will always remain the same. And that's not really bad.
I've always been overweight, as long as I can remember. As a child I felt self conscious about my thick thighs, and my mom, knowing that and wanting me to be healthier, told me that if I'd eat standing up all the food would go to my thighs. I won't judge my mother's parenting techniques, I just want to show that fat is nothing new in my life. And I've always lived in a world where fat is wrong.
Yes, full disclaimer, there are tons of studies linking obesity and sedentary lifestyle to health issues, so in that aspect fat is bad. But I want to focus here on the aesthetic and social aspect of being fat. Even using the word fat has a negative connotation to it.
I'm alright to say I'm fat. You might want to call it chubby, overweight, excess of deliciousness, thick, large... It's all synonyms, and I always believe that the word by itself is not offensive, but the intention behind is what makes it. But I'm also not here to discuss semantics.
It took me a while to be alright with being fat. My early to mid twenties was filled with crazy diets, slimming pills ordered over the internet or prescribed by dodgy doctors, immense time spent at gyms and the constant aspiration to have a palstic surgery. I was living in Brazil, it's very common there. As an idea of how bad it was, not only once but twice I fainted on top of a spinning bike at the gym, halfway through my 3rd spinning class while starving myself.
I did have a six pack at some point. It was not easy: I only ate lettuce, broccoli and chicken breast, I spent 4 hours a day at the gym, 7 days a week. I felt great, I felt beautiful, my life changed. But it was not natural. It was an artificial change. I couldn't work, have a social life, have a realtionship, eat something here and there. I had to live this abnormal life to have a "normal" body.
Obviously, judging by recent pictures of me, that did not last. I started living my normal life again and the fat came back to me.
Many times I asked myself why. Why was I born like that? Why couldn't I have been born thin? Why couldn't I have better metabolism? Why was I doomed to be fat forever and why was the cost of changing it so high?
After a while I started to realise that the problem was not with me - or not with my body, to be precise. The problem was with the questions I was asking. The problem was with the perception the world has with being fat, and how that affects us every time, even when we cannot see it. I was not wrong to be who I was, to have the body I had, to live the life I lived. I just had to accept it, accept myself.
Accept may sound defeating, but it's not. Acceptance is a big win. I believe that in life everybody has their different and multiple closets that they need to come out of, and this was one of mine. This is who I am, this is my genetics, this is my body, and even if I lose everything I have - friends, family, job, money, love, dignity - my body will always be there with me until the day I die. So I have two choices here: I can hate it, try to change it and live unhapilly ever after, or I can learn to love and accept it.
Coming out of my fat closet was not easy, but it was achievable for me. And it was a great decision. Once I accepted that I would be forever fat and there's nothing to be done but live with it, the bad thoughts slowly gave space for the good ones. I started seeing that my body has good bits. My thighs, that once we're a source of embarrassment, are now something I'm proud of. My manboobs, who I always associated with femininity, give me great sexual pleasure. My belly is often something I can use to make jokes and get people laughing - usually with me, not at me.
I am proud of my body. I love it, and I care about it. It is my treasure. It is not perfect, but it is the only thing which is truly mine in this life. And this was not an easy journey, but being out of my fat closet made me a better person. Better than any diet, pills or surgery could ever had. Maybe those work for someone else, and if they're happy with them, that's what matters. But this is my story, my truth, my body.
My amazing, beautiful and very loved fat body.
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