Bloggers Remorse

Yesterday, I published a post in my blog that I truly regret.

The blog post was inspired by my daughter Lila, who is seven years old and has been gifted with an unshakable, completely beautiful, strong and amazing spirit and confidence.  Despite being clinically overweight and living in a country where being fat is popularly perceived as less healthy than smoking cigarettes, my daughter dares to love and accept herself completely.  At seven years old she is wiser than just about every adult I know.

I wrote my blog post because I admire my daughter.  I fear that as she gets older she will lose the self-esteem and spirit that she has.  Already, I hear her classmates discussing weight and dieting, and I do not every want my daughter to feel like she's anything less than completely perfect.  She is, after all, a very healthy child- no matter what number appears on the scale at her pediatrician's office.

So, several weeks ago I bought my very first bikini.  I took some "before" pictures and intended to take "after" pictures when I felt I looked good enough to wear it in public.  Initially I intended to post my transformation pictures in my blog and part of a fitness segment that I've been trying to keep up with.

But Lila inspired me to take a look at myself and try to show the world that as a normal weighted, fully healthy person, I have plenty of meat on my bones without being fat.  So, I decided to publish my flawed pictures yesterday and posed the question "If you are not thin, are you fat?"

I wanted people to think about the fact that we culturally call healthy weighted people names that are associated with being overweight, such as chubby, chunky and thick.  People like Marilyn Monroe, Christina Hendricks and Tracy Dimarco, to name a few.

I really wish that I hadn't done this.

My blog post has had more views in the last 24 hours than any of my other posts has ever had.  Though I had no public comments, I had plenty of messages from concerned friends.  Now most of these messages came from a place of love and I don't want to dismiss or discredit that, so if YOU are a person who sent me a concerned message, please do not feel like I am angry with you or am attacking you in this blog.

Sadly, the point of my blog post was completely lost, burried beneath those stupid pictures. My entire post became about how I look in a bikini to people and about how I view myself.  This really makes me feel angry, because that entirely defeats the purpose.  I got messages from people accusing me of hating my daughter, disgusted because I said that she was overweight.  I got messages from people worrying about my self esteem and telling me not to be so hard on myself or so obsessive about my appearance and I got messages from people who wanted to know why I don't know that I'm thin.

The post that I meant to be empowering suddenly became the opposite.  And I hadn't expected this.  I hadn't meant for these pictures to be the focus of my post, but instead thought that they'd be an addition to it.  A support for it.

I did worry about posting my pictures, mostly because when you see people in a bikini they are generally in great shape.  I, though entirely healthy, do not have a particularly thin or athletic body.  But THAT is the very reason that I thought it was important to do it.  People chose to be mean in a whole different and unanticipated way.

Of all the messages I got, no one had anything to say about what the post was actually about- which is a mother wanting to preserve her daughters self-esteem and break the cycle of shame.

I'm really sorry that the message that I intended to come through was largely swallowed by my bellybutton.  I am not sure why it happened, but I regret the whole post.

A Little Mold on a Sunny Day (Day 7)

Well, it definitely looks funky.  The romaine lettuce and the strawberries have all but disappeared and the contents are this jar have shrunk significantly, yet, still no mold.

If You Are Not Thin, Are You Fat?

  

My 7 year old daughter is overweight.  Since she was a toddler, she has been much larger than other children her age.  

The doctor's often marveled at how chubby she was.  At 12 months old she was about 30 pounds.  She was so roley-poley that she never actually crawled because it was tough for her to get her belly off the floor.  Our pediatrician said that she would likely be a late walker because of her large size, but low and behold, she was an early walker.  At ten months old she picked herself up and began moving.  

As she's gotten older, she has gained a real appreciation for food (sort of like her mama).  She likes buying it, chopping it, preparing it, cooking it and of course, eating it.  She's a pretty healthy eater also. It's not unusual for her to ask me to pack her a salad for lunch or to choose and apple or grapes to munch on as a snack and her vegetables are always the first thing she eats.  Just yesterday she was telling me that when she grows up she'd like to open a really fancy salad restaraunt with a huge salad bar (because I'm a responsible mom I explained to her that really fancy restaurants don't have salad bars ,to which she scoffed and said, "I don't care.  Mine does.") I'm not going to claim that she doesn't love her sweets, because she does... she's seven, after all.  But we don't have a house that is packed with candies and cookies.  

So, as far as her body goes, my daughter is probably always going to be a little bit overweight.  It's just the way she is.  And that is quite normal for her.  She is healthy, active and most importantly, she really likes herself.  

As a person who has struggled with her weight and who has let her weight define her value as a human being for all of her life, I am worried about passing my unhealthy perceptions and attitudes about weight onto my confident and happy child.  I suspect that my struggles with body image and self-esteem regarding my weight is one of the first things that people associate with me, sadly.  This quality in me has become, unfortunately, definitive across the boards.  

Many will say, "well, it doesn't matter what you do, because the world will make her feel badly about herself anyway..." and I have given this a lot of thought.  At this point, children have pointed out to my daughter that she's larger than they are.  All kids note differences.  And my daughter says things like, "I really experience the joy in being chubby," or, "I wouldn't be so cute without my adorable chubby cheeks," or (and I squirm as I write this,) "Look at my fat belly, it's from all those healthy foods I eat."  She is aware that she is a larger person and she truly loves herself and accepts herself.

So, everything concerning the way my daughter feels about herself and her health is wonderful, but the world is a pretty fucked up place for women. And I wish that I could take her to a different world where as she grows up, everyone and everything isn't going to insist that there is something wrong with her.

My child deserves to live in a world where she is ENTITLED to like her overweight body. My child is ENTITLED to feel beautiful at a weight that society has arbitrarily deemed "too much."  I deserved this as well, but it was not the hand that I was dealt.  I will be damned if my daughter is going to experience the shame that I have felt without seeing me in the front lines fighting for the preservation of her self-esteem.  

All of the women in the pictures above are generally thought of as big, thick, chunky, chubby women.  This makes me wonder, if you are not thin, do people think that you are fat?  If you are big, are you fat?  Is there anything truly wrong with being a little bit fat? Or, having some meat on your bones? Is it less attractive?  To who? Is it less healthy? According to who? 

Frankly, I have seen women who outweigh me by 100 lbs run faster and harder than I can.  With far better endurance as well.   

I am 36 years old.  I have 2 children.  I am 5'10.  I weigh 150 pounds.  I wear a size 8 to 10.  My BMI is 21.5 and I work out more often than I don't,  yet the world makes me feel like I'm a little bit big.  I am, in every respect, totally normal.  

Now, because I am on fire right now, I am going to do something brave.  I am going to post the bikini pictures that I took and intended to post after meeting my goals and transforming my body.   This is really hard for me to do.  Even taking the picture was diffiuclt.  I can not imagine going out in public while wearing this.

I am posting these pictures because I want to make the point that THIS is what normal is for me.  This is what healthy looks like on me.  Do I have meat on my bones, YES!  I have a little extra chub in a whole bunch of places.  I am also stronger than ever.  I am in better physical shape than I have ever been in.  I have a healthy diet.  I am a totally normal, average person...  and that, my friends, is not thin for me.

This is what average looks like for ME.  

This is what I look like.  This is how I wear "healthy."  

And I am really sick and tired of living in a world that says average and healthy is chubby.  

I want my daughter to live in a world where she can be her own size.  She can define what is comfortable with her and not be criticized and told that there is something wrong with her.  And because I can not take her to a different planet, it looks like I'm going to have to change the world.

And that starts with changing myself.  

And now I'm going to go and have a good, long cry.  

A Little Mold On A Sunny Day (Day 5)

I think I see a little somethin' somethin'.  Nice.  And Nassssssttttttyyyyyyyyy.

A Little Mold On A Sunny Day (Day 4)

Shouldn't more be happening?  The only thing in here that isn't organic is the bread (white bread- hot dog bun).

A Little Mold On A Sunny Day- (Day 3)

Pushups 2 Pin ups Boot camp- Day 1

Today I sweat sugar, as they say at Push Ups 2 Pin Ups.

I did it!

This morning I rolled out of bed and instead of heading to my gym to do my standard workout, I begrudgingly fearfully excitedly rolled on over to Concord's local boot camp for women.

When I say that I was scared, I mean that I had to talk myself into going over and over and over and over and over until the moment the doors opened and I walked inside with about a dozen other women.  I hushed the voices that said, "you're tired today, just start on Wednesday.  Don't worry about it.  You know you'll do it eventually, when you're ready.  What's one day? It's going to be so hard.  You'll be the worst one there.  You won't be able to keep up."    I just bit the bullet and I started moving.

I am so proud of myself.

And I was totally the worst one there, but I didn't care and I don't think that anyone else did either.

Even though I work out every day, I'm just not fit.  I work out for lots of reasons, my number one reason being to relieve stress and work through emotions.  I'm not really one to push myself.  Though, I do workout hard from time to time, I usually stay within my comfort zone.

Today, I was so far out of my comfort zone that I forgot it even existed.  I was presented with the hardest workout that I've ever had, and though I had to modify some aspects of it to my own fitness level, I stuck it out and my body feels like jelly.

Again, I am so proud of myself.

The trainer LaTasha, was A-MAZ-ING.  She was the perfect combination of caring and unforgiving.  I felt motivated, understood and inspired the whole time I was there, and I am really excited to return.  I am really excited to push myself.  And I am really excited to get in the best shape of my life.

Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment, so I am just going to go back to my gym afterward and try to get in a nice strengthening workout, but on Wednesday I am back to Pushups 2 Pinups for my second boot camp.

As I wrote previously, this is a bikini boot camp for me.  I am pairing these difficult workouts with a very clean and healthy diet for the next two weeks.

After my shower today, I put on my first bikini ever and took my "before" pictures.  Friends, this was a really difficult task for me. I have anxiety just thinking about them.  I even considered posting them now so that they don't haunt me like some sort of dirty secret, but I think that I'll wait until the end of the two weeks so that I can post them with the confidence that I have improved.

My friend Amber texted me this yesterday and I've been thinking about it ever since.  It's really resonating with me, making me feel strong and capable- which all I ever really want to be.  :)

I feel like today was a turning point for me.  Something really good is about to happen.