So does everyone just constantly think they're too big?
Alternate title: How do you go on vacation without hating your body?
Note: I’m talking about my body and how I feel in it in this post. I’m trying my best to be honest about how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking, and in doing that, I use words like “fat” or “bigger” or talk about how being bigger is a bad thing. This isn’t how I’d speak about or to someone else. That’s kind of the whole point of getting to a better place with body acceptance. I speak to myself and think about myself in a way that I’d never speak to someone else. If that’s going to be unpleasant or difficult to read, please skip! My goal in writing this is to work through how I’m feeling, and maybe help one woman know she’s not alone if she has also had these thoughts. It’s scary to talk about this kind of stuff online. Ok, on with the show.
I have a serious question for you — is everyone just lying when they say things like “I just try to get in some movement” or “I’m working out to be strong, not thin”? Is it really possible to put on pants and not think they’d look better if you were smaller?
Let’s go back 3 weeks. I’m feeling good in my body — nutritional therapy is going well, I’m making more of an effort to consume content from people with a similar body shape to mine. I’m not even body-checking as much. Spring “style” is fun because you can still layer (read: hide), I’m walking more with Rip in the mornings. I’m preoccupied with work and house stuff, so things are feeling pretty neutral.
It starts to get a bit hotter in NYC, and I look through my closet — summer clothes are less fun to shop for than knits and coats. I basically own 10 variations of the same button down, some jeans, and a pair of linen pants that I don’t love. So, I do a big Quince, H&M, Uniqulo, and Tuckernuck order (natural fibers only, we’ve discussed this). I pick larger sizes in everything and move on with my life.
This is where things start to go downhill. We play tennis and I ask Rip to take a picture to send to my dad. I look at the photo. What the hell? Do I look like that? Do my arms look like that? I look like an apple. I am the apple-shaped woman in the diagram of “which body type are you?” I thought I was the “hourglass.” When did this happen? I don’t send the photo. We go for Mexican (same place we decided to stop actively trying for a baby, this restaurant sees a lot of my emotions), and I’m very aware of my stomach the whole time. I cannot get out of my leggings and into the shower fast enough when I get home.
The clothes arrive and I leave them on my desk for a week. Why am I avoiding my fun new options? Every morning I move them to the bed, and every night I move them back to the desk. Finally, I’m like “Ok, you have to try this on or you’ll miss the return window.” So I get home from work, a little hot (temperature matters for my mood), and just rip through everything. I use the mirror on the back of my closet door (not a flattering mirror) so I can just get it over with.
Nothing looks good. Dresses, shorts, pants, tops — everything but a white t-shirt and some sweat shorts go back. I don’t have a photo of anything on except for this dress that I liked but felt a little too “she’s in the green dress.” I was hoping to pick up a few things to wear the following weekend in Palm Beach because it’s going to be like 1000 degrees, but fine, I’ll see what fits from last summer.
This is where the negative self-talk really ramps up. Nothing looks good on you right now, so you have to wear stuff you don’t feel amazing in. If you just lost some weight, everything will fall much nicer on you, more seamless.
I push the thoughts away. I’m working so hard not to have these thoughts, and when I do, to not take them seriously. But I can feel myself believing them.
We go to Palm Beach and stay at The Colony. I love it here.
However, I did forget how much summer makes me want to have a cocktail. It feels like everyone at the pool is getting hammered. And a lot of the women are smaller than me. How are they smaller? What are they doing at home? It’s because they have more self control than me — so they’re smaller, hotter, and they look better in a swim suit. I am fat, sober beached whale by the pool.
This idea, “they have more self control than me,” that’s an oooold thought — I’ve been having that one since middle school. I think along the way someone probably said something about control and food and my adolescent brain was like “oh fantastic, thank you, I’ll keep that for the next TWENTY YEARS and replay it whenever I feel a twinge of self-loathing.”
(Side note: have you ever asked yourself “how long have I been replaying this thought?” If not, next time you have one of your regulars, try to trace it back — seriously shocking).
At dinner our first night there, my shorts feel tight. These are supposed to be my “comfy” shorts. So I’m bigger. And bigger is unattractive. To myself, other women, and especially my husband.
We go for a walk in town the next morning. I look at myself in leggings in the elevator mirror. My hips are not the shape I thought they were. When did this happen? Have I just not looked in a mirror in awhile? The thoughts are back and they’re pissed — Jesus woman, your size L leggings feel tight? Are you going to size OUT of this store? You’re literally going to get so big you can’t shop at this store. That’s embarrassing for you.
So yeah, that’s it. I felt big in the airport coming home, contemplated eating “healthier” the following week which is just code for “going on a diet.” Then I thought against it bc I will then have to tell my therapist I’m on a diet and we don’t do that here. Any exercise I do, even a walk, is through the lens of “yeah yeah this is good for my brain but I’m also burning some calories!”
So, back to my original question — is everyone lying when they say they love their bodies? Is everyone on a diet and not talking about it? Can you just have a pleasant summer without constantly thinking about yourself and your body and comparing it to others? What is “movement” just for the sake of movement? When I was my smallest, I was my most unhappy, and yet I can’t shake how much I want to be thinner.
Let me know what you’re thinking.
Talk soon,
Sarah
Hi everyone!! WOW I cannot thank you enough for all of your open and honest sharing. The comments are my favorite part of posting here on SS. 99% of these have been fabulous, no notes. One thing I ask for you all to keep in mind — as you’re replying to others, please let’s keep it supportive. If it’s not feeling that way, I will be removing the comment. Again, thank you for all being here 💕💕
Thank you for this vulnerable account that I’m sure so many women relate to, including me. The first time I remember going through “outfits” was on the first day of first grade, and I am 63. I panicked. I hated all my clothes…and felt, truthfully, unsafe - a word I can only use now, with benefit of age and therapy. I still have these panic attacks over clothing. It’s even harder teaching at a university, because 18-year-old women haven’t finished growing. Some of them are positively waif-like. I stand in front of the classroom and wonder if they are listening to me or criticizing my choice of pants. It’s always the pants. In my mind, my bottom is expansive and disproportionate, but when I look at photographs from ten years ago, when I thought the same thing, I realize I look fine. Not like a model, but like a real woman. I think part of what happens for us — and only part — is the reductiveness of body comparison. It’s an object comparison: this body and that body, without context like age, ethnicity, or anything else. We are bombarded with catalogues of anorexic women (of late, with larger women sprinkled in) and images in the media that are fantastic. I was recently in a village in Italy where no one dresses up and everyone is a different shape, and they are all content, or seemed to be. Here in the US, we are bathed in this idea that our external appearance is pre-eminently significant when it is not. ~ This is not to say the anxiety and panic aren’t real, omnipresent, and a ball-and-chain for women. Most men have no idea. You mentioned your husband, but does he express discontent with your appearance? I’m guessing no. I looked at your photographs and the truth is, you look fresh and lovely and perfectly normal. I know that’s not what you see because in summer, I see my flabby arms and thinning hair (that’s an older woman thing and just as scary). So in my mind, the real thing is this created self-hatred that keeps us buying-buying-buying rather than living. When I was 52, I fell in love for the first time…and two years later, my new husband had died from cancer. Not to be too “the moral of the story is,” but after that I didn’t care about my butt or my hair or anything. It all seemed so shallow, and his death was like a reset. Recently I injured myself and had to stop exercising, and I panicked AGAIN, and three months later, without exercise, I am the same size. It makes me wonder how much energy and thought I am devoting to the bogeyman of the perfect body, still. Anyhow, I know this is all very rambly, but it is all to say, I spend too much of this six-decade life worrying that I wasn’t fine, when I was. My wish for all women is that we take that energy and devote it to creativity and joy and sexiness and authenticity. To living.