I’ve been struggling with this blog for days now. I’ve had a personal struggle with weight on and off for years.

When I met my partner I weighed the sum total of 41kgs. I felt sexy. Looking back at pictures, I didn’t look healthy. Six years later, I’ve gained all the weight I lost before I met him and I can’t say how thankful I am that he never calls me fat, he has never ridiculed me or made me feel shameful. To the contrary, he always tells me that I am sexy and beautiful.

Within my self, I feel guilt and shame. I criticise the way I look, what I eat and how much of it I eat. I walk every day to try to get rid of the fat but it sticks, closer than a best friend. When I see my mirror image I want to vomit and feel such self loathing. Who is this person looking back at me ?

When I started writing this, it was around the issue of women being held to a standard, what we should look like and how are bodies are meant to be according to what we see in the media.

A slender and thinner body is healthier and more appealing to look at. It seems to go deeper than that though. My self image is very much tied to the way that I look. People close to me that love me don’t judge me by my looks (except for a handful) but those really close to me don’t seem to bother about whether I am under weight or overweight, as long as I am happy.

Why do I feel struggle to love me when I am overweight?

My mother struggled with weight as did one of my older sisters. I’ve read a number of books on “eating my feelings”, followed diets and taken pills and potions but here I am again, going around the same mountain.

I am not giving up and accepting that this is the way that I am going to spend the next few years of my life but I am going to do the best that I can to love me as I am, right now, at this time and believe that as I release the guilt and shame that I will release the fat that clings to me.

While going through a painful journey of growth, I listened to Louise Hay audio books that aided me tremendously. Louise said over and over that self love is the answer, no matter what the issue. Not the vanity kind of self love but the acceptance of oneself, right now, not once you’ve got that promotion, not once you’ve lost the weight, loving yourself just as you are. Now.

As I mentioned earlier, when I started writing this blog, is was geared around the idea that women are expected to look a certain way. We are conditioned by the media that slender is beautiful and that fat is unattractive and undesirable. The thinner one is, the more beautiful you are. That nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

I started out by mentioning that women have so many roles and that we are so many things to so many people. We are mothers, daughters, wives, grandmothers, sisters, friends and lovers and that our worth shouldn’t be determined by our weight. After some deep soul searching, I realise that the only person that judges me for being overweight is me.

Is “Fat” the worst thing that a woman be?

I’d like to hear any comments that anyone else has on the issue of women and weight and will update you when I have managed to shed some of my guilt and shame and am sporting a healthier body.

Featured photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash