You are not fat. You have fat. #weightproblems

I've gained 30 pounds in the last six months.  This is not something that makes me happy.  It actually bothers me a lot.  I have never weighed as much as I do now except when I was pregnant with PJ.  Although, there have been winters that I weighed close to this much, it was all in different places. I have never really had a roll or love handles or back fat.  Usually when I gain weight it goes straight to my ass, thighs and face.  That isn't the case this time.  Since I have had a serious case of writers block I decided to blog about how a change in body image can effect your self esteem.  And that is still the ultimate goal of this blog, however, I discovered a little problem.

 I usually choose a topic for a blog and then I go to Pinterest to try and find images and quotes that match my topic.  I find that this helps to get my creative juices flowing and helps me add some substance to my blogs.  Today when I went to Pinterest and typed in "body image quotes" I found a shit ton of quotes about accepting yourself for who you are and about the fact that it's okay to be fat and that we should love ourselves no matter how we look. I did not find one quote about how you should work to feel better about yourself if you are uncomfortable in your skin, or about being healthy and working toward a healthier you.  We all know that Pinterest is filled with workouts and recipes and fad diets but when you type in body image all you get are stupid quotes about accepting your body the way it is.

I do believe that to a certain extent we should all accept our bodies the way that they are.  I am always going to have a bubble butt and small boobs and for the most part I am okay with that fact. I'm never going to change my big front teeth or my straight hair.  I am always going to be short and my forehead is always going to be just a little bit bigger than I think it should be. But I don't HAVE to be 30 pounds overweight and I don't have to like the way that I look 30 pounds overweight and I should't be ridiculed for not liking the way that I feel and look at this weight.

As someone who has always been small I have always had a bit of a problem when talking about my weight.  People automatically dismiss how I feel when I gain weight. I don't have an eating disorder (unless emotional eating is considered a disorder) and I don't have unrealistic expectations of how much I should weigh.  When talking about weight I commonly get "You don't need to lose any weight, you're little" or "There's no way you weigh that much" or "If you lose that much weight you'll be skin and bones".

The one that bothers me that most is probably "You always gain a little weight when you're happy in a new relationship".  Um, why is that even a little bit okay?  Oh, I'm happy and content so now I'm going to gain 30 pounds and my boyfriend is going to be okay with it and I should be too because we're in a new happy relationship.  That's like saying "Fuck it, he loves me. I can be lazy now".  It doesn't matter that when you weren't in this committed relationship you made sure that you looked skinny and tan and cute all of the time so that he thought you looked skinny and tan and cute all of the time.  What matters is that now you have him so you don't have to put forth any effort anymore. Yeah, there isn't a whole lot of logic there.

Weighing more than you ever have before is really bad for your self esteem.  I hate getting dressed in the morning.  Picking out what to wear makes me feel like shit. Buying new clothes isn't an option because it's like accepting that I'm just going to be this size but squeezing into my regular clothes isn't really an option either because I feel like gigantor trying to put myself in a sausage casing. I don't like being naked.  I judge myself every time I look in the mirror. I'm super self-conscious when it comes to having sex.  I know what I looked like when we started having sex and I know how much bigger I am now.  I know that things rub different and move different and fit different.  I have noticed that I don't get called "fun-sized" anymore and that I don't get nearly the same amount of attention out in public that I used to. Maybe that all seems shallow and doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you've always been small it's a big deal.

I think that the biggest blow to my self-esteem is that I know that it's my fault.  I know that I eat like shit and that I sit on my ass and that now that I'm in my 30's I'm going to have to put forth more effort than I used to.  I understand math and science.  The older you get the slower your metabolism gets.  You have to burn more calories than you eat. Make healthy choices to be healthy. I am not healthy. My knees don't like my weight, my hips don't like my weight, my back doesn't like my weight.  It's not all about how I look.  It's about how healthy I am and right now I'm not, at all.

I think that people should accept their bodies the way that they are.  If you are healthy and making healthy choices than accept yourself.  I don't think that we should let society dictate what we think our bodies should look like.  I am a huge proponent of beauty being in the eye of the beholder and confidence is sexy and curves are sexy and everyone is their own person and you SHOULD accept yourself for who you are.  However, I don't think that anyone should tell me how to feel about how much I weigh when I'm not making healthy choices, when I am not comfortable in my skin, while my whole body is protesting and telling me that I weigh too much.  In the same way that society shouldn't get to dictate that I have to be skinny to love my body, it shouldn't get to tell me that I have to love my body when I'm not. I love myself, I love who I am as a person and I love my body, when it's working and looking the way that it's supposed to and I think that my extra weight doesn't change the fact that I am beautiful.  We all talk about removing the bad things from our lives so that we can be happy.  Why is it so bad to think of my extra weight as something negative that I need to remove?