Glow Up? Losing Weight Didn’t Make Me Happy
Up until about 3 years ago, I was clinically obese. Diagnosed with PCOS and Insulin Resistance at the onset puberty, I had a double dosed cocktail of hormonal imbalances that caused rapid weight gain: by my sophomore year of high school, I was packing over 200lbs on my 5"3 petite frame.
I was always the big girl in the class, always the overweight one surrounded by skinnier, prettier friends.
I was the cool girl, the one with lots of guy friends…but the same patriarchal system that had me rejoicing in my ability to be “different” from other women was also the same culprit behind why my guy friends only viewed me platonically in the first place. For most of them, my weight, in the simplest terms, made me unfuckable.
My weight, to most of them… made me unfuckable.
The sexual deprivation actually enhanced my creativity: I began pouring all my sexual frustrations into erotic fan fiction (more about this later ;)). I learned a lot about the wonders of masturbation. I still garnered and harbored a myriad of insecurities because of my size but I learned to live without looking to my physical appearance for affirmation.
Up until I lost a lot of weight, I spent the majority of my time examining my life as black and as a woman and as both simultaneously. I focused on everything outside of my appearance because I knew that as an obese black girl living in America, my appearances weren’t going to get me anywhere (although my privileges having light skin and being cis have helped me in numerous other circumstances).
I learned to rely solely on my inherent skills and abilities. I also learned to appreciate the beauty of being comfortable in my own fat skin.
I relied on men for nothing. Not for entertainment, not for a way to fill up an empty Saturday night, not for an orgasm, not for attention, not for a relationship or companionship.
That all changed when I lost weight.
I didn’t notice when I began to loose weight. But as family members and friends began commenting on the difference, I definitely started to notice and I began to keep track. In a little over a year, I lost close to 60lbs. A part of me started leaning towards those compliments in person or those likes on Facebook for satisfaction and fulfillment. Everybody else was noticing right? Wasn’t that a good thing?
Then came the changes with how men treated me. I’m not saying all men are dogs or pigs focused solely on physical appearance. But what we do know is that people who are considered conventionally attractive and palatable get certain privileges in our society. This is fact, not just experience. Society touts skinny bodies as a panacea to life’s problems, a mythical beacon of hope that promises to change your life if you just drop the weight- the sick thing is, it’s true.
Society touts skinny bodies as a panacea to life’s problems, a mythical beacon of hope that promises to change your life if you just drop the weight- the sick thing is, it’s true.
On average skinnier women make about $1.50 more than their overweight counterparts. Studies in 2011 showed a steady increase in worldwide anti-fat prejudice and if this isn’t bad enough, this increasing fat bias is statistically way worse for women than it is for men. The numbers don’t really do the experience justice. My experiences, before and after I lost weight, were vastly different. Living life as an overweight woman was like living life as an invisible specter. Besides the occasional fat joke, I was ignored by the vast majority of the people I came into contact with, unless they were friends or family. But once I lost weight, I became uncomfortably aware in which all the ways my existence had shifted in society’s eyes.
Skinny in our society = valuable. Loosing weight immediately affected how men treated me in public. Looking more like societal beauty standards meant that men opened doors for me, stopped to let me cross the street, got up on the train to allow me to sit. At first, I was vainly enamored by all the attention I was receiving. Until I took a closer look at the ugly underbelly as to why I had wanted to loose weight in the first place.
So why wasn’t I happy after loosing all that weight?
I lost weight to become less insecure without realizing my insecurities ran deeper than that
Loosing weight didn’t magically solve all my self esteem issues like I thought it would because I had a superficial idea of what “self esteem” should be. Loosing weight was like slapping a band aid on a pulsating wound. I thought that if I lost weight, I would be happier because I’d have the body I always craved for. What I didn’t realize was that me craving a smaller body was not only adhering to Traditional Western beauty standards but also me ignoring all of the things I disliked about myself on the inside. Which leads into my next point:
I did not want to loose weight to be healthy. I wanted to loose weight to be skinny.
I wasn’t intentionally loosing weight for my health. Getting healthy and being able to increase my physical scope was a plus, but those weren’t driving reasons behind me dropping pounds. As of today, I’ve gained over 30lbs back of the initial 60lbs I lost but what I had to accept was that focusing on weight loss right now may be good for my body but not for my mind.
Loosing weight caused me to unconsciously crave traditional patriarchal guided attention
What I mean by this was that once I lost weight and shifted back into the realm of visibility for most people, I began to shift my way of thinking as well. I began caring more about what I looked like, not for my sake but for the sake of looking good for men. I began thinking of my body in terms of consumption when I hadn’t thought about commodifying my body before.
I began thinking of my body in terms of consumption when I hadn’t thought about commodifying my body before.
When I was overweight, I was more secure in my abilities and talents
I learned to truly value my inherent talents when I was a plus sized gyal. What I didn’t realize when I lost weight was that I valued my talents less and my weight loss more.
This is only my story with how I became infatuated with the weight loss= happy rhetoric that permeates our radio waves, our television shows, our literature, our music. No matter your size, you should always be wholly happy with how you exist, both on the inside and outside. I became too preoccupied with the outside and fell into an emotional hole I’m still trying to climb out of. But its all good. Because all of this has led me to the realization that:
I am beautiful, no matter the casing
no matter the skin
that surrounds this light
within
