A body positivity monologue

By Jade Sterling

Pardon my language.

I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that growing up, I thought that I had to be thin to be happy. I was a healthy happy child, getting plenty of exercise and activity at the behest of my mother, who was a scheduling genius and encouraged us into anything and everything. In my early teenage years, I celebrated newfound freedom with chocolate bars purchased with money from my part-time jobs; I quickly gained weight and by 14, I’d realized I was ‘fat’.

Aged 15 - I thought I was fat.

Looking back, that’s comical. I was perfectly normally shaped and sized; and yet, there began an obsession that followed me around for a while.

It started poorly; I remember skipping breakfast before school and eating nothing but mint imperials for lunch. My school trousers had a little pocket on the inside, presumably to enable young girls to hide their tampons in their embarrassed shuffles to bathrooms, which I’d stuff with mints (unwrapped, gross) and they would be all I was allowed for the day. Sometimes I’d switch things up and live off a handful of skittles instead.

Aged 16

I’d have the single meal in the evening with my family; eagle-eyed scheduling genius mum would have spotted anything out of the ordinary immediately had I tried to avoid dinners.

It worked. By 16, I was much thinner. I used to lie in bed in evenings and cup my hip bones, reassured by their protruding. It was around this time I also started running and quickly built up stamina to the point of multi-mile runs every day.

Aged 16 - size 6 and still not happy.

My sixth form years were spent skinny but I still wasn’t happy. I’d exercise compulsively, once doing so many sit ups and planks before bed that I couldn’t sleep for the pain in my abdominals. I’d stand in front of the mirror pinching every bit of skin and lamenting the fact that no matter what I did, I couldn’t achieve the coveted thigh gap. With age came increased freedom; some days I’d spread a single packet of mint Poppets over all three ‘meals’. 100 calories a pack; easily offset by the sheer volume of exercise I’d force myself through.

Not once did it occur to me this might not be normal.

I knew the calorie content of everything I consumed; I knew how long it would take me to burn it all off again. I devoured thinspo in place of actual food and would despair over what I now know were photoshopped images of impossibly tiny waifs. I was depressed but I didn’t have a name for it yet; I was never good enough for my own exacting standards.

The week before starting university - aged 18

At university, I gained weight. A lot of it. At first, it was the normal ‘freshman fifteen’ as all that alcohol caught up with me. Then, it was the bouts of deep depression I’d battle with pints of ice cream and piles of ready salted crisps. The medication I desperately needed helped me finish my degree, but didn’t help with the weight issue much.

I was tormented. Each extra pound haunted me. I was forced to buy clothes in double-digit sizes; sizes I’d once told myself I’d be mortified to wear. I hid myself away, which was easier said than done.

Aged 19

The next six years were spent trying to lose the weight at any cost. I tried the 5:2 diet; Slimming World; obsessive calorie counting; and good old-fashioned starving myself. The lowest I managed was 152lbs—26lbs heavier than when I walked into my university dorm.

I met my husband at 152lbs. I was still working on losing weight—5:2 again—and thought he’d like me more if he saw how small my portions were, how delicate I could be, and how dainty I could make myself. I’d refuse my own portion and steal bites out his bowl then scarf down 20 chicken McNuggets in the car on the way home. I stayed in the 150s while we were dating.

Aged 23

He loved me; I did not.

When we got engaged, I was sort of feeling myself. I was in the 160s at this point; sort of starting a journey of body positivity. I was in a good place mentally and it was all starting to come together. Wedding dress shopping put an end to that.

I had an idea in my head of how I wanted to look on my wedding day; tall (I’m 5”4), slender and elegant in a column lace dress. I had no hope. My dress was custom made and designed for my figure; looking back, I’m so grateful she worked with what I wanted, incorporated my vision into my actual design, and put pockets into my dress to successfully distract me from the fact I was in a Grecian style dress—fat girl style, not thin girl style.

The pockets really were an excellent distraction

I loved the design—genuinely—but I couldn’t shake the fat girl feelings. The pressure to be a beautiful bride didn’t put me on a crazy diet, but the complete opposite. I ate my feelings, and I ate them big time.

I was tipping 180lbs two months before my wedding day. If you’d told 16-year-old me future me would gain almost 60lbs, she’d likely have clawed out her stomach to prevent it. My engagement photos broke my heart; I loved how happy and in love I looked but the moon face and protruding stomach shamed me into thinking I didn’t deserve my husband, the wedding, any of it. Worse, I couldn’t have covered my body with my beautiful yellow coat, because I was too fat for it to zip up comfortably.

I resolved to fix things—I couldn’t hate my wedding photos!

Diet time.

I knew I couldn’t just stop eating—because that’s bad—so I enlisted the help of a dietician, who basically told me to stop eating. I was advised to try a Very Low Calorie Diet (VLCD) which worked out to 600 calories a day to ‘kick start’ the weight loss. For 30 days, I’d be at a deficit of around 1200 calories a day, so we hoped that would see me lose around 3-4lbs a week. I lost 3lbs in total.

Two months before the wedding

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the final four weeks between that moment and my wedding day are almost a complete blank in my memory. I have no idea what I was thinking, feeling, or doing in the run up to the big day but I do remember feeling delighted when my wedding dress designer told me she had to take my dress in a little at my final fitting. I’m sure now she was lying, but it was nice of her to pretend.

I harboured reservations as to how I’d look on my wedding day, and expected to hate my reflection and my photos.

I will be forever grateful to my family and friends that I didn’t. My wedding day went by in a blur of sobs, hugs, kisses, laughter and my parents’ first tequila shots. I remember nothing but happiness from that day—and the photos reflect that.

The photos are joyous. I am radiant. My face is a shining sunbeam—not a moon, not chubby-cheeked or double-chinned—but resplendent. My favourite photos are those of my friends beaming; my sister unreservedly grinning; my new husband gazing at me; my uproarious laughter at being caught gossiping on camera.

I love my wedding photos.

I don’t see fat bride; I don’t see any of that self-hatred or self-doubt; I see a happy Jade.

Buuuuuuuut it didn’t last.

I still adore those photos; I still see them the same way; but my self-esteem has nose-dived since that one glorious day.

The first two months after that day, I continued to gain weight. I hit 200lbs and felt worse than I’d ever felt before. I can hardly stand the sight of me in any of our honeymoon pictures. I try not to think about that as the trip was incredible—it hurts my heart to think I’d have enjoyed it more if I were thinner.

A couple of months after our honeymoon, I switched my medication and reaped the benefits of an awful side effect. I was so nauseated, I literally could not eat. It was like someone had not only switched off my appetite, they’d removed it altogether. I dropped 20lbs in a month.

Feeling good enough to shop again

For a little while, I was happy! I was on the road to thin again, I was down a couple of dress sizes and I’d started to see myself as attractive and worthy again.

When the nausea receded, I forced my body into accepting intermittent fasting. I would only eat between 6pm and 10pm, with nothing but an iced coffee at 8am and an iced tea (unsweetened) at 1.30pm. One meal a day and even that was carefully calorie balanced.

By the time we moved abroad, I was back into the 160s.

In Amsterdam

But the happiness had long since evaporated.

I was obsessed again. It feels like an eternal merry-go-round but one that’s no fun at all.

I kept up the intermittent fasting until November, at which point my willpower ran out. Between November and New Year, I gained 20lbs back again. I’ve been that weight—give or take 5lbs­—since.

I’ve not liked my body since November. It does everything I ask of it, but I don’t like it.

180lbs in June 2019

I don’t know if I’ve ever liked it—let alone love it, the way all these body positivity icons tell me to. When I was thin, I wasn’t thin enough; when I was fat, I wasn’t thin; when I was losing weight—it’s like the Grand Old Duke of York up in here.

But now I’m fed up.

I am so done with pegging my self-worth and my self-esteem to my weight and how I perceive that other people perceive me.

I am so tired of obsessing over weight and feeling guilty about every little thing I eat.

I like food!

I am curvy. I am overweight. I am fat.

I am never going to have a thigh gap.

I will never be able to comfortably wear an unsupportive bralette.

Maybe it’s the medication balancing out. Maybe it’s feminism. Maybe I’ve just run out of fucks to give.

But I cannot go through life hating myself like this anymore.

June 2019 - 181lbs

I have started to challenge myself and take the steps to fixing my body image. I have to keep reminding myself to compliment my appearance and not nitpick it whenever I catch a glimpse of my reflection. I have to check myself when I think something self-deprecating or cruel. I have to consciously counter each negative thought with something positive which is hard enough when you don’t have four voices in the back of your head ready to pounce on every insecurity.

It's really hard.

But it’s vital to my continued happiness.

June 2019 - 179lbs and feeling particularly fine in my favourite bar

My Instagram feed no longer shows me #fitspo or slinky models exclusively, but a diverse cast of body-positive icons and my actual real friends living their actual real lives. I devour Sierra Schultzzie and Carrie Dayton YouTube videos and stalk Jenna Kutcher’s Instagram like a crazed paparazzo. I run in the mornings for the sheer joy of a half hour sunrise run with my bouncy dog; I eat whatever I want because I’m so fucking tired of feeling guilty for eating.

I have posted three selfies this week—one where it is immediately obvious I do not have a flat stomach, highlighted as it is in my new favourite jeans; one where I have no makeup on and the spots on my chin are glaring at the camera; and one where I actually compliment myself in the caption (I did have great hair that day!).

I’m determined to be the best version of myself and that includes showing the whole world the real me unashamedly.

Unashamedly drunk and in love

It’s so cliché but I get it now: I truly have lost too many years of my life to hating myself. My past relationship with my body seems so stupid now and my future one needs to be one of acceptance and care.

My husband wants a happy wife more than he wants a thin wife; my family want a happy daughter and sister more than they want a thin one; my dog wants a mum bouncing around on a run rather than one worried about her thighs wobbling.

Spoiler: my thighs wobble like jelly when I run (ditto my chest, arms, stomach, arse, the lot of it) but wow do they power me along my route.

Sweaty hot dogs post-run

Everyone struggles with body positivity; everyone is guilty of putting themselves down or hating something specific or even their whole selves. Body negativity knows no size or gender—we are all human and we could also use some self-love.

Show yourself some compassion. Cut yourself some slack. It’s hard and it’s a long journey; a process rather than a sudden mindset shift. It’s a constant middle finger to the vitriol we’ve been fed for far too long.

I am by no means body positive—yet. But I’m working on it. ■

Flourish

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