be comfortable with my body

about this goal right now is adjusting to the reality of my current body composition. For five years I’ve identified with being an overweight person and my whole world has been shaped around those habitual thoughts and feelings and insecurities. Now I have a pretty athletic physique I still can’t quite believe it some days and catch myself thinking about myself in the old way.

It’s crazy to think that at the beginning of the summer I wasn’t active and was just slobbing around in an old baggy pair of size 14 ripped jeans whereas only today I bought a fitted jacket in a size 8. I look (and am almost starting to feel) like the different person I’ve become.

I’m definitely getting better with this one.

I had a few dodgy times on holiday when I kept comparing myself to everyone else, but in essence I feel comfortable (physically and visually) with my body, just not as happy as I could – and will eventually – be.

It’s all relative though. Four months ago I dreaded getting dressed and going to college because I felt so overweight, now I’m not overweight and jog down the streets in shorts!

The other day I was laughing with a friend about the Catch-22 cruel nature of exercise: it helps you lose weight and tone up but often it’s a spirit crushing endeavour when you have to brave the gym looking overweight or at least feeling like it.

And the worst scenario? Swimming!

What could be worse than squeezing into a SKIN-TIGHT SUIT for your self-esteem, huh?!

But today I felt pretty ok about it. I didn’t exactly stride purposefully into the centre of the changing room proclaiming “the world is my stage!” and dramatically disrobe, closing with the L’Oreal sentiment “Cos I’m worth it”, but it didn’t go down too badly I thought. It wasn’t so much that I felt comfortable, although on the whole I did, but that I wasn’t obsessing over what I looked like in my swimming garb etc.

I went shopping for clothes. In the past, that was the number 1 way to feel bad about myself- all that trying on clothes that didn’t fit and looking at myself in the mirror from all different angles only ever made me feel depressed and ashamed. Having lost some weight and feeling reasonably motivated I noticed that yesterday when I looked in the mirror my thoughts weren’t critical at all.

In fact, I even had one moment when I thought: “yeah…I’d hit that!!”

Reflecting on the last year, I feel that my comfort level with my body fluctuates. Admittedly I have spent the past year doing next to nothing in the way of things that might’ve helped, like exercising or eating well, and so I hold those habits partly responsible. The rest is purely down to the exaggerated way I see myself which is usually far more unattractive and fat than I actually am.

At the moment my other goals on 43 Things are helping- even though results aren’t instant with exercising, it makes you feel better at yourself and that has been positive. I’m also eating well and so far have lost half a stone over the past month or so.

Last night when I was considering what I actually like about myself, I realised that I love being a woman, and as bodies go, I’ve got a pretty good one potentially. I think a lot of my dislike of my body is centred around comparisons I made as a schoolgirl and also my general sense of being a bit gawky and geeky as a teenager (the sense of which was reinforced by militant PE teachers!)

If I accept that I have grown into a woman then none of those perceptions apply and they all belong in the past. Now I am starting to move beyond them, especially since losing weight means it will be slightly easier to buy clothes- or have the motivation to buy them and look nice.