Conversation: Weight Issues

This is possibly one of the biggest issues I heard of people facing for the longest time. To be honest, I experienced a long battle with weight issues before as well.

Since I was a little girl, almost every other person I meet would go on about how skinny I am or label me stuff like "toothpick", "skeleton", "2-dimensional" etc. So I went crazy over baggy grunge clothing that I felt would make me look a little more proportionate. Then came puberty, and somehow because of my tiny frame, my busts ended up looking bigger than they actually are. That was when I started my bad habit of slouching, to try to hide them. I also remember forcing myself to eat crazy amounts of food when I'm out with friends just so people would stop calling me anorexic because I really wasn't. Next I turned 20 and suddenly I started gaining a lot more weight and could no longer fit into most of my clothing. I began to be able to see stomach bulges and my face became painfully round. Them came the "you know eating less of this and that will help weight loss", "wow your face is so much rounder now" conversations. To fix this I tried to go on all sorts of diets and even resorted to doing crunches every night. Thank God I found a secret remedy, foot reflexology. Turns out all those excess weight was caused by huge amounts of water retention thanks to my bad eating habits and lifestyle. Over the next couple of months, I lost all the extra weight and was back down to 42kg. 

Somehow as I grew older, my weight slipped to the 39-41kg range permanently no matter how much I ate. Sadly, losing all that weight this time downsized my bust size to an A. Now not only am I back to being a two-dimensional person, I'm also a "washboard", and to top it off people still assume I don't eat. It's as if all those times I ate in front of them don't count and I was just basically gulping air while they enjoyed a nice hot bowl of noodles. 

Point is, whether I was skinnier or fatter, I felt the same. Just in different forms. I think too many people have the misconception that being thinner would make them feel happier? The one thing I've learnt over the years is not to allow my happiness to be tied to my weight. Sure if you feel that losing some weight would be better for your health or personal outlook by all means go ahead! Just don't get too obsessed with it to a point where it's ruining your life. How many times have hid at home because you felt "too fat"? I heard so many stories of girls who secretly goes to the toilet to barf after a meal, or pop diet pills and starve themselves silly. Please don't put your body through that.  

After I accepted my size as it is, I stopped feeling lousy about myself when people made jokes or comments about my 'too skinny' physique. I stopped pushing myself to overeat and learnt that it's okay to just stop eating whenever I want. So if today I only feel like eating two bites and someone makes a snarky comment like "no wonder you're so skinny, you don't eat", it no longer affects me :) It's so much more liberating to live this way. And I hope that everyone of you who are battling weight issues will be able to free yourself from the pains of relating your happiness to your weight ♥︎