The New Year has begun, and with that, so has the exercise
uprising. I have lived a healthy
lifestyle for quite a few years now, so getting fit is never on my resolution
list. With that said, I am proud of our
society as, in more recent years, the focus is slowly turning toward health and
fitness. I applaud those who want to
live a healthy lifestyle, rather than a sporadic dieting lifestyle.
However, there was a time when weight and dress size
mattered to me. About six years ago, I
went through a divorce. Even though the
divorce was my idea, it was still a very hard decision, which led me to the “divorce
diet”. Those of you who are familiar
with this diet know that it is not intentional to lose weight. Due to stress, I survived on coffee,
cigarettes and maybe a very small meal every day for almost a year. Other than college, it was the unhealthiest
time of my life. (As an aside, since
then, I stopped smoking, became a runner, and most recently, I’m trying out
cycling.) I lost an insane amount of
weight and dropped to a size zero. I
know, I know. Boohoo for me. I was a zero.
And yes, I know people who struggle with larger sizes don’t pity me at
all. However, I’m not looking for
pity. I just want to say that being a
size zero wasn’t easy. Throughout my
life, I have been a number of different sizes (up to and including size
10). But I have to say that zero was the
hardest. Maybe it had something to do
with how I was feeling at the time, or that by definition, zero means nothing. Zero.
Zip. Nada. And I knew that I was more than that.
I remember thinking that my frame, though small, had carried
two healthy, beautiful children. It held
up through the awful things that were digested during my four years at Syracuse
University. It survived during my “club girl”
phase. It let me continue dancing at
parties and weddings throughout my adult life.
Since I was four years old, it had carried me through the good and bad
times living with Type 1 Diabetes. In other words, I realized that I was more
than the size on my jeans.
Once the divorce was over, I became a serious runner and
gained back some weight and added some muscle.
I graduated to a size two, where I sit firmly today. But the biggest difference is that I am now a
strong believer that size doesn’t matter.
I believe that health is the most important thing.
I also know that in recent years, the word “curvy” has been
tossed around quite often. I refer to
myself as curvy as, even though I am small, my hip to waist ratio is more J-Lo
than Twiggy. I think the definition of
curvy is different depending on which woman you speak with. But I ask this of all of the curvy women out
there-don’t hide behind the word “curvy”.
If you are curvy and HEALTHY, then by all means, celebrate that! But if you are simply overweight and are
calling yourself “curvy”, own that, and start entertaining the idea of being
healthy instead. What I am trying to say,
in a very long winded way, is that small sizes, large sizes, being curvy, or
being too thin is all irrelevant if it isn’t healthy. Embrace health. If you aren’t healthy, change it before being
unhealthy changes you. Change it, not
because of how you look in your jeans,
but because your body has brought you through your life, and you owe it
to your body to treat it well. Your body
has come with you through your journey.
It has taken your punches for you.
And it will never let you down, as long as you don’t let it.
