Weight Loss; A different before and after story

I said that this blog would change when I came back to writing, that I wanted it to be more personal and less about craft. My battle with my own body image is something that I've touched on before but never been totally honest about here. In the past year I have lost a significant amount of weight, the type of significant weight loss that people plaster Instagram Before and After photos with. I'm not that kind of person though, and there is something in those posts that rankles with the feminist in me. There is something inherently wrong in those 'look at me now' photos that makes women feel ashamed if they are not ripped and svelte. I blogged for many years in my 'What I'm Wearing Posts' about being happy and confident as a plus size woman, if I was to turn around now with a crass before and after shot that would feel like negating that positive message I was trying to convey.

Nearly every woman I know has a complex relationship with her own body; how she feels about it herself, how she feels it's viewed by others, how she views other women's bodies in comparison to her own. This evolves and become less fraught as we get older, but there is still baggage that we all struggle to grapple with, hopefully we learn to let go and find some true inner confidence. Given how loud the voice of the media is, this struggle can be hard, it can take years of blocking out the white noise that tells you to hate yourself while trying to sell you the solution in the form of fashion and the latest phony wrinkle cream. I certainly have not been immune to this loud inner critic, I've cried in changing rooms, I've hated my reflection, I've masked the pain of feeling monstrously unattractive, but there are very few women that I know who can't tell a similar story. Thankfully that stage of my life is over, not because I'm thinner, but because I spent years figuring out how to unpack that baggage, leave it behind, and start loving myself properly. 

I have been many shapes and sizes over the years. When I started college I was size UK10, moderately happy with my body on a surface level, but in reality I was uncomfortable with my own reflection, felt larger than everyone else, and didn't really feel present in my body. I went on the pill soon after I started my first long term relationship, within 6 months I had gone up to a size UK16, and I didn't understand what was happening to me. I didn't really acknowledge the weight gain, I thought it was just part of not being a teenager anymore, I stuck my head in the sand, and continued feeling much the same on the inside; sad with a veneer of confidence that convinced nobody. As I got to my mid 20's, I crept up to a UK18, my attitude to dieting was militant and confused, I refused to give into regular notions of beauty, to starve myself to fit someone else's ideal. I armored myself in a garb of feminism and denial, which in many ways helped me to start having a healthy relationship with myself. I wrongfully bundled together fad dieting with living a healthy lifestyle, I saw them both as self hatred in disguise. It was far more important to me to get a handle on self acceptance than being an a certain weight, which is a good thing, but I was blinkered; I was afraid of addressing the unhealthy elements in my life. My physical fitness was terrible and I was chronically addicted to sugar, things I absolutely did not want to address.

A few years ago I blogged about my journey to getting healthier, these lifestyle choices were due to taking an allergy test that told me that a lot needed to change in my life. I followed it for a while, but my heart was never fully in it, and when I fell off the wagon, I did so spectacularly. Dealing with the break up of my relationship and partying heavily for a couple of years undid any good work I may have done during the detox. When I opened The Stormy Teacup I naturally started losing weigh due to the long hours I was working. Around the same time I because close friends with a yoga teacher, Christine McNally, through this friendship I started going to her beginners Ashtanga Yoga classes(my relationship with yoga will warrant a whole post by itself soon). It was at this point that everything turned around for me. It wasn't just losing weight that kept me going back to her class, but the peace that I found on the mat each time I practiced. I marveled at my growing physical strength, I learned to be kinder to myself, to value patience and self forgiveness, by figuring out how to care for myself on the mat, I was able to apply this in my day to day battles. Losing weight was one of the side effects of this turnaround in my life, but it was one the smallest transformations, it was a nice benefit, but dropping all the baggage was the real weight loss.

Since moving to Ennis and starting a new job in a health food shop this journey has continued. I have given up dairy and meat, cut down hugely on sugar and revel in cooking delicious healthy things for myself each evening. Yet again I am tackling my allergy issues, and specifically my skin condition rosacea(this will also warrant a whole blog post). It feels like a gentler more sympathetic way of treating myself, that is sustainable over a lifetime, rather than a regime that I've foisted upon myself. I got a bit of a shock the other day, I was getting dressed and put on a skirt that I know was a tight fit when I moved here 6 months ago, now it's too big to wear and I can take it off without opening it. Most women, who's goal it is to be thinner would be delighted with this but I felt a bit shaky. I hadn't noticed I'd changed that much, and to see a physical manifestation of it jolted me into a new awareness. 

I don't associate being thinner with happiness, just like I didn't relate being plus size with self hatred. I refuse to post a before and after photo with this blog post because I don't want to add my voice to the conversation that shames women over a certain size. The after picture is these words, the after picture is me saying I feel happier on the inside because I figured out how to be kind to myself. When I bump into old friends and they are shocked by my appearance, I don't know how to react, I know that they mean well, I know that they're genuinely happy for me. Even though it's not how it's meant, it feels like a judgement on how I looked before, I was beautiful then and I'm beautiful now. This post is an attempt at having a different type of conversation about body image, about self love and acceptance, just so every voice is not about thinspiration and fat shaming.

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A Feminist Celebration

I've been seeing lots of diet plan and thinspiration posts lately on Pinterest and it makes me really sad. Something like 90% of the users are female and it seems like a large majority of them are pinning quotes, diets, workout regimes, and 'look at how skinny I am now' stories. There is nothing wrong with wanting to get healthy but we as women need to stop being our own worst enemies. In answer to all of these posts I thought I would show you some women and articles that have inspired me, and made made me feel more beautiful and accepting of myself.

I love the fashion blog Advanced Style, it's a real inspiration to women who are older celebrating their age and their beauty in a really expressive way. You can see that they've spent a lifetime developing their own independent taste and don't feel under any pressure to conform to fashion norms(whatever they are anyhow??)

Speaking of having confidence, this is Rachele, a style blogger who is leading a movement online to change peoples attitude towards weight. She is a size US 26 and talks about being proud of her size, and celebrating herself, she runs a campaign called 'Proud of my size' that invites people to post outfits on their blogs declaring their size whether it be 0 or 30. I love what she is doing, there is no much negativity online it's great to see someone championing women.

Source

Women drinking pints of Guinness/Beamish seems pretty normal to me as I worked in an old man bar for years. But it occurred to me the other night when I went for a drink by myself and sat at the bar to read a newspaper that this might have come across as very strange to some people. The image of a young woman in a dress,with a broadsheet newspaper plus a pint of Beamish at 10pm on a weekday drew quite a few wry looks from the locals. Why is it perfectly acceptable for a man to go for a drink by himself and not a woman? My sisters for years ordered glasses of beer instead of pints because they weren't 'ladylike',I know I'm not the only one who thinks that's crazy, but I thought that kind of attitude went out with Jack Lynch.

When I went Googling for an image of a woman drinking a pint of Guinness I got loads of warnings for alcohol abuse, drinking while pregnant, muffin tops with measuring tapes. When I Googled the same thing for a man I got picturesque tourist photos! The pickings were fairly slim, but thankfully I found the above picture on this blog talking about the same divide between the thirsty sexes.
(funnily enough I actually came across this image of myself in my Google search!!)

This is a brilliant article on The Vagenda(if you don't subscribe to them do so now, it's a fantastic feminist blog) about underarm, leg and pubic hair and the social pressure to be as hairless as a baby's bum. I have total respect for women who don't shave and wish I was brave enough. I'm not so strict about underarm hair as I am about legs. If I find myself out and a bit furry with a vest on I'm not going to walk around with my elbows pinned down for the day. 

What I do find a bit disturbing is the pressure to have a constantly trimmed bikini line, I heard of friends being asked by a guy in an amorous moment why they aren't waxed, seriously?? Personally I think it looks a little weird and it freaks me out a bit. Ch4 did a good documentary on the proliferation of porn and what it has done to peoples expectations, they linked the rise in the demand for Bazilians to our consumption of porn, following the hairless aesthetic. 

There is about 1000 things in the Sex and the City films that really pissed me off, but the scene where Miranda gets stick from Samantha about not being waxed really annoyed me, I know it was meant to be funny but it rankled me that we should all conform to this one type( a sentiment that seems far more to do with pleasing others than that of self confidence).

I mentioned this article 'you don't have to be pretty' already earlier in the week but I thought it fit very well here too. It's about feeling beautiful and stylish in your own way no matter what you choose to wear, and not always having to put the best foot forward. I used to watch 'How to look good naked' and thought it was great for helping women feel good about themselves no matter what shape. As far as tv makeover shows go it was really great, but I always thought there was too much pressure on cinching waists, propping boobs, and teetering heels. All that can but fun to do sometimes and it can look great, but I felt that a little bit more self acceptance would have been more constructive. It was only ever a niggling feeling in the back of my head, but when I read this article it cemented those thoughts. 

I saw this stunning Celtic bust tattoo done on a woman that had a double mastectomy, what an inspiring way to reclaim your sense of beauty and womanhood!She looks like a warrior queen who has come out the other side of a battle and won.

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