The Health Mission

Weighing myself is never a good idea, as I'm never satisfied with the number that I'm shown. After recently weighing myself, I realised that I'd put on nearly half a stone over the last 2 months, eugh. Truth is, I had actually noticed that I'd put on a bit of weight, but was relatively happy for once with my body... my boobs had even gotten bigger (win!) but it wasn't until I weighed myself that I started to feel crappy about myself again. After having a bit of a sulk about it (there was a lot of huffing and puffing whilst prodding and pinching belly fat), I came to the conclusion that weight is just a number and as long as I was happy with myself then what did it matter? But it did bring to my attention just how poorly I was eating; I was always going to put on weight if I was eating 4 pizzas in a week (I don't regret that one bit though btw...). This summer has been full on nights out and late night takeaways, snacks and lounging around in front of the tv and let's be honest, it's just not healthy and probably the cause of my weight gain. Eating crappy food hasn't only affected my weight though; my skin has become oiler and spottier and I feel tired and lazy all the time, with no motivation.

A health kick was in order!

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'Real Women'

The media has piped up once again since the rise of the #fatkini selfie and in some cases has dubbed the ladies posting the selfies as ‘real women’ and I have a bit of an issue with it (now, hear me out before you go off on one…). The fab women posting their #fatkini pictures are inspiring and I admire each of them for their self-confidence and let’s be honest, they all look great! Obviously my issue is not with them, but instead with the media and the term ‘real women’. This phrase depicts the ‘perfect’ woman as someone who is curvy and voluptuous.  As someone who has quite and athletic/ boyish (I don’t particularly like that term either for describing body figures) I can’t help but wonder if this means that I’m not a real woman? Does my lack of hips mean lack of femininity? Of course it probably seems that I’m over reacting, but I think the associations with the phrase should be changed! Because, of course, EVERY woman is a REAL WOMAN – tall, short, skinny, fat, athletic, curvy, hourglass figures, pear shaped, apple shaped, carrot shaped, WHATEVER!

 The media is so confusing with its portrayal of beauty. You aren’t beautiful if you’re not a 6ft tall, size 6 perfectly proportioned model, but you aren’t ‘real’ if you don’t have curves and a cracking rack – confusing much?! I could go on forever with my issue with the media and how shitty it can make us feel, with the number one culprits being crappy celebrity gossip magazines (“How dare ~insert celeb name~ allow herself to be papped wearing no make-up! Oh, the shame!” – YAWN!!)… I’ll save that rant for another rainy day…

Basically, I wish I had the body confidence of any woman who posts a bikini selfie. They all look fab, and anyone who says otherwise or criticises them need a quiet word with themselves. Keep up with your #fatkini and #bikini pictures ladies, and ignore stupid media and any tag they want to put on you.

What are your opinions? Am I overreacting? Should the media's or even society’s narrow minded views on beauty be tackled? 

Think before you speak - Weight

Weight was never really an issue for me until I left high school. I used to do a lot of sport, ate what I wanted and never weighed myself (mainly because the scales were broken). But after leaving high school, I started to lose weight and I didn't really notice either. My clothes were getting looser and baggier on me, but I put it down to them being old and the elastic being worn out, and that I was just way overdue a decent shopping spree. I hadn't changed any of my eating habits, if anything, I was lazier and ate more crap than before. I was perfectly happy with myself size wise I didn't think I'd changed much at all. It wasn't until poeple that were close to me started making comments... "You're too skinny", "Are you eating?", "You used to have boobs and an arse, you're flat now", "There's nothing to you!". And I won't lie, these comments hurt. A lot.

"If you think about it, boobs are just lumps of fat..."

I think the title of this post says it all really...

I've always wanted to have bigger boobs. I was a little bit of a late developer and my thoughts growing up were that having boobs meant you'd become a 'proper woman'. Sounds daft, I know, but I'm sure that I'm not the only girl in the world to have thought this. I've never really been 'flat' chested, but I've always been considerably smaller than all my friends and it used to make me feel quite self conscious, especially when some of them used to point out the fact that I had smaller breasts and make light jokes about it (these people are no longer my friends by the way - anyone who says something that makes you feel self conscious is NOT a real friend). At the age of around 17, I was adamant that I wanted to have a boob job, but now, having one is completely out of the question (and not just because my boyfriend has pretty much forbidden me to have one). After watching numerous episodes of Botched Up Bodies and other various programmes on plastic surgery, I've come to realise just how ludicrous it is... Youre paying £1000s to have your body basically cut open and have plastic stuffed inside of you, followed by weeks of pain! Not to mention the potential health risks that come with it. No thank you!

#instasham

This article in Look magazine (2nd June 2014) sparked my interest and although it's not about body hang ups, it highlights an insecurity amongst women nonetheless. It's never once crossed my mind that I have to prove to my followers on Instagram that my life is interesting. When I do post something, it's usually showing a scenic view, something I'm interested in, or I'm trying to avoid doing something else like uni work, so the statistic shocked me... "53% of us are willing to act differently on Instagram than in real life in order to impress our friends". It made me wonder if any of the pictures I see of people on Instagram (that I get jealous of) are there to just mask any insecurities of the person posting them? Just enjoy life, take pictures for memories, not just for Instagram or the likes...  

 

The first step...

I'm 20 years old, I'm 5"3, size 6/8 with a weight that hovers around the 8 stone mark.  I study biology, I have a long term boyfriend and have slight addictions to shopping and junk food. I'm just an average person, with life so far, working out quite well. I'm the sort of person who tends to be quiet and reserved when you first meet me and then after a while, I'll drive you nutty when I won't stop chattering away. I tend not to care for peoples opinion of me (after I stopped caring, I found I was much happier) and go for whatever makes me happy. However, I find myself on a regular basis, looking down at myself or at my reflection in the mirror and having a tidal wave of insecurities consume me. I often wish to have longer legs, or bigger boobs, a flatter stomach or to have tanned skin, for my eyes to be a different colour, think a bit of plastic surgery wouldn't go a miss, wish my skin was better... (You get the idea). I look in my wardrobe and wish it was a bit more up to date fashion wise or look at selfies on Instagram and wish I could make my own face look amazing through the power of make up. I certainly wouldn't leave the house with at least mascara and concealer on at the bare minimum (wouldn't want to scare people, would I?) I feel pressures from all possible angles to look a certain way. I compare myself to every other girl and wish I looked like them in some way. My boyfriend tells me on a regular basis that he thinks I'm beautiful (I don't even need to fish for the compliment) and I believe that he thinks that, but I, myself, couldn't disagree more, and it's dragging me down enormously.