Hi I'm 5' 1" weighing in at 106 lbs. I'm at a healthy weight for my size and frame along with a healthy body fat percentage range. However, for a while I was ashamed of being petite for various reasons:
- Feeling like I had to prove to others that I ate
- Feeling ashamed that I really wanted to eat a salad and not junk food
- Having to explain that I'm not on a diet
- Having to explain that I do workout
- Looking like I "could use a sandwich"
- etc.
That was the case until I stumbled across Amanda Russell's website. Amanda is a fitness trainer/guru and she is petite. I would say maybe more petite than me but she has a lot of lean muscle on her. I read up a bit on her and realized that because of her physique a lot of the times people would tell her to "go eat a sandwich," a line that I'm familiar with hearing as well.
I know, I don't need reassurance from others on whether I'm healthy or not and how I look but sometimes I want to be the standard. Just like how bigger people want to look standard. What is standard?? Perhaps it's the ideal body that the world and media is telling us we all ought to have even if it's not in our genes to look a certain way. I don't mean that if you're fat then your excuse would be genetics. I'm talking about body shape. For instance, if you're a pear then you're a pear. Don't wish that you're a ruler. It's about working out your body to look your best, not to fit into someone's ideal version of you.
If you're someone who's bigger than me you're probably thinking that I would never understand how many women want to be my size, or that I'm so lucky to be thin and have skinny genes. Well I want to tell you that it's not about that at all. I may not understand your situation but I can understand low self esteem, dissatisfaction, negative body image, and media influences. The bottom line is it's not that different when it comes down to not being happy with yourself. We've all gone down that road.
So I'm 5' 1", doing good now. : )
I can relate. I used to be VERY thin, and people always seemed to think they could say anything about my weight, everything from aneorixic comments to "You're so skinny," (a word I loathe as I don't consider it a compliment). I was sometimes a bit sensitive about it and I don't think people realised that they were being rude and judgemental in their own way, but it was somehow socially acceptable for them to say what they wanted because I wasn't large, if you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteI think having gone through this makes me realize that I ought to be careful with my words too. It all goes both ways.. and I guess skinny plays out more as a compliment when used on someone who used to be big but in our context not so much lol. : )
ReplyDelete