Just STOP!!!

Ok world.  I have had ENOUGH!
Enough of the rhetoric with the diet and the "America's obesity crisis" bla bla bla.  I've heard all I can stand and I can stand NO MORE.  Up with this I will not put!

So once upon a time I tried to be a model.  I saw those women in the VS catalogs, and Maxim magazines and I wanted to BE that woman.  The woman that men looked at and had naughty dreams about.  The woman that made every woman suck in her gut when she walked by.  The woman that had her perfectly poreless face plastered all over beauty ads and such.  So I started posing for pictures.  Eventually, a photographer or four asked me to pose nude.  Yeah I said nude.  I also said yes.  Me.  5'4" tall and over 200lbs, pose nude for photographs.  I did that. 

I know what you're thinking...PORN.  Hell naw this chic wasn't in nobody's porno! !!  I posed for people that drew/sketched me, and I did artistic nude photos (out in the country and such...just being FREE).  No one saw my va j j and there were no pictures of my va j j.  My stomach helped to hide it quite frankly, but that's not the point.  The point is it was tasteful.

To this day, those were some of the most beautiful photographs I have ever taken.  I am not ashamed of it in the least!  In fact, I feel like everyone should try it.  It was thrilling to have people doting over you constantly.  "Are you hot...are you thirsty...can we get you anything...oh that looks marvelous...your skin looks flawless in this light."  It was the BEST rush of compliments and boosted my self esteem.  One day, I was posing for a life drawing class for freelance artists.  We were taking a break and one of the artists (a woman) approached me.  She thanked me for being so wonderful to draw.  At the time, I thought that was the greatest compliment I had ever been given.  Now...I think of it a little differently.  Now my mind feels like what she was really telling me is that I was complicated to draw.  Is that really a compliment?  Doesn't seem like it.  Don't go throwing me no pitty parties. 

Every day I think about what I look like.  Being single drives this.  Every day, some guy tells me how attractive I am...but I'm single.  At one point I did wonder if I was psychotic.  But my failures in relationships all stem from my failure to realize myself for what I am.  Or at least that was the problem.  I now know I am frigging AWESOME!  But I am still over 200 lbs.  For now.

Society tries to force down your throat every day that healthy can be judged by appearance.  This isn't true.  The sexiest Playboy model can have diabetes, high blood pressure, etc...and she's probably a size 0.  It is my mission to be what I feel is healthy...not what society sees as healthy.  I'm not on this earth to please the public.  That would make me a celebrity.  LOL  If MY "healthy" is 200lbs...then so be it!  Stressing about not conforming to some standard invented by someone I've never met, and whom has certainly never met me, is what kept me from losing weight.  Posing nude was my way of saying "fuck you, fat is sexy too."  Let's face it, it's not.  I can't change that, and its really not in anyone's best interest TO make fat/obesity sexy.  Instead, "I'm still beautiful" should have been the message my artistry conveyed.

Now that I'm 35 (I know I don't look a day over 20...7), I am more aware than ever of this ridiculous weight that society puts on the overweight.  It's stifling and nearly unbearable.  Why?  Because the older I get, the harder it is to find time to worry about my weight.  So I stopped.  I stopped worrying about every little pound, every meal, what I ate, when I ate, all of it.  I just stopped.  Somehow the weight loss gods have found favor in my nonchalance and I've lost nearly 40 lbs over the course of a year.

I haven't changed my diet that much at all.  I eat the same things I ate before.  I try to pick a sandwich over a burger.  I never eat all my fries.  I stopped buying sweets and eventually stopped craving them.  One day I bought a pint of ice cream, ate some of it (about 1/3) and put the lid on it and put it back in the freezer.  The funny thing is, it didn't occur to me that I didn't eat the whole thing until about an hour later.  I had to ask myself "did I really just do that?"  Even better, I didn't want to go back and get it out of the freezer and finish it.

I was only exercising so that I could see the trainer.  He was too hot for words.  That's hardly a reason to exercise because now that I don't see him...I don't exercise.  I'm not sad about it either.  I have my memories of both.  I really can't remember where I was going with this so I guess it's time to wrap it up.

STOP.
Stop freaking out about not losing weight.
Stop weighing yourself every day.
Stop feeling guilty about what you ate.  It's already in your belly.  Move on and try again.
Stop comparing your success to that of others.
Stop seeing yourself as insufficient, undesirable, and the like.

I'm here to tell you...
YOU
ARE
ENOUGH!

You are beautiful.  Be confident.  Have you told yourself how awesome you are today?  No??!??  Go then!  Because you are!

When I stopped, it started.  As my dad would say..."you'll figure that out on your way to work tomorrow."