Category Archives: Weight

December 7, 2010 · 10:17 am

The first time I tried diet pills

I started at a boarding school in Grade 11. When I arrived, I had a stunning figure, slim and muscular.  I bought clothes without a care in the world. I wore my school uniform – a checked button down dress with ease. I remember another girl in the grade below me complimenting me one day on what a nice body I had. (Don’t get any ideas, yes this was an all girl’s boarding school, but she was merely making an observation!)

I was homesick and unable to speak to my parents on the phone; they lived in a remote part of Africa.  I was thrown into higher grade Maths and French which until then in my school life I had excelled at. All of a sudden I had to prove theorems and had oral exams in French.  My new friends and teachers comforted me, but the comfort I also sought solace in was…. food.

The meals themselves were not the healthiest. As anyone from boarding school will know, breakfast, lunch and dinner are inevitably smothered in some kind of cheese. I did not complain.  Sunday lunches were something I looked forward to… cauliflower in cheese, roast potatoes with gravy… ahh, just thinking about it now makes me hungry! The tuck shop had wonderful chips and chocolate for sale every day after prep… there was a couple weeks where I had a Tempo bar and BBQ Fritos every day.

As the months wore on my uniform became tighter and tighter.  A friend and I decided we had to do something about our weight gain. (Exercising and eating less was just not glamorous enough) and instead went to the pharmacy for diet pills.  We bought Thinz. They were within our budget, easy enough to take, and we could hide them in our closets.

About a week after taking the pills my friend and I were the most irritable we had ever been. We snapped not only at each other, but at other friends as well. Everything and everybody just seemed to annoy us.  We were in such foul moods that it scared us a bit.. most of the time we were always laughing and very carefree. However all of a sudden we were being horrible to everyone and feeling terrible.  It was an easy decision to make.. stop the pills. Life was just not fun, and instead of losing any weight, we were on our way to losing friends.

It’s been 10 years since then… I am still on the journey to get back to that slim muscular figure. I have realized though that diet pills just aren’t the answer and only hard work on my part will get me there.

About these ads

4 Comments

Filed under A Womanly Body, Growing Up, Weight

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 22, 2010 · 9:40 am

The First Time I Struggled With My Weight

Weight has always been an issue for me. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I started struggling with my weight, but I do remember the first time it very really became “an issue”. I was maybe 12 or 13 at the time and we had gone overseas and were heading out to dinner with my great-aunt. I didn’t remember much about her – I had last seen her when I was a slight 5 year old and she took me frolicking in the sea while my mum, heavily pregnant at the time watched on. I don’t remember what I ate that night, or where we went, but I do remember putting on a tartan skirt, “dolling” up for want of a better word and altogether making quite an effort.

I don’t think it was very long into dinner when my great-aunt put down her fork, looked me up and down and said “what happened to the thin pretty little girl I once met?” I have never forgotten it. I was mortified. I was also hurt, but most of all, I was angry. Angry that someone could be so cruel to someone so young; angry that no one else stood up for me (thanks mum and dad! I won’t lie, there probably still lies resentment there); and angry that I didn’t stand up for myself.

I have not hated many people in my life, but I hated her. When she died, I think I made a passing comment along the lines of “so what?” or “good riddance.” It certainly does bother me that while typing this I get angry all over again, and yet it was 15 years ago now. A part of me would love to blame her for all my “weight” issues over the years, yet, it’s not her, she just made it “real”.

I don’t know why my weight yo-yo’s (and this is quite a yo-yo – between 15 kgs) but I do know it has a lot to do with ‘comfort’ eating and my ‘happiness’ levels. Even when I was at my “thinnest” I thought I was heavily overweight – and yet now, at my “fattest” I was in denial that it was that much of a problem until I saw a photo.  Certainly some pretty warped conceptions I have of myself.

This then brings me to dieting…I am always on a diet. I am on one right now. A friend of mine even said once “but isn’t that a problem in itself – as clearly something is not working.” And she is right. Being on a diet permanently is not optimal – but if I don’t watch myself then my weight does spiral out of control. I try listen to the hints and do exercise at least 3x a week but at the end of the day it comes down to how badly I want to lose the weight and my mindset and my ’happiness’ levels; and it’s not easy. I try to think of the progress I make when losing weight in terms of margarine tubs – I might not think losing 500g is a lot, but if I put it into context –that margarine tub is the amount of fat I am losing at a time and it makes it seem easier somehow.

You can only lose weight for yourself (which I do still battle with on occasion – especially when I just want the excess to all be gone and quickly!) thus it’s important to try to rally round your friends and family in this quest. Thus far I have lost 3kg’s since mid July and it’s tough to keep going, but I am running with a friend 3x a week, watching what I eat and generally feeling better about life and me (I finally have job security which was one of my biggest stressers of all). It isn’t easy and I hope somewhere, someday I can wake up and not worry about what I am putting in my mouth, or why I am eating it and just accept.

I don’t know if this will ever happen, but I am working on it.

3 Comments

Filed under A Womanly Body, Health, Weight

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

August 19, 2010 · 11:22 am

My First Eating Disorder

Image from Imgfave.com

This is a hard one, writing about weight when you can barely remember when your weight problems really began and why. Growing up in Zambia as a teenager wasn’t that hectic, people didn’t really care about how much you weighed or if you had an eating disorder. It wasn’t what people discussed at home either, so I really didn’t have much of a problem or obsession about it. Although I must say the bigger you were the better and richer you were.

I have always been thin or medium-sized in school. Going to university here in South Africa was hard, because then I started learning that my weight was attractive and men were attracted to me. I was the thinnest of most my friends or in groups started realising that the thinner I was the more people seemed to either like or hate me. My friends on several occasions would comment that I was only lucky to get so much attention from men because I was thinner. That hurt my feelings big time. I started feeling that I was only liked because I was light-skinned and thin. But it never crossed my mind that I was actually attractive in other ways. Women can be cruel.

image from imgfave.com

So I started using my weight as a way of making my friends feel worse about themselves and I started wanting to become thinner and maintain my weight. I became bulimic.

I hated my bulimia stage (at this time I didn’t even know what this disease was), I was in control of my weight and yet so ashamed of why I was doing it drove me over the edge. But it was working and more comments came my way (not good ones). I couldn’t believe how cruel people could be I was still so naive. But I stayed in control of my weight, and I remained envied in some ways as university went on and people started gaining weight I stayed the same.

Bulimia, is the funniest eating disorder I experienced because not only did I not control what I ate I suffered for it. Puking out every meal tends to be more horrendous than it seems. Doing it purposefully is even weirder. Strangest thing is I didn’t actually control what I ate; I ate all I could and then threw up. When I think about it now, it wasn’t the weight issue it was a punishment for myself and a sense of despair that I wasn’t good enough anyway so I might as well use my weight to get what I wanted.

When I moved away from home after university, I furthered my bulimia to anorexia, for only about 6 months or so I starved myself. I was getting weary of this and so tired of being tired and in control like this. It was killing me and making me miserable. My throat was so sore and my teeth sensitive.

I made friends with new people, and realised I had something to contribute apart from being skinny and looking great. I had brains, a good eye for things and I could compete at just about anything with men. I wanted and found some respect. I started to change my outlook of who I wanted to be. This was an issue I had not grown up with, wasn’t familiar with and I couldn’t let it control my life.

Well as it goes we women will never completely be happy about our weight no matter what, it comes with the territory. I have and still am discovering new ways to look great and not compromise my health. It can be done, I have to just find it within me to fight for myself and be what I want to be. People can be cruel whether you are fat/thin/medium but they are just projecting who they are on you.

I’m thin again but thanks to a goodish diet (I try) and Pilates, I am happy!

Image from imgfave.com

1 Comment

Filed under A Womanly Body, Weight

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,