I was recently partaking in the sauna privilege in my gym when in came three young women probably in their 20s.  I sat there listening as each one was complaining about some part of their body.  Now mind you, each one of these girls who thought they were fat were all thin.  One was complaining that she had a paunch.  To be fair, she did but it was a small paunch.  I tend to stay a long time in saunas so I got to hear all their extensive gym plans to rectify the situation. One girl was like “ I am going to come here every morning!”  Another one is like “well I am going to take this class!” And the other one was like “I am no longer eating any sugar.” It’s good to have goals.

This of course brought up memories of when I was their age.  And yes, I was just as obsessed with my body. I always thought I was fat and had to lose 5 or 10 pounds.  I was extremely embarrassed of this fact.  Years later and undiagnosed PCOS, I have put on more weight than I care to admit.  And it has been a struggle to take it off.

Recently I watched Kirstie Alley’s show Fat Actress.  Yes this is an old show but I gotta make use of that Showtime subscription.  I was like Kirstie with being able to eat whatever I wanted without really gaining weight when I was younger. Then after 40, it all changed for me. At first, I thought it was so brave of her to make fun of herself in that way about her weight.  Then I realized she probably felt she didn’t have a choice.  When you are that famous and you gain that much weight, the tv/film world is not very kind.  The world has gotten better at accepting women of all sizes but we still have a long way to go.  I know I get treated differently as an overweight person.

This is where some extra self-love can come in handy.  I wanted to say to those three girls in the sauna.  Stop beating yourself up!  You all look amazing.  Do something nice for yourself.  But truth be told as they were talking about how fat they were, I being the only fat one in the room wanted to shrink down and hide even more.  Besides any advice coming from me might have had them workout even harder.  I know I would have.

I remember at a work event long ago, I was longingly looking at the donuts.  An overweight lady came over to me and said “Don’t do that to yourself, if you want the donut, eat the donut.”  I didn’t eat the donut.  Would I have eaten it if she was thin, maybe, more to the yes side. 

For now I am focusing on all I have to be grateful for.  And yes,  I will be excited to see that scale number go down.  But the first step is to get on it.

And yes I still love food. It is cool to be a foodie, until you get fat.