I’ve spent what feels like my whole life trying to change my body. From a young age, I remember people, adults, commenting on my body. I was a teeny tiny little thing & they always spoke about how small & thin I was. One of my stepdad's friends used to call me Olive Oil because he thought I looked like Popeye’s wife from the cartoon. I think maybe it was then that I started thinking there was something wrong with my body.

In high school, I remember wondering when I’d get boobs. My chest stayed resolutely flat while most of my friends’ chests did not. Again, I felt like there was something wrong with my body. I remember looking at girls’ stomachs & coveting the flatness because, despite being a thin girl, my tummy was always rounded. I know now it’s genetic, most of the women in my family have this type of stomach too, but my god, the hours I have spent thinking about my stomach & wishing it was flatter are ridiculous.

I’ve written before about my descent into eating disorders. I understand that a lot of my food & body issues stem from control, my family life was chaotic, but I could control my food. I couldn’t change my life, but I could change my body. I also just wanted my body to be different. Smaller. Always smaller.

This pursuit of smallness, of thinness, of a certain weight or size, of being skinny, has followed me alllllll the way into middle age. There have been times when I have not been pursuing thinness (never when I was pregnant), but they are few & far between. At times, I’ve dressed it up as “getting healthy” or “getting fit”. I tell myself I’m looking after my health, that I’m aiming for strong, not skinny, but at the centre of it all, I’m still trying to change my body.

It’s a rare day that goes by where I don’t critique my body, where I don’t turn to the side to see how far my stomach sticks out or how saggy my bum is. When I sit down, I always flick out my shirt so it doesn’t get stuck under my stomach rolls & accentuate its bigness.

I’ve been guilty of buying clothes that are too snug because I wanted the number on the label to smallest one possible (vanity sizing, I’ve heard it called). I’ve starved myself to be smaller. I’ve berated myself for eating too much and for not eating the “right” foods. I hate myself for having no control around food. The food noise in my head could rival a crowd at a Taylor Swift concert; it is so loud. I know being thin doesn’t fix anything because when I have been thin, I still haven’t liked my body. No matter my size, shape or weight, my body has never been good or right enough for me. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to be thin. Even now, as a 46-year-old who knows all about diet culture & how diets don’t work, I would love to be thin. The problem is, I don’t have it in me to do the work it takes to be thin anymore. I can’t maintain whatever diet it is that I’m trying long term. Not once. I’m great at dieting until I get sick of it or think I’ve made the diet a “lifestyle”, & eventually I gain the weight back. My eating habits return to what they always were. I get tired of the exercise regime, so I stop. And like almost every other woman who has been on a diet, I regain all the weight plus more, along with a new helping of self-loathing.

There have been times when I’ve loathed my body for reasons other than its appearance. After every miscarriage, I hated my body just a little bit more. Decades of chronic constipation, which was a side effect of my teenage EDs, make me think my body can’t even perform properly, so it is worthless. And these last 5 years of peri have caused me to despise the changes my body and mental health are going through. I hear that you should focus on what your body does, not how it looks, but when your body does not perform basic functions as it should, it’s hard to appreciate it.

Last post, I mentioned that I wanted to talk to my GP about weight loss meds, but over the last few days I’ve sat with it & I don’t know if I do anymore.

I have a friend I met online when I was doing Weight Watchers a few years back, & I told her what I was feeling & thinking about doing. And like all decent friends, she showed no judgment. But over the course of our conversation, she reminded me of all the work we’ve done since leaving WW to untangle ourselves from diet culture and to learn to live in bodies that are bigger than we’d ideally like them to be. I don’t mean she literally pointed it out, just that through talking to her and listening to her speak about where she’s at with her body, food and movement, I was reminded that there is another way.

So I’m trying not to sign up for a new diet plan. I’m trying to block every ad on socials that is selling me anything to do with weight loss. When a reel pops up about diets or health regimen, I’m trying super hard not to be sucked into the spin, but it’s hard, my brain is wired to want that shit & yes, sometimes, when I’m feeling really shitty about myself, I seek it out. I’m working really hard on not telling myself that I can’t eat certain foods & that if I just lost 20kg, all my health & body issues will disappear. Look, some of my health stuff might improve if I lost weight, but I know my body issues won’t. That shit is here to stay.

I don’t know why I find it so hard to live in a bigger body, but I do. I hate the feeling of my big tummy when I do yoga or when I’m lacing my shoes. My round face doesn’t look like the me I see in my head. And if I'm embarrassingly honest, I don’t feel attractive. I feel fat & ugly. It’s fucked up that I have this internalised fatphobia, but I think I must because why else would I still be trying to be thin when I know it doesn’t fix the core problem?

What I am doing is sitting with my physical & mental discomfort. I’m listening to podcasts to help me understand the way I feel & think about this stuff so I can change. I’m wondering if maybe it’s time I go back to therapy to deal with this shit. My GP offered ED-focused therapy about a year ago, but I said no & signed up to a weight loss program instead, which I loved for 8 months & then stopped, & not only did I not lose weight, I gained 2kg AND began weighing myself again!!!

I am BEYOND tired of this bullshit. I don’t want to be this woman, the one who is always trying to lose weight & can lose weight but can’t keep it off. I’m 46 & 5 years into peri, my body doesn’t work the way it used to! And I’m tired. I’m tired of hating myself & my body. I’m tired of feeling like a failure because I’m not thin & hot. I’m tired of feeling like there’s something wrong with me because I eat lots & enjoy junk food. I’m tired of believing that if only I were skinny, I’d be happy.

Friends, I wish I were better than this. I wish I were beyond caring about my body. It feels so shallow & silly. But I’m not. I am still so tangled up in diet culture & the pursuit of thinness. I want to reprogram my brain, but what if I can’t? What if I spend every day until I die wishing I were thinner than I am? What a fucking waste. I don’t know how to rewire my thinking & make it stick for good. But I am going to try. Again.

Talk soon xx