While most brides would go on some kind of wedding weight loss project, I chose not to. To me, I have a bigger purpose than just being that mythical “right size”. If I stay stuck on trying to get there, I’ll miss out on everything else really worth fighting for.
It took me a while to get here though.
When I was 18, I had this addiction to dried chickpeas – which taste bland and dry but I managed to convince myself that I loved them – and that was all I ate every day… until I fainted on the bus on my way to school. I regained consciousness but my teeth were chattering, I was shaking and I even wet myself. That was a turning point.
I was a Michelin tyre baby with rolls of fat on my teeny arms and thighs and a round tummy. But as you grow older, that chubbiness goes from cute to plain undesirable. Being overweight in primary school meant being forced to give up recess and milk for TAF Club sessions.
At home, affectionate nicknames like “Ah Pui” (Fatty), which was purely in jest and with no ill intent, started hurting. It also didn’t help that the two females in my life closest to me – my mother and my younger sister – are so thin. I always felt like a giant next to them and like something was wrong with me.
When I entered secondary school, I told myself I didn’t want to be fat so I was binging, then purging after eating and running a lot. I actually lost 10kg but I still felt I was larger and fatter than all of my peers. I had in my head the ideal weight of 48kg and I was obsessed with getting there. For example, I would do 100 sit-ups every day and skip meals. But no matter what I did, I never got there.
In my adult life, I used to go through obsessive phases where I’d exercise a lot or feel guilt for not “eating healthy”, or I’d look at my arms and suddenly think I had become extremely fat just because they were never skinny. I was so conflicted with my progress.
But now, I have put all of that obsessive stuff behind me. I do my best every day to understand and accept that my body is what it is. I am not measured by how much carbs I have avoided, how many sit ups I’ve done, how many kilometres I’ve ran, how good I look in a wedding gown, or how “on track” I have been. I am measured by the times I have come back from those days feeling like a victim, when I feel like I’m not worthy, and instead of staying there, say, “I have more to contribute” and get up to try again. It’s a big world and a short life.
