Month: December 2019

In high school I was teased relentlessly about my weight. I wasn’t fat, but I was made to believe I was by all the teasing. It got so bad I tried to commit suicide. I was very lucky to have a great teacher that could see what was going on and got me professional help.

Two decades later, I still have issues with how I look.

In my 30s, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis and lupus which are hormonal conditions and an autoimmune disease. The hormonal conditions make it very hard for me to lose weight and also cause a heap of fertility issues.

Knowing that my weight gain was medical made me really change the way I think about my body, how it looks and how I look after it. I started lifted weights and fell in love with it; I love working out and being fit and strong. I’m still overweight but I am working on it and I’ll work on it for the rest of my life.

I love my body. It’s strong and it’s keeps me active. It changes all the time and the older I get, the more I appreciate my body for what it does for me rather then how it looks.

I want girls and women to know that how we look isn’t everything; that we can be confident and beautiful by how we dress and how we treat other people and how we act. I want girls and women to stop obsessing over a size or a number on a scale and focus on being an amazing friend, sister, daughter, wife or girlfriend. I want women to lift each other up instead of tearing each other down.

I’ve been dancing and performing since I was 15 and ever since I started, I have been constantly told that I am not the ‘correct size’ or I am too big for a dancer. Missed opportunities always had me thinking if it was my body size that got me eliminated or not put in the same standing as everyone else. I struggled to reconcile my feelings because what I thought gave me confidence was the same thing causing me to feel bad about myself. 

Eventually, I had to rethink my priorities and changed the way I view dance in my life. I told myself that I will never be happy if I fixate on a standard dancer mould/type given by someone else, knowing I’m not likely to ever fit in it. Hence with each class, I constantly remind myself to enjoy the class and feel the music (which makes me happy!), instead of being the best dancer on the dancefloor.

I look at my body slightly differently now. I believe health and personality is what is key to my life and who I am as a person. Being truly confident is not an easy task to do, especially when we live in such a judgmental world. I want to continue to motivate myself and others that they can be confident and beautiful without having to worry about fitting to society’s expectations of them.