Our founder Cheryl Tay got the opportunity to be on TWO podcasts this year! Both podcasts are similar, telling about her struggles with her body and eating disorders and how/why she set up Rock The Naked Truth.
The Lokalfeed Show is run by Aqilah Norman, a friend of ours that we met back in 2016 when Cheryl first launched Rock The Naked Truth. Cheryl knew her through a mutual friend and Aqilah readily agreed to be part of one of our early campaigns. She was in our recent campaign with Perk by Kate too. Very grateful for friends like that who believe in what we are doing!
This podcast series by Screwed Up Moments is the next step after the series of talks by Happiness Initiative. Cheryl was one of the speakers at one of these talks and then we also co-hosted one of these talks with three people from our ROCKrunners community sharing their stories. The objective of the podcast is for us speakers to elaborate on our stories and have a permanent platform for people to listen to, if they missed the talk or want to hear more from us.
Always grateful for any chance to spread the body positivity message; thank you for taking the time to listen š
I was told I had to lose weight for my singing career and everything spiralled from there. I had never thought once about my body and didnāt really care when I had lost or gained weight, but as I started to learn how to diet and exercise, and the weight started to fall off, the comments rolled in.
People kept telling me how amazing I looked and asked what my secrets were. My Instagram following skyrocketed with my newfound thinness and I felt worthy. All this just fuelled the fire to become thinner and thinner until my life was nothing but an obsession with food and my body. I had no space in my brain for anything else and suffered from deep depression and anxiety. Through it all, people still told me how beautiful and thin I was and that made me think that this was ok.
I actually ended up binging and I binged my way up to 40kg heavier than my original weight and that was the end of my singing career. I lost everything. No one even recognised me and I actually wanted to kill myself.
That became the biggest wake up call for me. I realised that if I wanted to die because of how I looked I might as well accept it and just get on with life. And I did. I finally stopped trying to get back to my previous weight and accepted myself and started seeing a proper eating disorder doctor.
Once I started eating properly, three years later, without my notice, my body had slowly changed once again but this time, to be exactly like my mother’s. Iād say I overcame it with a new perspective of what was really important but at the same time it was an illness. I had to get medication to act as scaffolding while I fixed myself back together again.
Today, there are days I get bloated and huge and then there are days where I look like Iām ready for a photoshoot. There are times Iām eating and training well and my body is a result like that and other times (mostly) where Iām stressed at work and eating everything or nothing. All these times my body changes – but itās just what it does.
Iām pretty neutral to it now. Itās just doing its thing as a result of what Iām doing – I donāt put any value in it. I love my body for what it does for me but donāt place any extra attention to it. It’s ok not to be āin loveā with the stretch marks and saggy-ness – you just accept it what is it and move on with life. There are more important things to do!
You know, I remember crying on the bathroom floor, not being able to breathe after a massive McDonaldās, Wendyās, 7/11, Sara Lee, Nutella binge and thinking I was going to die of a heart attack. I prayed and promised myself if I ever managed to make it out of this mess Iād want to help as many people as I could to never have to go through this hell.
I wish I had found help or had someone to look to and say – āhey, there is a way out let me show you.ā I want people to know IT’S OK TO BE WHATEVER YOU’RE MEANT TO BE. Itās in our DNA! We are all different. You can spend your entire life fighting to be something youāre not (and be fucking miserable) or you can OWN IT and go do cool shit with your life!
