Does My Bum Look Big In This?

I watched a program on BBC Three the other day called Cherry’s Body Dilemmas, and naively thought “finally, maybe someone will mention something to do with compulsive overeating, or binge eating”… nope. It was another programme about a skinny woman who feels fat. Poor thing.

I was immensely frustrated. As I blogged the other day, I have recently purchased a treadmill and I literally work my ass off on it every day. I’m striving to be a healthy body weight, but also a normal size so I won’t have to fuel my eating disorder and feel so shit about myself all the time. And you know what makes me feel awful about my body, apart from the little voices in my head telling me I’m ugly and fat and disgusting? People staring at me because I’m overweight and therefore lazy, slobbish and gross. I know I have issues with my body, and I mind-read and assume people feel as repulsed by my body as I do. But there’s no point pretending like it’s all in my head; they don’t say thin is in for nothing.

I recently found out I’d put on two stone, and if I’m honest with myself this means that my sizes have changed. I have bigger thighs, and I’m now a size 20, a size I swore to myself I’d never be, and I’m a 16 on the top. I walk into shops to search for something that 1) fits me, and 2) flatters me.

I had to find clothes for a job interview the other day, and for the first time in my life, was forced to look in a plus-size shop, Evans.
Never before have I had to go into Evans, because I’ve always managed to find shops that have more of a range of sizes, like Dorothy Perkins – they range from a size 6 to 22. However, their clothes are designed for a smaller person who is fine with showing their legs, and doesn’t have any issues with their arms.

I felt awful looking in a shop especially for bigger people, because I felt like I had failed in my life goal of becoming slim and staying slim. I had to buy my entire outfit in that one shop, and although I loved the outfit and will wear it again, buying the outfit made me feel so hideously disgusting that I wear it with a sense of exhausted acceptance; I strive so hard to be a healthy body weight, but despite all my mental and physical effort, I have failed.

And this is something that this presenter, Cherry, will never understand. Being thin but feeling fat is nothing, NOTHING compared to actually being fat and feeling fat.

Emma