Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the fattest of them all....

In high school...I was a size 32/10. Not the end. The beginning. By the end, I was a size 34. And I thought I was fat.  I had an apostrophe when I read Saaleha’s blog. “Yet, today when I look at my high school pictures, I realise that I wasn’t really fat. I just wasn’t thin enough to blend in.” It was like lightning had struck my brain.

People young and old, for as long as I can remember would comment on my body. “You so thin”, “You have such a nice body” they would say. At a time in my life when I was so self conscious, my body and hormones were changing.  I was just coming to terms with the fact that I was now, a ‘Young lady’.

This made me feel horrible. I didn’t want to have a nice body. My five year old emotional brain thought - Because nice looking bodies were what tempted men.  And when you tempt men, you become a whore. And an old man would be tempted by my body, then break into my house, steal me and force me to get married to him. – Yes I believed this for much of my adolescence.

Not believed believed. It’s that inner voice, which controls your reality that really becomes your emotional brain, which sprouts all this shit to you. Even though people would tell me things about my body, which would seem like a compliment, my reality was very different. Every Muslim Indian girl that I knew all looked like 12 year old boys. And don’t get me started on the whole colour issue *covering eyes* I felt like a fat, “dark”, giant.

University was when I finally understood and liked the fact that I was a ‘young lady, and that I had a ‘nice body’.  I was active, practicing Karate 5 days a week, but I was still fat. I had a friend that was shorter than me, tiny, skinny and white. She became my antithesis. As well as the mould of the women I will forever loath (irrational but true). I used this duality as a starting point for my honours thesis.

Eventually I gave up karate, the one thing that made me feel good about myself. And guess what...I...got...Fat. Between then and now my body has been fluctuating between a size36 – 38. But the one constant thing is: I still feel fat.

I will never understand why people think that they have the right to comment on a woman’s body. It doesn’t matter what race, religion or political party you are, women’s bodies are always seen as a topic of discussion. Whether you’ve lost or gained weight, it’s the first thing people comment on. I think it’s absolutely rude. And any person, male or female, automatically looses my respect when they mention to me anything about my body. Doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative.

I’ve realised something, a while back and I’ve been wanting to write about it for quit some time. I’m addicted to food. Chocolate in particular. If there is any change in my emotion. I want to eat. On a bad day, I eat until it’s all finished. Until my tongue is cut. And once, when I heard or rather saw (this is why stalking is haraam) that The Boy had a girlfriend he was all public about. I ate so much that I threw up. Twice.

I never throw up. Never. I can eat a whole dagwood, chocolate, coldrink and go on the anaconda rollercoaster and still be fine.  By the second time it happened, I knew why. I realised it. And it changed the way I looked at food. Food addiction is not something that you are born with. It can happen at any time. I’m not shy to say I’m addicted to it. But people don’t take me seriously, because when they see me, I’m over weight and not obese. So I’m dramatic, not an addict.

Instead of throwing myself into food after the Hulk, I threw myself into gym. I need to just loose myself into something. And it felt great. I haven’t felt this good physically in a long time. And I wondered, why is it that we can punish ourselves with things that are bad for us, but not with things that are good for us?

I want to lose weight. But Saaleha reminded me that sometimes you have to just enjoy who you are. Take one day at a time. And make the choice that is the healthiest for you. The truth is, if you want to lose weight, it requires consistency and dedication and it will take up to a year. So I’m eating healthier, not all the time and I’m exercising consistently and I feel good.

Because it doesn’t matter how much weight you lose, if you don’t change how your see yourself and how you feel about yourself. You won’t change anything.