By NATALIA HAWK
It’s time for a bit of honesty.
I weigh 61 kgs. My stomach is not flat. I don’t have a box gap. Bits on my arms jiggle. I have big boobs and an arse to match. There’s cellulite on my thighs.
And it’s taken me 22 years to realise that none of the above things mean that I’m fat. I’m not even chubby. I just have a body and it happens to have a certain shape. My thighs are just always going to touch and there is nothing I can do about it.
I’m at a happy point now. I don’t mind wearing a bikini at the beach and I don’t care if my stomach rolls when I sit down on my beach towel. But for awhile there, I was very, very annoying. I exercised like a demon and constantly asked friends and boyfriends if they thought I was fat. “Because maybe I have body dysmorphia and I just can’t see that I’m actually a chubster,” I used to explain when they gave me a look of disbelief.
I went on my first diet at the age of 10. I remember once sitting down and counting my stomach rolls and thinking that I needed to reduce them. I was in year 5 at the time.
There’s a reason I’m telling you all this.
I thought straight back to it all when I read a story in this week’s Take 5 magazine about Simone Brook, an 18-year-old aspiring model who just made it on to the new season of Australia’s Next Top Model.
Simone used to be a size 12. She was 174cm tall and weighed 68kgs. If you know anyone who’s roughly that size then you will know that it is absolutely within the healthy weight range. And if you believe in the BMI calculator, those measurements come up as a 22.5 – classifying her smack in the middle of what is “normal” weight.
But Simone didn’t stay at 68kgs. She lost 18kgs to get to a grand total weight of just 50kgs. If we’re still going with BMIs (reocgnising that there is a lot of debate about BMIs being a perfect measure of health), that’s a BMI of 16.5. Anything under 18.5 is classified as underweight.
Simone’s tell-all in Take 5 this week details exactly why she felt the need to lose the weight.
According to Simone, she posted up images from a photoshoot on Facebook, only to get a lot of comments from friends about her weight: “You’re fat”, one wrote. “You need to lay off the lard,” another one of them said.”
Simone admits that she wasn’t fat, not even overweight – but “maybe they’re right, I thought. There were a lot of comments.”
Because of those so-called ‘friends’ Simone changed her diet to stop eating unhealthy food and start eating more veggies. She also started exercising. She says she used a Victoria’s Secret model as her “thinspiration”. And because of her new super-slim body type, Simone was able to make the top 50 of this cycle of Australia’s Next Top Model (ANTM).
Top Comments
You really are a lot more healthy being a little overweight than that thin.
This story really affected me because I've been there before. Except I was overweight before so dieted down to a healthy weight which I maintained for a year or so, just by healthy eating and exercise.
I was a little bit worried about gaining weight and thought I wouldn't mind still loosing a little but didn't worry about it. Then I met a girl who worried a lot about what she ate because she had various health problems so had to follow a special diet. She also had various mental health problems to which made her difficult to deal with. Her paranoia rubbed off on me and I became very careful about what I eat to the point when I was loosing weight again. The result, 30 year old man with anorexia.
Exercise became a compulsion, rather than a healthy habit and I gradually ate less and less. I broke up with her, after she discovered me purging but we got back together, then I ended it with her as I realised she was making me worse.
I'm 174cm and my low weight was 50kg. Being overweight maybe bad for you but underweight is much worse. At least when I was 80kg, I could climb the stairs without feeling faint and didn't feel freezing cold all the time.
I attempted recovery but relapsed, was put on antidepressants and I'm now in recovery again. I found I could not just go back to eating normally. I ended up binge eating a lot, 10000kCal per day was a common figure but I didn't become overweight again, my eating slowly normalised and I'm a healthy weight now. I don't like they way the weight has mostly appeared round my middle but there's nothing I can do about it. If I even tried to loose 1kg, I wouldn't be able to stop.
Says who? I know someone who is perfectly healthy at 174 cm and 54 kg. The reason you were so unhealthy was probably because of the WAY that you lost all this weight (30 kg). You may have lost it too rapidly as well. 80kg sounds like a LOT, to be honest...Being overweight is VERY dangerous. Carrying weight on your waist is also very dangerous. Ever heard of diabetes type 2? Sleep apnea?
I hate that I obsess over what goes in my mouth...but then I tell myself that I have to worry because I also hate being overweight. I'm currently about 165cm-ish (a guess) and about 63kg which puts me in the healthy BMI range. I'm in my 30's now with 2 kids and in the best shape I've ever been in. In my early 20's I crept up to 80kg without even realising and this is what scares me. I'm horrified when I look back on those photos. About 18 months ago I started seeing a nutritionist - my 2nd child was about 18mths old and I was 69kg, going to the gym regularly, and I thought I was eating ok. The nutritionist put me on an eating plan and I lost 10kg in about 4 months. At 59kg I thought I looked great, but really it was too hard to maintain, so slowly crept back to my ideal of 62kg. I maintained that for a year, but I'm slowly creeping up again (64kg)....and now I'm obsessing. I know that I'm in the healthy range and I look fine. I work out 4 times a week - boxing and pump - and feel strong. My muscles ache by the end of every week. I love exercising, but hate watching what I eat...and I like a wine or 2....I'm just terrified of that weight going back on...but obviously not terrified enough to get the motivation to cut back the calories...argh I feel like I have this constant dialogue going on in my head every time something passes my lips...I love food so much! Why is it so hard to find a happy medium? Sorry....nothing really to add to the conversation, but it was good to just get that out!