I’m a dimension 16.
In per week I might be a dimension 14, briefly, however then the week after that, I will be a dimension sixteen once more … there’s nothing unsuitable with that.
My physique is a dimension 16 and my physique is gorgeous.
I have not all the time handled my physique with very a lot respect.
All through my adolescence, I attempted each food plan beneath the solar, attempting to rework my physique into one thing it simply wasn’t designed to be.
My weight dropped after which skyrocketed and the sizes of clothes I wore modified with it.
My closet was full of clothes that may match a military of differently-sized ladies.
My vanity suffered.
I had, someplace alongside the road, discovered {that a} skinny physique is the one type of physique that may lovely.
It is true that skinny our bodies are lovely — however so is my fats physique, and no person ever informed me that.
Even after I was a dimension 10, counting the energy of all the pieces I ate, my head trying outsized on my physique, my vanity was in the bathroom.
I wasn’t skinny sufficient, so I wasn’t lovely sufficient, so I wasn’t ok.
Here’s a secret no person is aware of: I used to be born lovely. So have been you. You’ve gotten all the time been lovely.
You have been born a small, squalling toddler with a squished face slick with amniotic fluid and your mom checked out stated “She is gorgeous.”
Nothing has modified. You’re nonetheless lovely, you might be nonetheless good, and you continue to have value.
You continue to should be right here.
Typically I combat with my dimension sixteen physique. I squint within the mirror imagining it’s one thing else, one thing sleeker, tighter, simpler to just accept.
Typically I scowl at my higher arms. Typically I hate my stomach.
However then I bear in mind the factor that the world insists on making women and girls neglect: that stomach I hate is a part of me. These arms I detest? They’re a part of me too.
Each single comfortable curve is a chunk of the entire that’s who I’m.
I’ve dangerous days and good days. I carry different ladies up whereas tearing myself down.
I’ve a fats physique. My fats physique is sweet. My fats physique is gorgeous.
My fats, dimension 16 physique conjures up males to terrorize me on Twitter. It turns well-meaning pals into enemies who say issues like “Properly it is not likely wholesome.”
Right here is the half the place I inform you about my weekly train in a bid to rationalize my weight to strangers.
I do not want to do this.
My dimension 16 physique is gorgeous. It’s mine. It takes up area in a world that tells ladies to make themselves small.
It bumps into tables, it bruises, it carries infants on its hips, it twirls, it shudders with laughter, it embraces family and friends, and it reminds the folks round it that I’m right here.
I’m right here.
I exist.
I’m a dimension 16 and I’m lovely.
Rebecca Jane Stokes is an editor, freelance author, former Senior Workers Author for YourTango, and the previous Senior Editor of Pop Tradition at Newsweek. Her bylines have appeared in Fatherly, Gizmodo, Yahoo Life, Jezebel, Condo Remedy, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, SheKnows, and plenty of others.
