Ten years ago, at the age of 29, I weighed the heaviest I ever had in my life. I would always look at myself in the mirror and say “I’m fat and ugly.”
I’d been trying to lose weight since going to weight watchers with my gran when I was eight years old.
Despite twenty-one unsuccessful years, gaining weight, with a short season of slight weight loss success when I started dancing in my late teens, I didn’t give up trying.
Ten years ago I looked at a picture from a holiday and was desperate to make a change. I started doing things differently and my weight began to decrease.
I lost the first 42lbs, looked in the mirror and said “I’m fat and ugly.” I lost another 42lbs, looked in the mirror and said “I’m fat and ugly.” I went on to lose another 28lbs and reached the lightest I’d ever been in my adult life, and guess what? After losing 112lbs in total, I still looked in the mirror and said “I’m fat and ugly.”
That’s when I knew someone had to be lying.
Over time and with help, I realised that “Fat and Ugly” was the all encompassing phrase I reverted to whenever I started to feel anything I didn’t like. Rather than say, I feel lonely, or not good enough, or overwhelmed, or stuck, I would just say “I’m Fat and Ugly”. Therapy taught me to reconnect with the emotions and feelings that I’d hidden in those two words, words that I knew well and had actually become comfortable with.
When I think about my body, weight and shape now, I always think about that weight loss journey and how those two words had shown me that I was dealing with more than just my weight. It’s taken a while to fully understand it, but those words helped me to heal and when I hear them now, they’ve just become a nudge to ask the question: “What are you really feeling, Anny?”
I hope The Fat.Ugly Blog will be a space of honesty about our emotions and feelings – where it’s ok to ask, “What are you feeling”, and be willing to listen to the answer without judgment.
So, that’s why The Fat.Ugly Blog is called The Fat.Ugly Blog!