Sixteen Stone*

I decided to stop wanting to be thin and start trying to actually achieve it. I hate to admit it, but I weigh more now than I ever have in my life, and I can't exactly blame the pregnancy. Two years ago, I was at my goal weight and I felt good about things. Then I got pregnant. For the first few months of being pregnant, I actually lost weight, and even by the end of it I weighed less than I do now. But we moved to Massachusetts, and having the baby meant I was looking for fast options for food so that I wouldn't have to work at it so hard, which mostly meant cooking bad food or eating out, and I started baking because I was bored, and then winter came and we went into this awful hibernation mode because there was SO. MUCH. SNOW, and...well...now I'm heavy.

So my mother and I have a bet that whoever loses the most weight healthily gets $100. I hope I win because I can't really afford to pay her if I lose, but I'm ahead right now because this is getting out of hand.

I don't know why, exactly, I've always been so concerned with my weight, but I can honestly say that I've never been fully happy with how I looked. Even at my lowest points I felt fat--I don't think it's anything like body dysmorphia, but I do think it's an attempt to reach an unattainable ideal. I actually am big-boned. I'm never going to be a waif, and unless I really exercise a lot (which I don't enjoy) I won't have a great athletic body. It's really hard to find role models for the type of body that I'm actually able to have, but I think this is it:

I think she's absolutely beautiful, and what's more, I think I can get my body to look like hers. The sad thing is, modeling people told her she was fat, and she whittled herself down to nothing before she snapped back. I can't imagine perceiving this as fat. I can't even think of this as "plus-size." It's just...pretty.

Anyway, so those are my thoughts on weight. I've lost five pounds this week by making a minimal effort, so we'll see how it goes from here on out.

*not my actual weight