Tam Warner Minton
I’m hearing a lot about body image lately. I love the movement of photographing breast cancer survivors, have you seen it? What an incredible work it is. And we should all love our bodies. I’ve always disliked mine.
Ah, looking back, I had a great body. Flat tummy, small breasts, and curvy (bony) hip bones. I was absolutely embarrassed by my hips, I almost always had my arms trying to hide them in photographs of me in bathing suits. I wanted one of those slender, boyish bodies with no hips. I thought that was the ideal body, and of course I had girlfriends with that body, so photos of me in bathing suits usually have my arms trying to hide my hips. What an idiot I was! I look at the photos now and love those hips. I wish I could still see my hip bones!
I think I must be one of the most self-conscious people alive. I have always felt too fat, too thin, my hips were too big, blah blah blah. It didn’t matter how many people told me I was beautiful. I never felt my body was beautiful.
Now, well…my body image is the lowest of the low. I simply feel despair when I look at it, which is as little as possible. I had a tummy tuck in 2003 that did not go well. I had MRSA (the skin eating staph infection), an open wound for months, a lot of morphine, and several skin grafts. It is on my left tummy, and it bulges out and shoves skin and fat upward making my stomach look big. I hate it. Yes, I said I hate it. I need to have it fixed, but I need to lose weight, and no matter what I try, I don’t lose a significant amount. I can gain it just fine (I gained 15 pounds when my husband was ill in the hospital for 4 months. 15 lousy pounds!). I think just looking at food adds weight to my body. The MRSA incident also changed the way my body stores fat. I always carried weight in my tummy and hips, but no more. Since the incident I carry it in my upper body. Yes, I hate it. Having big breasts is awful. Is this really me?
Right now I am eating My Fit Foods, a super healthy meal plan. I also do a replacement meal health shake. If I have lost anything in 4 weeks, I sure don’t feel it. My fat clothes (I mostly cannot fit in them) do not feel any looser. The list of my chronic illnesses goes on and on, things like Thyroid disease, diabetes, arthritis, a lumbar spine put together with titanium pedicle screws and rods, metabolic syndrome….hey, this isn’t age related. I’ve had these things since I was young, when I used to be too thin. They aren’t age related for me. ( I don’t even want to start on what is happening to my body since I turned 50).
I know this isn’t a very cheerful blog, but it is certainly an honest one. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to address my body image issues. Unless you can recommend a really good plastic surgeon?