So as I mentioned in a previous blog entry, I used to waitress at a gentleman’s club…Said club was mostly frequented by white people, therefore most of the staff (dancers and waitresses were white)…Well as can be expected when you put a bunch of women together, day in day out, night in night out, and menstrual cycles start to collide and such, sometimes a spat or two would occur. Rarely violent, it was usually just cussing, screaming and name calling. So inevitably if two girls were going at it and one girl was oh say a size 2 and the other girl was oh say a size 6, at the height of the argument, size 2 would say, “shut up you fat ass bitch!!” Size 6 would be pissed! Those were fightin words! Aaaaah a white woman’s worse fear, Achilles heel and sore spot: not being called a bitch but being called fat.
Now as a size 14 girl myself, size 12 if there the material is stretchy and there are no zippers or buttons (you know what I’m saying), I often wondered if a size 6 was a fat ass, then what the hell was I to these white girls, Shamoo the whale? Of course none of them ever went there with me. They knew better. But they would always be on some, “oh you look good for your size” or “you don’t have to lose weight…” Oh ok. So a size 14 looks good on me but not you? Yeah right. But as a Black woman with that ‘fuck it I know I look good’ gene, I could care less about what they thought.
It seems that both mainstream society and the Black community just expect us Black women to be large and in charge. I remember when I was first starting to gain weight in high school, my pediatrician while expressing “concern” about the situation said in the same breath, “but a lot of women in your family are big, right?” Um yeah. But that doesn’t mean that I'm trying to get on their level. Truth be told, I wasn't trying to literally tip the scales from thick, to fat, to whoa!
Oh but the scale kept going up anyway. And so on many an occasion I have played the: 'I don't care what size I am' card. This is mainly because of the response that us plus size girls get from Black men. They love us nonetheless. Sure there are some who like those skinny minnies but there are so many others who like to have more cushion for the pushin. Plus, we are often told by our community that there's nothing wrong with having a little meat on our bones. And if we can look flyyy while having a little extra, well then it’s all good.
Oh but sometimes we take it a little too far, don't we? Our waistlines grow but our clothes don’t as we show a little too much skin. We get larger and our health gets worse. You know the holy trinity: high cholesterol, high blood pressure and the suga. We don’t want to exercise because we don’t want to sweat our hair out. We eat the wrong things a lot: a two piece and a biscuit, chicken fried rice from the carryout, a number 2 supersized, washing it down with a 32 oz. soda or that good sweet tea… And somehow we continue to release that I am plus size Black woman hear me roar for the world to hear. Walking around like: I don’t care what you say, my mirror says I look good.
It’s a blessing and a curse ain’t it? There is something beautiful about us Black women loving our curves, refusing to conform to the mainstream's standards of beauty and feeling good in our own skin. And still there is something telling about our refusal to realize that what we think is beautiful can also lead to serious consequences. No time to go into the psychology of it all but I often wonder if we really do love all of us, if our men really do want all of that cushion or have they just accepted that we’ll always have a little extra and do we wish deep down that we had the time, energy and know how to drop a few pounds? Hmm...those were some Carrie Bradshawesque, Sex and the City type questions right there...
As I get older and my weight remains thankfully stagnant (but is not necessarily healthy), my mother is constantly on me about losing weight because diabetes runs in our family. And I know that she’s right. I know that I need to go the gym and lose a few pounds. But I also know that I still look good when I wear proper fitting clothes like a slimming blazer or an A line dress or anything that floats away from the body (c) Stacey & Clinton from TLC's What Not To Wear, all which have people asking me how I lost weight. And thank God for the body shaper.
But truth be told I have not always been this size and while I know I can pull it off, it's not where I want to stay. So with a new year and resolutions, blah, blah, blah it's time to get serious! I know, I know, losing weight is everyone's goal. And it's not the losing weight that's the hardest part, (I've done it) it's not even the keeping it off, it's the changing the lifestyle. It's about making exercise a normal part of my routine, eating right (and not getting a slice of pizza or some tacos for dinner after I ate a salad for lunch). It's about admitting that maybe my love for eating is about other things. And it's about continuing to love the skin I'm in as I get ready for this
That's my time y'all! Happy Rum Punch Friday! Happy New Year to everyone! And if anyone else has lose weight as a New Year's "resolution", I wish you much success and discipline on your endeavor.
7 comments:
girl if anybody feel ya, i feel ya! for me, it's about not wanting to be saddled with the big three cause i hate being sick, taking medicine, seeing doctors, etc.
plus it's not till you start losing weight till you realize just how fat you were because you got so comfortable in that fat place. and now that people are like girl, you really comin' down, i think damn how fat was i and that i have a long way to go.
it's a constant struggle...and i also used to work with a bunch of white women who boo-hoo'd everyday b/c they were a size 4/6/8..and I would also look at them as if they were crazy.
now b/c of my height, i refuse to get a smaller than a 10, so i tend to fluctuate btwn 10's & 12's...even then, it all depends on how clothes are made...I'd never be able to shop and pick up cheap items @ forever 21..lol
health should/is a major concern, but what people also fail to realize is that there are just as many thin unhealthy people out there in the world also.
give me 4 days and if New Hampshire plays out the way I wanna, I'm gonna have much to talk about. . . stay tuned
Rum Punch, you know my trainer trains professional boxers and he is affordable. . .although I wouldn't consider myself a "skinny minnie" (I'm somewhere between a 2 & 4) -- everything is about lifestyle it's a different way of thinking and approaching life -- remember it all started when I took the jogging course during undergrad to satisfy my physical fitness requirement and I've been hooked ever since; it's been 4 years
"somewhere between a 2 & 4".... sorry to break it to ya bellini but your ass is a skinny minni!
however i feel you on the jogging. i started running using the couch to 5k running program (google it) and i can't get enough. i could never run more than a yard without thinking i was gonna die but now i can run 20-30 minutes straight.
you know this whole size thing is a relative concept -- 20 to 30 minutes that's good, you're in the zone feelin' those endorphins -- now that's some addicting stuff, that's why after 4 years I've continue to work out!
Despite being a black woman, I grew up feeling the pressure of the white girl trying to be thin (growing up in the burbs). Sad to say, but in middle school when pressure is the worst, I was borderline anorexic..went from size 10/12 to a 2/4. Not until after college did I feel comfortable in a size 6. I just wanted to add that to say that while some black girls exclude themselves from the white images of beauty, some (like me) fall subject to that mess and it's not healthy on either side of the track.
Well we like more cushion for the pushin' but we also like a healthy cushion. You gotta be able to hang you know?!?!?!
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