I am testing the idea of posting within a theme each week. This week, I am thinking about body image.
Occasionally someone needs to state the obvious.  How ’bout me? 🙂
Getting fit does not necessarily equate to losing inches
We hear about the possibility of “bulking up” from weight-lifting or cycling or whatever, but then assume if we are exercising we will actually get smaller. There is a limit, however.
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Bone structure dictates a minimum size. For example, while I still have a bit of “fluff” around my waistband, I have finally come to realize that I will never need a smaller size pants. In fact, when the “fluff” is replaced with muscle, I made need bigger underwear. 😉
With a healthy amount of muscle and fat covering my bones – and I am working on exchanging the latter for the former – I will never be a size zero (except perhaps at Ann Taylor).
When I was in my late 20’s perhaps, I still envisioned how lovely it would be to be/look lithe and fine-boned, fragile but strong. I think of a deer. I think of illustrations on romance novel covers that I had glimpsed. I think of certain fashion shoot spreads. I don’t have the words to describe this look but I know it in my mental image/yearnings.
So of course I thought slimmer, more fragile looking., And this was probably my last time of seriously intentional dieting. And as I didn’t have all that much to lose, pretty soon I purchased and wore a much slimmer size and style of pants. I also read a book, it might have been Doris Pooser book, that spelled out a mistake she had made and I was making. It’s all about your bones, as you point out. If you don’t have the bone structure that is exactly the same as those models, you can be as thin as possible but you can still never look like that. You can only look like a skinny wide-set or thick-set person. You can look unhealthy, is all. You figured this out for yourself and I had to read it in a book! So the scales fell from my eyes and I saw that I couldn’t transform myself into these ideas I had received.
Also, in college I had a friend who continually battled her weight. She casually mentioned that beautiful women were always tall. Coincidentally, she was taller and I was barely five feet. I was astounded to hear something like this and she, being a voracious reader, explained that this is always how the beautiful heroine was described. She was tall.
I just refused to accept it. I didn’t want to be eighteen years old and the whole world closed to me, as I saw it. Attractiveness is important, so I just deemed all those authors wrong. Now I have realized for a long time that while I still think attractiveness is very useful, anyone can be attractive by virtue of their energy, their force of personality. Beautiful? Well, maybe not classically beautiful but I also spotted, at that time, an incredibly beautiful young man sweeping through an auditorium in a black cape. 😀 His features were so perfect that I thought he looked like a statue, a work of art. He turned out to be the flatmate of a male friend I met later. And not so attractive in the personality or character department. The old Beauty is as Beauty does.
One pragmatic thing I have recently noticed is that people often think I am small or tiny.
This makes me think they are near blind. But I know what it is. I am narrowish from the front view and also from the back. But when seen from the side, I am thick. The bones. The ribcage. From the front view I can look like a modified hourglass or slightly inverted triangle. From the back, as well. From the side, though, I can approach looking like a pear. Not any guide to dressing for your shape using current clothing seems to look at this issue. I find that I use some of the ideas about breaking up expanses, but applied to the side view. But I like emphasizing my rear curves at times so I need clothing that is shorter or scrunched in the back and left longer in the front (but not waterfall nor saggy, droopy that would contradict my musculature). So I never like the half tuck or the hi low type of jacket, like a riding jacket.
I couldn’t be a size 6 if I tried. My wrists are bigger around than my husband’s (and he is 7 inches taller). Fortunately he likes stocky. Even when I was a size 8, I was always running out of fuel between meals. I think, overall, I’m healthier and have more energy even though I am now technically “overweight.” Though it probably wouldn’t kill me to lose ten pounds.
Vildy- I am starting to rethink the whole “x number of silhouettes” thing too. There’s something more …
Your Majesty- there is alot more life in being healthy and having energy than in fulfilling someone else’s idea of what you should look like! 🙂
I’m eagerly awaiting anything you come up with. I’m always sparked by your ideas.