My thoughts on Skinny Tok

I can't believe we are here again! I really actually thankfully cannot, because I have curated my instagram feed so well that I am not seeing skinny tok - all I am seeing is body positive people reacting to the bad trend of skinny tok. So, I am thankful for that.

I posted the other day a body positive poem about how being obsessed with shrinking and staying small stops you from enjoying literally anything in your life and was absolutely gut wrenched when one of my friends who is THE BEST mom to the two most adorable toddlers and who I admire so much told me how much she was struggling with her body image. I could not believe it. First, she is in my mind a small woman with a very acceptable frame. So to hear someone even in her body size feels pressure was mindblowing. But second, with all she does - raising two small kids, working what I think is a full time job in the finance field, I was honestly just PISSED off that this trend is impacting someone like this. As if it is not enough that she is raising two beautiful human beings this woman now feels pressure to also shrink herself? I am so angry at everyone who is behind making women feel like they are not enough as they are or even worse they are too much and need to become the smallest version of themselves.

I am also so grateful to really not feel these thoughts. But I do remember a time I did. This is me ten years ago:

Most people have no idea this version of me ever existed.

I remember exactly what it is like to have all consuming thoughts of being skinny, and it was not good. I cannot emphasize this enough but literally EVERYTHING was centered around staying small. I thought people would like me more if I was small, I tracked everything that went into my body, which was not a lot, I was obsessed with going to the gym, I was constantly comparing my body parts to everyone around me to see if I was smaller than them. I thought I was "healthy" when I stopped weighing myself and counting calories but instead of weighing myself I would take pictures of myself in front of the mirror and obsessively check to make sure I was smaller than the day before. This was all happening to me when I was a law student at one of the most academically rigorous schools in the country and I can without a doubt confirm that I was more focused on my body than my school performance to establish my self worth. It was a very sad and bleak time and I never want to get back to that place.

I had a wild wake-up call with a health scare that shook me to my core. It's not time for me to share that part of my life yet, but it ended up with me being put on anti-depressants and in a very dark period of depression that caused me to gain a lot of weight. For the next few years no matter what I did I was gaining weight so I kind of let myself go for awhile. It was also a dark period of my life but a time that was necessary for me to overcome my eating disorder. I learned to love food and cooking and flavors and let myself eat whatever I wanted and try new foods without worrying about diet or exercise. I stopped working out entirely which I needed at the time. When I tried working out during this period, the horrible negative self talk would kick in and I had to avoid the gym to be kinder to myself internally and learn to re-program my inner voice and learn to love myself for who I am and not what I look like. So it did look like I was letting myself go but I know that was entirely a necessary step on my journey of recovery and I am not mad at myself for who I was at that time. I wouldn't be where I am today without that version of me who clawed me out of my depression.

Outwardly, people were horrible to me, especially people from the small suburb I grew up in. The same boy who used to bully me in 5th grade very loudly asked if I was pregnant at a wedding. People were really awkward around me and many even stopped recognizing me.

I moved to Chicago and started fresh. No one knew the skinny version of Natalie existed and I developed a huge group of genuine friends who loved me for my heart, and not what I looked like outside. My biggest fears from years before seemed laughable as I developed more deeper connections than I had in my life and met friends who loved me not because I was skinny but because I was a kind, caring, smart, generous, loving, funny, and charming person. I also stopped looking at what people looked like on the outside too and chose my friends based on those same types of personality traits and their hearts. I have the most beautiful genuine friendships today and am surrounded by people who lift me up and support me and love me and want the best for me.

After some time, I got back to the gym and did it on my terms - not counting calories but wanting to get strong. I got a personal trainer and we had a BLAST together. I loved spending time with him and learned how much I love weight lifting as a workout. I learned how to balance my food better and started focusing on food that made me feel good, in addition to food that tasted good. I finally feel like I am at a really great place with my health. I walk 3 miles a day and lift weights a few days a week but it's no longer obsessive. I do what feels good and what is enjoyable. I do sometimes still have slipups and fall back into my tendencies of undereating and restricting my food, but I have learned coping skills like keeping high protein easy to eat snacks on hand when I am feeling restrictive to at least make sure I get minimal nutrients.

I am really into spirituality and feminism and a lot of people talk about how diet culture is created as a tool to control women. Whether or not that is true, I can at least attest that the women who fall into shrinking themselves are missing out on so much of life. There is so much joy once you learn to be mindful and present about things other than food, and so many more interesting things than what size you are. You can be healthy and happy without being small. You can also de-program your brain from finding super thin women to be the ideal. Fill your feed with different sized bodies, differently abled bodies, diverse bodies, aging bodies. The more you show yourself these people the more you can start seeing the beauty in these different bodies, and the more you can love yourself for who you are authentically. Block the skinny tok content! Come over to the body positive side!