Old Asian women have no qualms when it comes to asking someone about their weight. They comment and discuss your weight gain or weight loss the way they talk about the new film in the cinema. So nonchalant and innocuous. So whenever any of them ask me about my weight, I shrug. Even my own mother would ask me sporadically, "What's your weight now?"
Let's get to it:
This whole 'no weighing myself' concept has been relatively new. It started a year or two ago when I decided that weighing myself will only bring me down, because the number on the scale rarely reflect the number I want it to be. So I stopped. That's it. Nothing more. I stopped cold turkey, and the first time I stopped it was pretty new to me, so I had to hide the scale underneath the sink to remind myself that I have started a new way of life.
The problem with knowing my weight is how I act afterwards. A negative change in my weight will directly change my self esteem when wearing certain outfits. I remember when my weight changed for the worse and I stopped wearing short pants altogether. I wore jeans and exclusively so, even during the hot Australian summers. I was so self-conscious about my chicken legs because I thought that the loss of few kilograms made them look, well, unsexy. It probably did, and I pretty much hid behind baggy pants for a few months.
One day I forgot to weigh myself. I used to eat a whole pizza box and step on the scale, silently praying that the pizza would help me gain at least a kilogram, but most of the time the food I eat barely make it on my thin frame. And although I have lived my whole life looking like an emaciated homeless child, I still haven't grown accustomed to it at that point. My protruding ribs and shoulder bones are exposed to the world of criticisms and haste judgement, and I'm dying to cover it up with the layer of fat I know I deserve.
This sounds like such a non-issue but if you have been told time and time again by boys, boyfriends and random strangers to 'gain a few pounds' and then suspected of having an eating disorder, it gets extremely frustrating and fucks with your self esteem. Never have I met a guy who would look at me and compliment my body straight off the bat. It would always be a gentle suggestion to gain weight, always, even during first dates. I doubt many other girls could say that. People are more considerate towards bigger girls or just other girls in general. But they think that a skinny girl can be judged about their appearance any day of the week. If you think that's okay, go fly a kite.
So the next day, I forgot to weigh myself again. And again. And again. Until a month has gone by and I didn't know whether I have gained or lost any weight. I started wearing short pants again because I didn't have anything holding me back from it anymore. I made myself believe I have gained enough to normalize my scrawny legs. I made myself forget that I had sharp and protruding shoulder blades. I forgot my flaws, but the world did not.
The more comfortable I was with my body, the less others were. But I didn't know how much I weighed. I did not know whether I was getting thinner or fatter. All I knew was that I was happy with my body, regardless of the menacing stares from strangers across the street who would blatantly point in my direction.
"How much do you weigh?" People would ask me, time and time again.
I don't know. I don't want to know. I am happy to not be dictated by my weight. I am happy to not have a number define me. I don't care if I have gotten thinner, because I know that I am healthy, and that is all that matters. I am healthy, I am happy, and although I get insecure, still, it is definitely not because of the numbers on my bathroom scale.
I believe you can be fat. I believe you can be skinny. I believe that some people can find either one attractive or unattractive, and that is totally okay. I think you can strive to achieve the look you want, and there's nothing wrong with being dissatisfied with a body that can be so much better.
However, I am an advocate for acceptance when the time comes. To know your limit and what your body is capable of achieving. A genetically big-boned woman can never be stick thin, just like how my genetically predisposed scrawny frame can never add on any pounds. I will forever live a life with a flat ass and boobs no bigger than a B and hips that will struggle in childbirth. I will always look like a 12 year-old boy and I know that that's how I'm supposed to look like.
I don't need numbers on a scale to tell me about my body. I am healthy, I am happy, and my scale can go fuck itself in the corner.
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