Just a wee quicky post from me tonight.

I was blog hopping tonight and found this blog entry by none other than the extremely gorgeous Carrie Fisher of Princess Leia fame. I think I’ve just found a new hero.

I honestly can’t remember if I’ve posted here about my body issues but here goes. When I moved back home from boarding school, my parents enrolled me in a school that was something like 2 miles away – about half an hour’s walk – so every day for four years I walked about 4 miles. I ate a lot but that was okay because I was walking 20 miles a week usually fairly quickly because my timekeeping isn’t the best and I was invariably late. I also had PE two or three times a week. I hated the way I looked. I remember being at the school playing fields one sunny afternoon and a friend of mine commenting that I had no cellulite. I didn’t really care – I mean, I had massive hips and horrible skin and a big stupid nose that had been broken time and again – I was ugly so my lack of cellulite was not really of interest. At 5’8″ I weighed just over 10 stone and was a size 12.

Then of course I left school, got a job, got pregnant and learned to drive. The latter two combined meant that my previously svelte figure was out the window. I lost most of my baby weight after having Findlay by lifting his pram down three flights of stairs and walking from our flat to the local high street every day but I never regained my pre-pregnancy weight or body. The lowest weight I got to was 11 stone and a size 14.

Getting pregnant with Nairn and then Erica very quickly afterwards meant that I gained more weight, my back & pelvis problems meant that exercise was very difficult to maintain without leaving me in pain. My heaviest post-pregnancy weight was 11st6lbs and a size 18. I tried to lose weight. I tried every fad diet you can think of and probably a few you haven’t. The cabbage soup diet? The GI diet? Atkins? I even did a month on Orlistat. I lost maybe half a stone. After having Greer I started going to the gym. Every night I’d leave Bob at home so I could go to the gym and six weeks later I’d lost 4lbs. Not exactly an inspiring loss.

The thing is, I wasn’t losing weight for me. I was losing weight because it made me feel ashamed to buy clothes in a size 16. I was losing weight because my horrible flabby post-pregnancy belly made me feel paranoid about breastfeeding in public. I wasn’t bothered that people might see my boobs – I was bothered that people might see my belly. When you carry that kind of self-loathing, does that make you a good role model to your daughters? I certainly don’t think so.

My greatest fear is that my children will grow up feeling bad about themselves and I find it ironic that after a year of worrying that Erica was too skinny, too small, I found myself recently worrying that she is chubby. She is TWO YEARS OLD. What difference does it make if she’s chubby or not? She’s a healthy, active toddler who eats and drinks well. She’s perfect! So if I – a healthy, active adult who eats well with albeit more cake than is probably sensible – am projecting a belief that I am somehow not a person of worth then how can I teach my children that THEY are people of worth no matter what they look like?

This post got a little longer and a little heavier (no pun intended) than I anticipated when I first started writing but the sentiment remains. I’m fat and I don’t really give a toss, because I am a person of worth no matter what people like Elizabeth Hurley think.

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