A male athlete friend told me that his current weight is 125 lb. Since he recently suffered from insufficient body heat during a race in Taho Lake and he hardly has any extra fat in his body, I often joked to him how important it is for human to have some fat in their body. So I pulled out this old time photo from facebook and laughed: this is me when I was 125 lb, and I looked like an Ethiopian Refugee.
As now I think back that time, I am pretty sure that I still thought I was fat when I was 125 lbs.
It’s funny how we’d always thought we are fat when we were young. Especially growing up in Taiwan where every body is slender to skinny, I am pretty sure that I’d always wanted to lose an extra 5 lbs. Our society made us believe that the definition of beauty is to be skinny. Only those who can fit into S or XS could be praised on TV, poster or magazine etc…
Of course, you may tell me that the society is changing, people are more acceptant to various body shapes. But Media still take up to 80% of our daily life. No matter how much effort we are trying to convince ourself that we are fine the way we look, it all go down to drain as soon as we turn on TV, flip that magzine or even log on to our social media. I am not saying that change will never happen, but I am fully aware that it would take times… (and I sure hope that by the time my grand children are reading this, it’s changed already. haha)
As I am looking at my teenaged daughter who is about 135 lbs. With 5’9″ height, I think she looks great, and she probably could have another 5 lbs or so to gain. But still, she talked about how she needs to lose weight and how she looks big compare to most of her friends who are average 5’5″ Asian girls. While expressing my personal opinion that she looks good, keeping healthy is good, but losing weight is unneccessary, she told I just say that because I am a mom. Ok, I may be a mom alright, but I also have an extremely incredible good sense/taste of beauty. 😉
Well, I wish I could have found a way to tell my-125 lbs-self that I look good and I could have gain another 10 lbs to look perfect, instead of believing that I needed to lose another 5 lbs to reach perfect. As 145-150 lbs now, I think I look great. In fact, at this age, number no longer matters to me. The fact that I feel great, and am able to walk hours without whining, dance an hour zumba without feeling like dying is already such a great feelings in so many levels. And I sure wish you all young generation will realize that the numbers on the scale really don’t define you, it is how you feel about yourself.
I’ve been skinny and I’ve been big. It’s not until I’d learn to take care of myself and appreciate myself, then the numbers start to find where it fits. Numbers don’t define you, but you do. figure out what kind of person you want to be from inside, your appearance will simply match up to that person accordingly.
And here is for my children if you were reading: yes, I think you all look great because I am your mother. and I hope one day you will all find someone who appreciate you just the same way I did you, and not the number you show on scale.
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