I don't really know how to start this blogpost for once. I don't really know where this is going either, I just need to get this out of my mind.
I was underweight my entire life. People would always tell me things like "gosh you're so skinny" " are you on a diet?" "why do you eat so little" "I'm so scared to break your bones" " I feel like if you go out when it's too windy the wind will take you away" "you should force yourself to eat more".
At the age of 15 my mum brought me to the doctor for one of those check up you have to do every year or something. I can remember this day as if it happened yesterday. He measured and weighted me and of course told me that I should eat more because I was underweighted. I didn't know what to do. Eat more? yes, but I am not hungry. I never wanted to force myself. I ate until I was completely full and that was it. I wasn't skipping any meal, I ate like everyone else. I was just not able to eat as much as everyone else. Everyone more or less close to me know that I still don't eat a lot.
At some point I tried to eat a lot of crap. Chocolate, biscuits, anything full of sugar. Everyone knows that sugar makes you fat right? That wasn't working at all. All it was doing was giving me hundreds of blemishes and spots.
I eventually gave up on it. I convinced myself that I was skinny because my dad is also skinny and this might be genetic. Whenever someone will tell me that I was too skinny or that they were scared to break my bone by touching me (because yes I do hear this a lot) I would just politely smile at them and ignore what they just said to me.
Inside that "eating problem" followed me every single day of my life. Going to restaurants or at people's place is a massive stress and challenge. I know that I won't be able to finish the meal, I know that everyone will be looking and judging me for wasting food. I know that I will feel bad for not being able to eat just like everyone else. I am always asking for help to finish off my meals. Eventually I learnt to live with it. I got use to it, it became part of me.
I never asked for help concerning this "problem", I never talked to anyone, never told this story to anyone. Why? I know what they will tell me. Force yourself to eat more. I know that, I tried. I can't.
I moved to Australia when I was 18, I was 162 cm and I weighted 41KG when I was suppose to weight between 49 and 56KG.
A while ago I decided to forget about all of this, forget about the number on the scale and just try to be healthy. I started cooking my own meal, I do workouts, I try new things out and be as healthy as possible. Not long ago I decided to stop eating meat. That is obviously very personal but I don't think humans should be eating meat. I therefore needed to find substitutes, I changed my eating habits and without noticing it I started gaining weight. It is slow (extremely slow) and I am still underweight but now I feel comfortable with my body. I am happy and no one will take that away from me. I feel proud of myself for gaining 3KG which seems like nothing to most people but it means the world to me.
I am not writing this to show off, there are millions of stories 100 times more impressing than mine. But if I can manage to convince at least one person out there to forget about people's perception and focus on being healthy, all of this will be worth it.
Skinny does not mean pretty, Skinny does not mean ugly. A 6 packs does not mean healthy. What you put in your body, what you have on your mind this is what determines how healthy you are.
I don't know how many people are still reading this, but if you are, know that what is important is to know that you made the effort of being healthy. Not the number on the scale.
Thank you for your precious time.
ps: I apologies for any spelling or grammar error.
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