“Fat” or “Fit”?

by shalinijena

Hi everyone,
My friends. My family. My acquaintances.
I write this post because I love you all and hence feel that I must officially inform you guys that I have PUT ON WEIGHT.

Yes, that horrendous thing that one must never become I have become that. My jeans are a few inches tighter on my hips, my face looks rounder than oval and flesh can be seen in my arms. Hence, I am just using the lingo that everybody seems to  be more comfortable using – and notifying my dear ones that I have become “fat”. And before you make that pitiful face and go on to asking me “Why have I become SO fat!”, I just want you to know that – I don’t care.

I know what it feels like to feel fat. I know what it feels like growing up, with people around you – pointing out that extra weight on your hips, your arms, your waist, your face, your neck – wherever their scrutinising eyes could reach. And making cumulative assessment of your figure, they would go on to give tips about “fixing it”. Exercise. Stop eating junk. Drink lemon water. Then they would gleefully go back to their lives, finally having done something productive with their day – leaving a child, insecure and miserable. So, I know what it feels like to feel fat. And I say, “feel” – because I was never fat. I was healthy and bulky, which is my normal body type and I was made to feel that that was not a good figure. The good figure is one, with no flesh, bones sticking out, toned hands and legs and stomach and hips. So, I grew up convinced that I did not have that ideal figure. My “thunder thighs” definitely did not fall in that category.

But I aimed for it. I exercised day and night. That’s all I thought about. I wanted a perfect figure. I wanted to prove everybody wrong. I wanted to lose all the extra  weight and look super pretty! Eyes would turn for me, I thought. I wanted to walk like  Poo (from K3G) in my college. So, basically I lost a lot of weight.

The funny thing was –

I was close to a flat stomach (yea, that never happened) and my thighs were poles apart – but I always felt fat. Always felt insecure. No matter, how much I starved, how much I did yoga, exercised – I was never thin enough. But here’s the real catch. Now that I have become “Fat” (according to a lot of people in my life) – I don’t feel it. I don’t feel fat.

I feel happy. I feel satisfied. I feel healthy. I eat good food, I sleep well, I work very hard and I know that my job requires me to expend a lot of my energy and my time for it – and I don’t mind. I feel accomplished. Every morning, I wake up with the most wonderful heartbeat throbbing against me – something that I had never experienced before. I feel free. I feel secure. I feel fit. And I feel powerful.

So, I guess I am better off with that extra weight on me.

This post is not an answer to my friends calling me fat. You could call me a buffalo, for all you want. (But I know you would rather call me a hippopotamus) But this is a post, in which I wished to say that being fit is of utmost importance. Happiness, satisfaction, mental peace – comes from being fit. But that insecurity lying deep within us, does not make us fit. It makes us weak, vulnerable and I have seen in many cases, it can even lead to depression.

I  just hope that there will come a time, when kids would not have a scarred childhood because of their weight. I just hope that someday people will understand that everybody has a different body type and to truly care, is to accept them the way they are and see beyond the hallmark of beauty set out there. I just hope that someday, calling somebody fat would not be an insult, but rather just a statement that wouldn’t scream of the society’s fuck up of this “idea of a good figure”.

Till then, lets just understand that – people don’t like being called fat. It brings back the memory of unnecessary insecurity of so many – and that too, for no good reason, but just because you were stupid enough to say it without much thought.

Merry christmas everybody!
To a healthy, lovely life ahead of us.
Santa Claus is also fat. Be like Santa Claus.
Cheers! ❤