My amazing DIL Whittney Chauta has inspired me to write about weight today.
I can remember being a kid and being told by my parents that I needed to lose 15 or 20 pounds. They offered to buy me clothes if I did. They were operating on what they knew. They didn’t know, and I didn’t know at that time that I had thyroid issues, but even with that aside, I feel like there has been so much emphasis put on just exactly how much we weigh.
My whole life I’ve internalized that message “I need to lose 15 pounds.” I had a boyfriend or two tell me that as a teen and that just reinforced this message in my brain. I’ve lived with that message reverberating around in my head for 50 years.
Society says you must be a certain weight and look a certain way in order to be accepted or loved. What utter BS.
My genes and so many other things have determined what I weigh. At this point in my life, I eat really healthy. I exercise. I deal with several health issues daily. I am finally at a place where I can re-focus. I focus on HEALTH, not what the scale says, which is why I threw my scale away years ago.
I want to break this cycle, in my family, but also help break it in society as a whole. People are not better, more beautiful, more acceptable if they’re thin. This is a holdover of being told we must be perfect little playthings for men.
My husband loves me just the way I am, and my weight has fluctuated a lot over the years for many and various reasons. He has always loved me for me. That’s the way it should be.
I find it demeaning as a woman to be told that I have to be thin and “perfect” in order to attract a mate (who himself is imperfect). No. I reject that. Not a trophy wife.
My husband is an amazing soul. So am I, for that matter.
When will we begin to look at the heart and soul instead of the size on the tag in our jeans?
For my kids: I love you all, I love your souls, I love everything about you. You are beauty and grace personified, each one. Not perfect, but perfectly YOU which is all you are required to be. I don’t give a sh*t what your jean size is.
Chase health. Chase love.
For Shaun Chauta Matt Chauta Nathalie Chauta & Megan Abbott