Stephanie Klein is a popular blogger and the author of Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir and Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp.
There's something almost perfect in the ugly duckling syndrome. Because a sensitivity is tattooed on a part of you no one else can see but can somehow guess is there.
That's the thing about being a former fat camp champ: when asked if I'd change my past if I could, I always answer no. The pain of being an overweight kid, the humiliation, make you think twice before ever cutting anyone else down.
The way I see it, love is an amusement park, and food its souvenir.
My therapist told me I need to learn to love myself. It sounds easy enough, but really, how do you just wake up one day and learn that? It feels like something you should just do involuntarily, like swallowing or blinking, but now I have to work on it. It feels so forced. I mean, I know I went to a good school, and people tell me I'm smart and creative, but I don't KNOW that. I don't know how to make myself feel that.
Stop caring what other people think. How? Understand that this is your life, not theirs, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself if things don't work out the way you'd hoped. . . their opinion shouldn't matter more than your own.
I'd heard it all the time, 'Live in the moment. ' But if I did that, I'd weigh more than a dump truck. Losing weight wasn't about the moment at all; it was about having faith in the future. It was about knowing there would be another meal in a few hours.
The times in my life when I've been my thinnest, I've been a walking psycho wreck. Forget the fact that I was basically starving myself; skinny was usually due to some kind of loss. Death. Rejection. Divorce.
People can say you're fat because you're filling a void, or you eat for all these emotional reasons. I said, 'I don't need to focus on this anymore. It doesn't matter why I'm fat. Let's fix it.
I'm human. But overall, whenever I see anyone being made fun of or given a hard time, I rush to their defense. I want to help them because I know how it feels.
With relationships, I always had a reason why some time in the future would be better for me than it was that day. When I was fat, I thought I'd feel pretty when I was thin, and when I was thin, I thought I'd be happier if I was more toned and muscular and had more money to look more coordinated. I wasn't comfortable in my own skin unless there was a man there to tell me just how radiant that skin looked. I was a victim of low self-esteem and had the Soon syndrome bad. I was running toward a brighter future, unaware of the mirages I'd created in the distance.
It's about not rewarding your children with food, not always celebrating with food. I do think it's important to find other ways to comfort our children and ourselves, to work other ways of celebrating and rewarding.
I hated the reflection in the mirror. I wanted so much to be someone else. . . I thought that if I was thinner, the rest of my life would change.
I could stand to lose 10 or 15 pounds, but honestly, I'm happy the way I am. I feel comfortable with it. I'd rather have that extra 10, 15 pounds on me than live a lifestyle of trying to sustain this unattainable weight.
I spent my whole single life trying to be thin just to find someone who'd love me once I got fat.