A Good Mess

Every once in a while, I am thankful that it can be difficult to find things in my house.

This evening while browsing Pinterest, I came across a site where a girl talked about having her body fat calculated on some website that asked for measurements in addition to height and weight, etc. I went to look for a tape measure because I was curious.

Wrist was one of the measurements asked for, which confused the blogger, but I know exactly why they wanted that.

My wrists are tiny. Always have been. It’s the one place on my body that has managed to avoid any weight gain and still looks like it used to when I was thin. It’s my giveaway, and the body fat calculator knows it. My tiny wrists scream, “she used to be thin, so she should be able to be thin again if only she didn’t each so much and wasn’t do damn lazy”.

(Incidentally, the whole-I-used-to-be-thin thing is where I think the body acceptance movement is lacking support and the strong online community. It’s one thing to have been overweight one’s entire life. Clearly, there’s genetics at play in those cases. But what about when you were skinny for the first 18 years of your life – I mean “eat a sandwich” skinny, not just skinnier. Suddenly, it’s harder to justify your weight. The issue really is that you shouldn’t need to justify your weight to anyone in the first place, but still… This is a big reason for why I feel badly about my weight. Deep down inside, I know I was thin into early adulthood, and I feel like I’m broken or damaged because I’m not thin anymore.)

So that knowledge made me feel crappy enough on it’s own. No need to dog-pile on that with some heart-stopping body fat % number.

Meh.