body acceptance

Towards the end of last year, I sat in a plastic surgeon’s office discussing the excess skin that falls at my lower belly.

Recovering from any disordered eating struggle will bring situations of discomfort, but you can also find beauty. This is my recovery from fitness modeling.

Shade is a resiliency tool constructed and wielded by those who have been forced to survive systems of unfairness. Shade isn’t polite, but everyone knows that the high road is over-sold to oppressed people! I knew I had to begin my own complete anthology of fat girl shade. And I thought I would start the chronicle here with Take the Cake. This tale is one from the vault, and it starts in high school.

I can feel the air on my thighs and a jiggle in my step after I slip into my gym shorts. My cellulite, which rarely sees the light of day, is hanging out for all to see. My thighs rub together and stubble stands on end without the protective sheath of my capris. I am ready to get my workout on. And I am uncomfortable.

Like, "Yum, there is a table full of delicious food" but also, "Ugh, am I gonna hate myself after I eat this?"

Like so many women, I never know what I’ll see in the mirror. Sometimes I catch sight of myself in a window and cringe, appalled at my own body.

Instead of being allowed to exist as fully complex and sexual human beings, they’re relegated to being a tag in pornography. They’re seen as a guilty pleasure among those with “abnormal” sexual appetites, something to be viewed sexually in spite of their comparison to what we consider "the norm."

I'm going to tell you a secret.