Bringing My Bubbliness Back
By The Roaring Girls' own little Welsh cake, Sarah.
Three weeks ago, I made a decision. I needed to make a change.
I’ve always had a difficult relationship with my body.
At age seven, I tried to suck the fat out of my stomach through my belly button with a Henry Hoover. It didn’t work, but I had the cleanest belly in all of Wales.
I hated my body. Fatter than all my friends, I prodded it, meticulously studied it, hid it, I closed my eyes and wished for it to change – for it to take up less space, for it to be taller, for it to be more graceful.
Unfortunately, I’m a size 22, 5’3”, dyspraxic, so you don’t always get what you wish for, it would seem.
My relationship with my body has come on leaps and bounds in the past two years. I’ve talked about it, worked through my trauma with it and gotten down to my bikini in front of over a thousand people including Lenny Henry. (What a strange month the Edinburgh Fringe was.) My body and I have worked together in accepting its existence, and that’s pretty fucking cool.
I’m ok with being fat. I relish the ripples and the jiggle, and the fact that my thighs slap against my belly when I run too fast makes me chuckle no end. I no longer wish for my body to change, but for it to exist, in all its wobbly wholeness. What I started to notice, however, was that I was consistently tired.
Living on a diet of sandwiches, cheesy chips and sugary coffee between jobs doesn’t do your body or your mind any good. Falling asleep at my desk, crying at night because of exhaustion and having no energy to meet with friends made me feel pretty shitty. I’m 27, I’m supposed to be youthful, young and full of energy, but I wasn’t. It started taking a toll on my mental health, and I felt constantly on edge, but too tired to be. It was a never-ending cycle, and I’d had enough.
Three weeks ago, I made a decision. I needed to make a change.
I’ve started drinking more water, eating more vegetables, fish and fruit and taking my body for a late-night stroll around the block every night for 30 minutes. It’s amazing how just a few small changes made me feel. I could feel my energy buzzing back to life, I could think more clearly, and I felt less bloated.
This is the longest I’ve ever stuck to any sort of lifestyle change, and I think it’s because, for the first time in my life, I’m eating better to feel better, and not to look it. I don’t mind being a fat woman, in fact, it’s sort of become an intrinsic part of who I am, but taking the time to consider what I feed my body, how I nourish it and what I get in return, has really helped me bring back my bubbliness, and it’s so lovely to see that again.
I guess the point that I’m making is to say that we all have a fucked up relationship with our bodies in some way, but feeling better has so much more value than looking better, and that who I am, how I feel, and what I do, becomes so much stronger when my worth is not based on how much I weigh, but how much energy I have to give to my day. (Oooh, ending on a rhyme. How fancy.)
P.S. Remember to drink lots of water and eat your veggies. <3
Sarah looking radiant and drinking a glass of definitely-not-water.