Beach Babe

I've been kinda underground at the moment - mentally and spiritually I guess. I feel like such a fake - starting this blog off with all the best intentions of sharing my path to acceptance of my size and looks - and I can't even bear to write about it. I thought I'd better post something - to get me back in the swing of it...

I have just gotten back from a fab beach holiday - chasing the sunshine. I have never owned a bikini and each year wish that I could wear one; look at my flabby white belly and droopy bits and decide to cover up with the hugest t-shirt I can get and stay in the water all day - rushing out to get changed and not bother with the whole sand experience.

I bought myself several pairs of new togs - the new bikini type - but they meet - if you know what I mean.. well - its a step forward into that direction I am thinking. I also have some large floppy hats – very Audrey Hepburn – and several wraps – flimsy whimsical things. And I wore togs all day every day for two weeks. I put chunky jewelry on, lipstick and of course lots of sunscreen, and lay in deckchairs, on hammocks and hung out, drinking cocktails and being glamorous ( in my mind at least) and I don’t care what I actually looked like – I only took a scant few photos while I was there anyway.

The thing was – I felt beautiful; so why destroy the fantasy with a shot from reality?

Being Beautiful

Here's what 42 year-old Halle Berry, new Mom of Nahla (born in March) has to say after being deamed the "Sexiest Woman Alive" by Esquire Magazine....

"Sexiness is a state of mind - a comfortable state of being," she says. "It's about loving yourself in your most unlovable moments."

Without sounding catty or awful, I think its pretty easy to have a sexy state of mind if you have the body of Halle Berry. However taking the essence of her words – I do believe what she says is true. The times I have felt truly beautiful were often bizarre or challenging times and I felt powerful, in control and beautiful. Doing things which are sensual, pampering and treating myself for the sheer glory of beauty, having beautiful things around, fresh flowers or sipping out of a dainty teacup - is when I feel most feminine and luscious.

I do have concerns about the rising amount of Yummy Mummies – with Victoria B as its queen. In case you have lived under a rock – they are the glamorous mums and mums-to-be who shop, lunch and totter their way through pregnancy in sexy very high heeled shoes, proudly displaying their perfect round little bumps like the latest handbag and have those perfect babies who wear matching designer gear. They are never sick, tired or grumpy – but usually have an au-pair or nanny, personal trainer and a cook working for them. – oh and they ‘bounce” back into perfect shape within a few months – while the rest of us are still wearing our 9 month preg gear a year after having our little one.

But coming back to being beautiful – I think its possible – certainly for short moments…. and who knows – if we practice long enough perhaps those moments will last a whole hour! What bliss would that be to be truly beautiful for an hour – where no-one can touch us and our feminine power of lusciousness and sensuality.

The perfect weight.

I have been surfing about the be squillion blogs out there which focus on weight and dieting and it is starting to really depress me. There are many that take photos of the scales as they stand on them – like you have got to be kidding – now way for one am I going near that evil machine – it hates me – and two – it is smart little thing that remembers your weight – and then goes and tiddle tats to your husband who says things like – “I see my assets are growing.” All in a loving and joking manner.. but still highlighting that all in not right in the world.

The irony is that I am happy – well most of the time. I know I am fat, but I am happy and most of the time I think I look ok or even quite nice. I make an effort with makeup and dressing, underwear that matches and even lingerie. I am happy when I don’t think about it or accidentally catch a sidewards glance of myself in the mirror. Then I catch a glimpse of another reality and I sigh wondering how a different life may have been if I was thinner somehow.

I think for people who are overweight the enormity of the task ahead is just so great – so overwhelming that is simply isn’t an option to start. I have lost and gained weight over the years – having been on a diet for over 25 years now – well on and off….. and the crappy thing is when you start to lose weight and are really chuffed at how you are going – some idiot makes a sideways comment – or a well meaning relative says something like – oh you have such a pretty face, it’s a pity you can’t lose weight – and you may have lost heaps already! Makes me just head to the dessert buffet and think sod it – its just not worth the denial, pain, suffering and anxiety of counting calories, ensuring your heartbeat is over a certain level for a certain time and organizing your life around personal trainers and the gym – who are full of know it all skinny wenches in skin tight matching outfits who I am sure are paid to hang out there to make you feel bad about your baggy tshirt and sagging sweatpants. I did go and try and buy some groovy gym gear once – but apparently you can’t get anything remotely fashionable or nice unless you are a size 14 – like – if I was a size 14 I wouldn’t be bothering to go to the gym.. hello?!

So what is the perfect weight? If you're choosing your target number based on a picture of bikini-clad super model taped to your refrigerator door, or on a yellowing photograph of yourself in your wedding dress from three decades ago, your goal-weight expectations might be a tad unrealistic. Times, and "ideal weight" guidelines, have definitely changed. If your notion of what your body size should be is based on what you see on the TV screen or in the pages of fashion magazines, you are definitely dooming yourself to failure. The fact is, most of us don't look like actresses or models, and to attempt to make our bodies match theirs is unnecessarily punishing, if not impossible. They have full time chefs, nannies and personal trainers, live in a bubble of unreality totally detached from mortgages and the rising cost of petrol. Besides – you are a different person now than that idealistic lass in the white frock and supermodels now days are usually 12 years old and very unlikely to be able to spell ‘birth” much less done it.

Sigh…. All the reading I do keeps harping on about how you feel within yourself is the best weight. Maybe if I banned any reflective surface I might be ok with this?

A little Nip and Tuck

A good friend of mine had the lap band operation a number of months ago. She has lost nearly 30kg and I have got to say – she looks amazing. She sheepishly came over the other day bearing gifts of her old ‘fat clothes’. She said she wasn’t going to give them to me but at the last moment brought them over – she didn’t want me to feel bad.

I nearly chocked laughing. First – wow – what a gift to be given a huge amount of her clothes – all really nice stuff and in MY SIZE!!! Whoo hoooo! and secondly – what sort of message is her fear? That she didn’t want to admit to me that I was fat? Umm I kinda know – I have a mirror.. that she is now better than me? Again – negative – she is doing her thing and I am so supportive and delighted for her.

I was so happy going through the large bag of clothes – I have never been much of a clothes horse myself – I hve always been a bigger person – and have always struggled to find anything that fits. Going to a charity store is the highlight for me – and I have become handy with creative alterations. This has given me fairly low range of colour and fashion choices – so I tend to hang out in black – which was good when I went through my gothic phase. Now I just look like an Italian widow.

I now own ( count them) 7 pairs of jeans.. wow – I have only ever had at most 2! She has a great style – very romantic and medieval – so that really suits my style too – I am loving the flowing tops with long droopy sleeve look.

Its all been about lack for me- I don’t spend money on myself or to buy clothes and worry and fret if I have to go and buy new underwear! I don’t tend to have many new clothes in my wardrobe and if I can admit this – I have some things in there that are 20 years old ( humm – might be back in fashion again!)

Anyway – getting back to my friend – She was very sensible about the whole operation and did a lot of research on it. She is aware that this is a life time commitment and he can never eat food again – not drink a lot of fluids at one time ( so out goes cocktail nights and drinking sessions) She is able to eat only mushed up foods – like baby food and only a very small amount of it.

I do actually long to lose weight – so that I too can walk proudly into any store and grab something off the rack, try it on and it fits! I don’t know if I would be prepared to go to this length though. I have to admit that I like eating, I love the taste, the feel and sensation of food. Though again – in saying that – I am sensible with my choices of food – no junk food, little processed stuff; all organic fruits and veges and good variety of proteins other than meat. I have to admit that it’s the quantity. Is this operation the one for me then? Would it really help me?

This girlfriend is planning to go to Thailand to get her bits nipped and tucked. With so much weight loss, she is complaining that all her bits are saggy. I started to look into websites and companies who offer this service – firstly out of curiosity then as a bit of a mission. The cost of some of these cosmetic surgeries is over half what it is in Australia – and that is with your accommodation as well! We aren’t talking shabby rooms either – 5 star resorts where you just hang out to recuperate and heal before you get on a plane back to home and work or family.

I haven’t had a specific quote for me done – but I am seriously thinking about it – I mean – just get the quote – at least I’d know then. To dream perhaps. To work a way to earn or generate that cash. Is it ok to get surgery done? I don’t even think I care if I have scars everywhere afterwards – how bad is that? What if I went and they said – sorry you are too fat to have surgery? How bad would that be?

Its been a big barrier for me – my weight – an insurmountable wall I cannot seem to break through, climb over or dissolve. Its one thing to say – I am fine with where I am, but another thing to think there is a glimmer of looking normal, of fitting in of being proud of my figure and of seeing the look on your partners eyes.

I am ‘fine’ with were I am at the moment – really – most days I don’t think about what might be or what I could be if I were skinnier. With every challenge I jump boots and all and don’t allow much to stand in my way. There are other days that I just hid in the house and plan to stay there forever – I am so disgusted with my appearance. It’s the momentary glimpses into the mirror that take me by surprise – the ones where you cannot believe that it is you staring back at you – ugly, fat and completely unnnatractive. It is these days that the credit card needs to be hidden and the brochures from Thailand be stored in a far away place.

Yeah – you are right.. I’m not ‘fine’.

I'm a Barbie Girl

This is from an ad campagn run by the Body Shop. cool huh?

I am not a big fan of Barbies. I know – they are only the worlds most popular doll. Though I have to admit - my loathing for her has been replaced by those dreadful tweeny dolls the Bratz. Someone gave my daughter ( aged 3) one of them.. It sadly got lost – packaging and all as soon as the party was over.

Coming back to Barbie though – she has been the icon for girls for nearly 50 years – it still doesn’t make her right – but its interesting to see what started her off…

So heres a bit of history about Barbie. She was based on a European sex doll called Lilli. The Bild Lilli Doll was a German fashion doll produced from 1955 to 1964, based on the comic-strip character Lilli.. She was originally marketed to adults in bars and tobacco shops as a joke or gag gift. Many parents considered her not appropriate for children – so the Lilli doll didn’t make it big in Europe.

Ruth Handler – the wife of the president of Mattel in the 50s one bought some of the Lilli dolls when she was on a trip to Europe and then reworked the design of the doll and re-named her Barbie. At the time there were only baby dolls for children to play with and she had noticed that her daughter was role playing games with her dolls in adult settings – i.e shopping, cooking parties – so believed that their aught to be a doll that could handle this social pressure!

Lilli the cartoon - was post-war, sassy and ambitious and had no reservations talking about sex. As she had her own job she earned her own money as a secretary but wasn't above hanging out with rich men ("I could do without balding old men but my budget couldn't!"). The cartoon always consisted of a picture of Lilli talking to girlfriends, boyfriends, her boss ("As you were angry when I was late this morning I will leave the office at five p.m. sharp!"). The quips underneath the cartoons handled topics ranging from fashion (to a policeman who told her that two-piece-swimsuits are banned: "Which piece do you want me to take off?"), politics ("Of course I'm interested in politics; no one should ignore the way some politicians dress!") and even the beauty of nature ("The sunrise is so beautiful that I always stay late at the nightclub to see it!"). She was always very well dressed and discreet and became a fashion doll.

Deep dark secret here – I was always envious of my cousin who at that time owned every Barbie and accessory that had been produced. We are talking ummm 30 years ago ( a bit more maybe?) – but it still amounted to a very impressive bedroom full of Barbie dolls.

Which brings me to where I actually wanted to go from the start. My daughter – 3 – now owns several Barbies – given to her or somehow bred in the depths of depravity in her lower bunk… we were sitting at the shopping centre today and some teenage girls walked past. Little darling chimes up –“ look mummy – three Barbie dolls – but they are real!”

I can’t deny that she loves those dolls and spends hours dressing and undressing, role playing and carrying them round. My concern – and I am sure that it echos many parents – is that her expectations of body image as she grows into a woman. If Barbie was a real size she would have a 40" bust, a 22" waist and 36" hips. Her neck is TWICE the length of a normal human's neck! I can only think of one woman with a neck that long and it was natural – and of course it was the gorgeous Audrey Hepburn.

And of course secretly – thinking I am doing my daughter a disservice as I am not a Barbie – no groovy tight fitting clothes or mini skirts here – def not a ‘yummy mummy”. I don’t want my bad body image to rub off on her – to have her have all my hang ups. Urgg… My son is so sweet and loves to give me cuddles and wraps his arms around my tummy – saying I love your fat tummy mummy.. errrmm.. well what does one say to that?

Thanks…I guess...

Be Yourself.. but who are you?

“Be yourself – Everyone else is taken.”


I can’t remember where I saw this written – but its been a scribbled note in my purse and in my organizer for years.

It doesn’t matter how may courses or workshops, seminars, books I have read or retreats I attend, I manage to find a way to hide the truth deep inside and am so well versed with protective lies, that its hard to strike the truth. If anything – going to these things just better equips me with more mumbo jumbo crap to layer around me.

I went to a workshop with women only and went in with the intention of stripping away all the layers, the practiced phrases and pretenses and just be, just experience and be myself. The old chestnut – who are you came up. I am a liar, I am a fake, I am a bloody good one. The facilitator seemed to want to know where this was coming from – if I knew it or felt it – I both know and feel it and then went on about living in your head and not in your heart etc.. yeah yeah – like I understand that, I appreciate that I have a propensity in living in my head – but I feel I have easy access to my heart as well and can snap into that at any given moment.

So – be yourself. Who are you? Again – such a practiced actress such as myself, I am able to keep this conversation and communication up for much longer than most facilitators allow the time. Most people cannot get past a few moments without repeating themselves or going blank.. and there is is the fake. So practiced at this – It doesn’t strip anything down – just gleams the veneer up again.

I saw some photos someone had taken of me and posted on facebook I must have such a huge ego, such a big view of myself. I hated them. I hate most photos- but the candid ones were awful It was like I was looking at a parody – a character – who was that old obese woman with the double chins, that dreadful gut, the hair like some mad womans breakfast?

I am really struggling here – to be happy in the skin and space I am in at the moment. I want to just hide from the world, to close the doors and not to come out, to wear kaftans and sit in the bath all day.

Don’t have any other words at the moment.

Simple Luxuries

A little while ago a friend suggested I read and undergo the 12 week challenge of The Artists Way – a book for uncovering your creativity and unblocking all those nasty evil thoughts and beliefs that stop you stepping into your greatness.

Luxuries are one of those things that as a mum you just bypass thinking that you’ll get around to it later on – after you do the washing, cleaning, mothering, cooking etc etc. A luxury for a mum might be having a hot shower, by yourself, enjoying all the way down to the bottom of a hot cuppa, a long uninterrupted bath or a chatty telephone call with a friend which is not punctuated by screams and wails.

Reading the book made me realize how few luxuries I now afford myself and how guilty I feel if I partake in them. Added to this guilt if that luxury involves some sort of food or drink – it is doubled and its just so not worth it in the end. I would have been a fantastic Catholic – I have the guilt gene deeply inbuilt already.

An exercise we had to complete was to note down a luxurious day. I have many dream days I could indulge in – but here is my luxurious day which I can afford monetary to do – but don’t do – as I would have too much guilt attached to it.

Sleep in till 9 am knowing that the kids have been dressed and fed breakfast and are playing happily in the yard or in the playroom. Drink freshly ground coffee whilst reading the newspaper and munch on a bowl of fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and cherries. ( the kids by now are being looked after somewhere I am safe and happy with.)

Off to the movies – gold class of course – sinking into the luscious seat sipping a cocktail and eating M and Ms.

Lunch and coffee with girlfriends

I would pick and choose between an afternoon wandering around the art gallery or museum punctuated by a Gloria Jeans coffee or getting a massage and then spending time in a spa – or snuggling up with a fiction book and reading the entire thing, munching on cookies and milo.. yum!

Luxuries start with small things. I have a beautiful set of china tea cups and saucers and love to make a cuppa in. They are delicate and sweet and so removed from my normal way of doing things. Time sort of stops when you sip tea out of them…( sort of like a television advert)

Looking back on this list – makes me think I aught to go and do some of these things on a regular basis. I do these things already:

Buy fresh flowers every week – it makes me feel very affluent

Buy good quality and organic foods – for health reasons and it makes me feel that I am appreciating both my body and those of my family.

only buy good quality chocolate - especailly at Easter time - not to allow crappy awful chocolate in the house.

Humm might go and make myself a cuppa now….

Thats me in the corner...

“That’s me in the corner,
That’s me in the spotlight,
I’m losing my religion”

- REM-

Its not so much my religion that I have lost - its me - all of me. I don't recognise the person I see in the mirror. In fact so disgusted by the image, I rush past them. If putting on makeup -I obviously have to look - but try not to allow my eyes to stray down further than my neck... and I certainly don't get naked in front of a mirror.

So, thats me. In the corner - here now with a blog - in the spotlight. So here it is my thoughts and fear - all logged and in black and white. share my journey as I just let flow and let go.

I don't remember ever being slim or normal looking - though looking back on photos I see a healthy looking child and teenager, with a pretty, sad face.

I have been on some sort of diet now for over 25 years. 25 years! Deprivation, guilt, self hatred, disgust, comparing myself to others, to models, to superstars. You name it - I have probably tried it. From calorie counting, weight watchers, meals that get delivered, prescribed drugs, starvation, raw food, pritikin, atkins, the cabbage soup diet and just before I got married - the 5 apples and 5 cups of black coffee a day diet for 3 months. ( it worked, until I ate at the wedding and over our honeymoon)

So its been a struggle, squeezing into stuff that doesn't fit or hiding in huge roomy tents. Going to the gym, getting personal trainers, joining dance classes and doing the whole going for a walk or a run. I hate exercise, I hate team sports and I especially loathe personal trainers with thier perfect white teeth and cheery disposition.

And its not like I have a bad diet. I should drink more water - I drink about a litre a day ( pure water) I eat only organic fruit and veges - and a good variety of them, I eat mainly organic meat maybe one serve a day. But I drink too much coffee ( only organic fresh stuff though - not gross instant) and I don't eat breakfast ( gross - nothing before about 11 thanks) and I have been known to scoff an entire block of chocolate whilst writing and then wonder where it went; blaming my kids for stealing it.

anyway this is me - right here, right now.. I am going to blog at least once a week on how I am going on my journey to self acceptance, loving who I am as I am as I really don't think I am ever going to be that thin girl.....