Since I was 7-8 years old, I’ve been what most people would consider to be overweight. In fact, all my past medical reports from annual body checkups have classified my body type as “obese” – which you can imagine didn’t do much to help my self-esteem.
I was especially self-conscious throughout my teenage years, which are by default difficulty times already and being overweight made it even more difficulty. Not to mention how hard it was to buy clothes that came in my size that I liked (read: that I thought I looked slimmer in).
It wasn’t all bad though. After years of being sick and tired of feeling sensitive about my weight and appearance, my perspective finally started to change around 10 years ago (when I was in my early 20’s). I started on the spiritual quest of getting to know myself better. As I read more and more books on spirituality (or what some people call “New Age” stuff), and as I did more thinking about myself and others based on my life experience and observations, I felt more and more comfortable in my skin. (My entire perspective on a lot of things changed, not just on this issue alone.)
Other “overweight” friends started coming into my life and a couple of them became role models for me with their charm and self-confidence that they didn’t let dwarf by their tiny weight problem. Hanging around them had a very positive effect on me as I got more used to just being me – smart, funny, caring, sexy me – as opposed to always mentally labeling myself as fat in the past.
As I made peace with my body I noticed a pleasant “side effect” – that other people enjoyed hanging around me more, and even complete strangers started treating me with more respect! That made complete sense. How could I expect other people to love and respect me when I didn’t love or respect myself in the first place? Gives you something to think about doesn’t it?
Speaking of role models, I was inspired by several celebs who didn’t let their weight issues stop them from reaching for success. Oprah, although she never really made peace with her weight, was an inspiration nevertheless with the success and popularity she’s achieved. Later came Beth Ditto and Ruth Jones, both of whom were further proof that being overweight is no deterrent to success.
And then, in the past few years, plus size boutiques, with their increasingly larger selections, started popping up all over the place, which made buying clothes increasingly enjoyable for me. Plus size clothing stores have the big plus (pun intended, sorry!) of knowing how to design clothing to make large people look even more attractive (not that we weren’t to begin with but you know what I mean). Another plus is, staff that works at these boutiques are capable of giving better advice because they’re used to dealing with plus sizes. Plus size stores are where I get all my clothes from now and have been for the past while.
OK, I just realized I’ve been ranting on and on without getting to the subject matter I had intended to talk about. As this post is getting really long I’ll continue in another post next time. Stay tuned! 
Tags: medically obese, plus size boutiques, plus size clothing, plus size stores
