Women and weight loss.

I wish we lived a long time ago when having a little bit of fat on your body was considered the norm.
I have yet to meet a woman between the age of 16-60 who does not have an issue with her body image, all stemming from how much she weights. No matter how skinny I think and the rest of the world think they are; they see themselves as fat. No thanks to media, and to those skin and bone disgusting looking models. I am very guilty of that, but I will never want to be skin and bone, and those models do not motivate me at all. All I can think when I watch fashion TV is gross, eww, what the hell is sexy about skin an bone?

Every time I meet one of my friends, at least 1hr of our time is spent talking about dieting, exercise, and those nasty 10lb that everyone wants to lose. What is so magical about those 10lb?? For me it means that my mommy tummy is almost flat, and everything is few inches smaller. But what about my friends, who do not have a mommy tummy and are pretty thin all over? I have a distant cousin who lives in Edmonton. She is 20yrs old. Last year when we sort of lived in Edmonton my mom asked me how she looks like, because she thought maybe the girl will be good for my younger brother, yeh like he will ever marry the Arabic way…anyways, I described her as very skinny, almost stick thin. Later as I spent more time with the girl, I was talking with her about how I still need to lose 10 post baby lb, blah blah blah, and I was shocked to hear that she is trying to lose 10lb as well. What the hell? I think if she lost that much she would disappear. Then later I was talking to her mom, and she told me that her daughter skips most meals because she wants to lose weight. Who the hell made this girl think she is fat? I mean she is tall and stick thin! At least 10 women I know are the same.

My sister in law in Amman hardly eats a thing to stay thin, she is not too skinny, but not fat, but she does not look healthy at all. If she ate healthy foods and worked out she would be thin and healthy looking. But lots of people do not know any better; everyone thinks no eating means losing weight. When it is the opposite. There has to be a balance, eating healthy food, exercise and eating the yummy sugary high fat foods in moderation. When I went to Syria and Jordan after having my first son, everyone I talked to gave me this piece of advice, skip dinner and you will lose the weight. When all the experts say do not skip meals, not giving your body foods every 4hours makes your metabolism slow down. My mom does not drink water, because too much water makes you gain weight, what? The only thing in the world that has 0 calories, and does wonders for your body. Now I hate water, unless I’m super thirsty or working out water makes me gag. So it is very hard to get my 8 cups of water on days I do not go to the gym. I started adding few drops of lemon into my 945ml bottle, and it is so much easier for me to chug down 2 bottles everyday. Now my skin is happy, and I’m sure my liver and kidney are thanking meJ

My weight loss issue started at 14, when I was way too thin. Barely 80lb and my much older friend looked at me and said you are too skinny. So I was very self-conscious and prayed to gain weight. Finally at 16 I was up to 110lb and not too skinny, not fat, just perfect for my 5’1 petite frame. My fiancé (yes I was engaged at 16, what the hell were my parents thinking, thankfully I grew up and decided no way I will be tied down to this person from now so I broke up with him at 17), he looked at me and said that I have gained weight, and he does not want a fat wife! So stupid me became self-conscious and made it a mission to lose weight, but I didn’t know how to go about it, and did the eating very little thing, ended up screwing up my metabolism and gaining weight. That SOB, he was the fat one! Why, why did I let it get to me, I mean he really did need to lose weight, at least 30-50lb! I should have told him that I do not want a fat husband, but I was 16yo, too shy and timid. I hope he weights a million lb now!

I promise once I lose those 10lb (5Kg) I will not talk about wanting to lose more weight. I will eat healthy, and keep on going to the gym 3x a week, because I want to be healthy for me and for my family. And I will be praying that people’s mentality will change because if I ever have a daughter, I want her to be healthy but not obsessed about looking like someone on TV.