How I stopped fighting and learned to love my body

Jo Robb - 1 Nov 18

I’ve had a rollercoaster relationship with my body for what feels like my whole life.

When I was 13 I wrote in my diary….

‘It was weighing day today. I was in the queue behind Helena. Her fingers are all thin and she’s like a delicate little fairy, and Juliet was standing behind me who has legs to her neck. I was stood in between them like a midget lump and I knew I was going to be elephant and a half stone and I was. Mrs Goddard wrote it in the book …‘7 stone 3’. I am a beast. I’m so depressed. I hate myself. I’m so fat.’

I looked it up yesterday on the National Growth Charts. 7 stone at 13 made me 50^thpercentile. Not a beast or an elephant. Normal. A girl in puberty, with the beginnings of boobs and a year’s worth of periods behind her. A woman really – a 7-stone woman. I cried for that girl when I realised that. Proper cried.

It wasn’t the beginning of my rollercoaster and it certainly wasn’t the end. Over the past three decades my weight and my self-esteem have fluctuated by ten stone; down and up, back down, and back up again.

I have hated myself because I am fat, I have let myself become fat because I hated myself. I have fought through diets that left me weak and depressed and ill. I have starved myself, abused myself, cut myself, drunk myself to sleep every night, smoked until I could barely talk.

I constantly made jokes about my weight, drawing peoples attention to it, ridiculing myself before I could be ridiculed… ridiculous as I thought I was. I was ‘hilariously’ self deprecating at every turn, particularly when drunk (as I often was)… At my sisters wedding my new brother-in-law said in his speech what a ‘huge support’  I had been to him. “Are you calling me fat?’ I heckled back, glass swaying in my hand. Everyone laughed. He cringed. I died a little inside… and took another drink.

I battled with my body, my enemy, and it battled me back.

Eight years ago when I was 35 and about 13 stone, Matt – my love, whom I had met in a light phase, when I was cocky and brown, and slim from a brief spate at weight watchers – my Matt and I decided it was time to have a baby.

We were both surprised when it didn’t happen straight away. After all, with those boobs and childbearing hips I already looked like a Mumma. It took three years of testing and counselling and hypnotherapy and finally five rounds of IVF to have first Flora and then two years later, Rufus.

My weight WAS an issue, a high BMI can impact fertility, but my body confidence had got in the way long before that. I hadn’t wanted to get undressed in front of Matt for years. I felt physically repulsed by the idea of my own stomach and thighs and couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to touch me, never mind sleep with me. Our hold-my-breath and count to ten attempts at naturally falling pregnant had been almost mechanical. I struggled to let go and remember to enjoy myself – and for a long time I was too caught up in shame and embarrassment to even wonder what was going on for him.

But…

And this is a big BUT. Something shifted when I had my babies. It started with Flora but having Rufus … my huge 12lb baby, my miracle frozen embryo, created and popped in the freezer six months BEFORE I got pregnant with Flora… having Rufus started me thinking differently about my body.

I run a lot now. And as I run I think. And my runs have been longer lately. So my thinks have been longer. Lately I have realised that my body, that I have hated and allowed to hate me for so many years, my body that I have seen as an enemy to do battle with, is not my enemy. My body, this amazing, wonderful body, is my best friend.

This is the body that my mummy, my wonderful late mummy, held and loved and cherished and marvelled in when I was wee – like my babies are now. This is my body that grew and learned to walk and run and jump and do ballet and float in the pool and ride horses and climb trees.

This body grew two babies. It tried its best to grown more, but successfully grew and held and carried and gave birth to two strong, amazing, beautiful children. This body helped me feed them – on nothing but me for 6 months each. This body has battled sickness and grief and brought me pleasure and joy and now….  Now, in my 40s my body is getting stronger and fitter and healthier than it has ever been. The kinder I am to this body, the more I think about the fuel I put into it, and the exercise I give it, and the crap I avoid polluting it with, the more it gives to me. Better sleep, more energy, a lighter step, a lighter heart.

I don’t know what gave me the first seed of confidence to give myself a chance, but I do know that through following the Slimming World plan – where I never feel deprived or hungry or weak or sad, but always feel energised and supported and part of a great movement of women and men looking to make the best of themselves – and through discovering an exercise that really works for my mind my body and my soul – running –  I have woken up to the great miracle of what I have in the legs and arms and muscles and feet that carry me through my life.

I wish I could have shared this with my mum, whose battle was so similar and nearly lifelong, but I know I will do everything I can to teach each of my children to love and respect their body, and to see it as the best friend they could ever have.

And I for one will never see my body as my enemy again.

Jo Robb

Full time mummy, part time writer, sometime blogger. Lover of sitting down, lying in, running a long way, drinking gin and a whole bunch of other things I can't do anymore. Despite my sarcastic, mildly bitchy posts, I cherish my man, adore my babies and am slowly learning to love myself too.

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