Wind In My Head: Weightlessness
Wind In My Head
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Weightlessness
Anyone who knows me would know my perennial obsession with weight. According to Packrat, I can never be thin enough. I don't really know where it comes from. There are many theories.Theory 1
Being mercilessly heckled when I bought a big bag of potato chips and chocolate chip cookies as a teenager. That was coupled with the fact that I was running seriously and had t-shirts and vests that boldly declared Singapore Schools' Athlete or Flash Athletic Club. So I was mocked for posing as an athlete but eating enough junk to support Hostess all by myself.
Theory 2
Being constantly reminded that girls put on weight at 15 years old in terms of fat on the back of their thighs to prepare one's body for child bearing but that it was bad for runners because it affected their speed. At the same time, heavily indoctrinated by diets that revolved around fruit and breads and told that meat, especially red meat was a big No No. So for a time, I ate no red meat (pork and beef, the legacy of that still remains. People who know me from back then still don't believe I eat pork. I sometimes tell them I'm Muslim just to get a rise out of them). For a time, I ate nothing but vegetables, fruit and the occasional fish, much to the great displeasure of my mother.
Theory 3
Having a close friend fixate all the time on body parts, do close to a few hundred crunches a day and obsess about supermodels and their bodies.
Theory 4
Doing ballet with girl from Theory 3, spend days on end staring at ourselves in mirrors, outfitted in skin tight leotards and pink tights (note: Pink tights make even the slimmest legs look like they belong to elephants). Couple that with being told by ballet teachers both in Singapore and Melbourne that I didn't have a dancer's build and my body wasn't lithe enough. And being surrounded by pre-pubescent long limbed dancers really didn't help matters at all.
Whatever theory you might subscribe to, the bottomline is that I'm neurotic about my weight. The strange thing is, as much as I'm obsessed about it, I'm tired of obsessing about it as well. Problem is that it's been part of me for so long that it'll be hard for me to actually ignore it. I mean, what would I do with all that time, if I stopped obsessing? But seriously, I've been weight conscious for so long, I'm not sure I know how not to be.
I think even if you held a gun to my head, I wouldn't be able to eat fried chicken without dabbing off the oil or stripping the skin. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to eat flash-fried duck either. But I do know, I'm tired of being so concerned.
To me, the solution, short-termed anyway, is to get pregnant. That way, I'll put on weight whether or not I like it and it wouldn't be due to some chocolate cake I OD-ed on, but actually something that I would be doing right. So, it would be a relief to be pregnant, in that sense.
Strangely though, I know of people who have never ventured an opinion about weight, theirs or anyone else's, who are throwing hissy fits because they've become pregnant. These are the skinny, not much into fitness and what my brother would call the typical Singapore girl (not to be confused with the Singapore Girl)- skinny, fair-skinned (your typical SK-II mask type girl), tone-less, rebonded hair, speaks with neighbourhood school (albeit good) accent. It strikes me as strange, this turnabout.
Me,on one hand, the one who has spent my life bemoaning the gaining of 0.3 kg or having the body fat percentage upped 0.5% is looking forward to the day where I can no longer obsess about it.
And then,
The girls, who would previously not have blinked at the amount of oil that was forming in the Popeye's fries packet last night, eat fried dough fritters (yew-cha-kway) for breakfast, are freaking out because their little babies in their tummies are in need of nutrients and are growing into sentient beings of their own. So, they develop the dire need to hide behind baggier clothes (making them feel even worse about themselves), resenting their pregnancies because it's abusing their bodies, hating their reflections in the mirror and being all upset because the baby's caused them to gain another inch round their middle.
Of course, people who have known me for a long time claim that it is a statistical impossibility that I could actually stop worrying about it. It is, after all, a great weight to behold and a whole lot of fat to chew on. Heh.
Ondine tossed this thought in at 14:29
4 thoughts...
-
At 5:14 pm
Cowboy Caleb said... I tried to Tomorrow this, but it got blocked because it sounds like it encourages weight issues amongst younger women.
-
At 5:34 pm
BBBBBBB said...
Hmm. Reminds me of a friend of mine. Who's always been 158cm (usual Singaporean girl height), and weighs only about 40kg, who always complains about her "fat" tummy when it's just not toned. I am easily twice her size with regards to my frame and flab (I am 150cm tall) and she dares to complain about a fat tummy!!???!!!
When I was fat and single, people tell me to go slim down so that guys would look at me, and that period of time I couldn't eat anything without feeling guilty like crap all the time. What kind of life is that?! Even though guys do look at me twice then, I wasn't happy at all.
I am glad that I found my boy and that I can happily gain weight and eat and other people will just shrug it off as me "being happy liao/found a guy so no need to care liao".
And ya, typical Singaporean girl is skinny, untoned, rebonded hair and fair skinned.
Which is why I am going to get a gothic perm and letting my freckles show on my nose and cheeks.-
At 6:10 pm
Ondine said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
-
At 6:11 pm
Ondine said...
Cowboy- Haha... it'll only encourage younger women to fixate on weight issues if they don't mind growing up to be as neurotic or even more neurotic than I am. Now, why would anyone want to be that neurotic?? :)