Walking the World as a Fat Woman Again

The story of my journey in and out of my fat body. To a place called home.

I sit cradling the round mound of my burgeoning belly, or apron tummy as it is apparently referred to sometimes. It is soft and pudgy, squishy and ticklish. Running my hand up and over its curves, I reach the section above it and right below my breast bone — the upper love handles, back fat, whatever you want to call it. This part has always been my pet peeve — it isn’t new, I’ve always had it, but it’s the most stubborn area to get rid of. Though I’m not really trying anymore.

I turn around and arch my neck backwards, straining to get a look of my back view in the big mirror on the bathroom wall, under its bright lights that highlight every pore. I notice the new band of cellulite and fat that has deposited itself right above my behind, which wasn’t small to start with. I can see the rise, swell and then the dip of the flesh as it tucks into my thighs, thick and dimply.

I’m an impassive observer at the moment, just taking in the sights and (cellu)lites that I see.

I find it interesting, really, that I don’t seem to have any strong emotions for this body right now — no hatred, no disappointment, no disbelief. This simply is my body in its current, most truest form. It simply is.

I’ve certainly come a long way.

May 2011 — Blacksburg, Virginia

Thunk, thunk, thunkthunkthunk, thunk, thunkthunk, thunk……

I catch myself breathing through my mouth again, sucking in gulps of air feverishly, a habit I was trying hard to break. I glance over to the right and find my roommate running gracefully on the treadmill next to me, at double my speed. She’s on mile 4 and has barely broken a sweat. Her mouth is closed, the fall of her feet steady and rhythmic. I feel like such a klutz next to her but I need to keep going. I’m only on mile 3 and we were to do 7 today. I’m running at between 3.5 and 4 mph so I have a long way to go. And I still have my ab-work to do after that.

I really wanted to love running, because I thought it would feel freeing. At least that’s what most runners made it seem like. I would put on my favorite music, like they asked me to, and go and try running outside. Soon it would be too hot, too cold, too many insects, too many things to carry — and I would come back home abandoning the run. I felt defeated; I couldn’t even get this right. Such a loser!

So then I tried the treadmill. It was easier for me to control and vary my pace often and I liked that for a while. In my head, though, I was literally counting every second to the minute to the half-hour to the hour before my run for the day was over. Was it supposed to be this torturous? No! It’s just you, stop with the excuses already. Just…run!

I jump off the treadmill to go refill my water bottle and decide to hop on the weighing scale for a quick mid-run check-in. It had been serving as my motivational agent lately, since all this running had me at the lowest weight of my life. Yes! Another 10 lbs and I would be at my goal weight! I can’t wait for everyone back home to see me this way! I’ve got this!

I had landed in the U.S barely 6 months ago as an over-weight adult. Every single day was a homesick mess of me yearning for my family and the familiarity of their comfort. I knew they missed me too, of course, but I was certain my weight loss would be the cherry on the icing; with the icing being my Master’s degree.

I had always been the chubby kid, the fat child who couldn’t resist food, the butt of all cute jokes. I felt like I had a point to prove, a story to tell of having a mastery over my cravings and choosing a fit lifestyle that no one imagined I would do. The truth is that my family always loved me the same but their words of caution about my weight felt like rejection to me. I never realized it was a wound so deep, I nurse it even to this day.

3 hours later, I finished my workout and headed home to a dinner of stir-fried vegetables (my remaining 350 calories for the day) and a full night of studying.

July 2013 — San Antonio, Texas

“So…movie at 8 tonight?” One friend or the other would ask.

“Sorry, I’ve got back to back classes at the gym today and then a session with my personal trainer after. How about tomorrow?”

They knew the same thing would probably happen the next day too but they understood. I had gained some weight since my student days in 2011 and was becoming desperate to lose it.

It’s an obsession, they’d point out. But a healthy one, I’d correct, politely and slightly cockily. It was an obsession I wanted to have, though I’d prefer to call it passion instead. Passion has a more positive spin to it. I was enjoying the attention I was getting for my unrelenting dedication and control — I was the go-to fitness specialist and nutritionist of my friend’s circle.

Between gymming and creating low calorie recipes that I tried to fake-love, my days were pretty occupied. Work during the day, this routine in the evening, friends, family and fun came sometime after.

But mentally, I wasn’t in a great place — I was waiting to hear back if I got picked in the H1B visa lottery, which would decide if I could continue living in the U.S or have to head back home to India. I was okay going back to family but I had student debts to pay off and a tumultuous love pursuit that my stay here depended on. If I were to go back, it would be to talks of an arranged marriage with even more pressure to lose weight if I had to be “eligible”.

The gym was my sanctuary, a place where I could sweat away my tensions. But also, if I were to return to India I needed to lose the 10 lbs I had gained to avoid being seen as a failure in the Health & Career departments.

The irony is that I was pretty fit back then, as is evident in both the pictures on the right below. But that’s not how I saw myself. I would spend hours standing in front of a mirror, pinching my flab in vulnerable areas and wishing them gone, lamenting why I wasn’t blessed with a better metabolism or self-control. Like my thinner-than-me-but-older sister or my skinnier and prettier friends.

My gym-rat, salad-eating persona was a cover I had to put on — one that I enjoyed, but a cover nonetheless — so my friends wouldn’t see me through the same (fat) lens as I did and pick on me.

And there were indeed some men who joked at how chubby I still was in spite of all the work I put in. I know now that I shouldn’t have let those unrealistic expectations define what I thought of myself, but I was naive and complicit.

2014 to 2020 — Bay Area, California

The 6 years after that were the customary blur, brought about by a raging-into-the-30s brain that struggled (and still does) to keep life events in chronological order. My career took off, my family was doing well, my love life was solid. As my life’s graph seemed to plot upwards, so did my weight. I joke(d) that my successes were best seen on my body — from a poor student to a successful career woman, my growing body bore the evidence.

The Bay Area is notorious for having some of the best, most authentic array of Indian foods in the U.S. That, combined with being around great friends, meant our weekends were happy get-togethers with free flowing food and drinks.

I continued to work out, though, trying different things each year — Reformer pilates, training for and running 2 half marathons, boxing, 3 different gym memberships with and without trainers, spinning, lifting heavy weights at the gym etc.

In 2016, after a particularly grueling boxing session, I injured my lower back. Over the next few years, it went from a debilitating muscular spasm to full-blown sciatica and osteoarthritis.

I was in unimaginable pain majority of the time; a 12/10 as I would rate it to my physiatrist each visit. I had nerve medication, steroid shots, physiotherapy etc to treat it; but none a perfect cure.

But I continued to work out. You know, push through the pain and all that. I had goals to reach. I was steadily gaining weight and I couldn’t let that happen. I would gym heavy and pop pain medication every night, ignoring everything the doctors and therapists were saying.

Instead, I chose to eat away my pain, because food was my comfort. To all who noticed and called out my weight gain, I blamed the medication and its side effects (which most certainly could’ve been a factor). But internally, I unleashed the full wrath of my fat-phobia against myself every day.

I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t work out without pain, I hated that I loved food, I hated the looks everyone gave me, I hated the unsolicited yet (mostly) innocuous advice everyone threw at me, all of which I tried— Give up sugar, Don’t eat fried food, You can do it! You’ve done it before! Do keto, it really works, Intermittent fasting is the real deal, Carbs are the real enemy, I hated being judged for my choices, I hated who I had become, I hated my body.

I had gained over 40 lbs and I hated everything.

The Pandemic and Post-Pandemic era, circa. 2020-2021

Feeling at home in your own body is truly a spiritual experience.

Your body is a medium to be physically present and visible. It is a vehicle, a doer, a way to manifest your thoughts into actions. A sensual being to feel the warmth from the hug of a loved one, the tingle of excitement at a surprise, the taste of lust, the grainy texture of sand at the beach and the wind in your face while you breathe it all in.

It houses your soul, generates your emotions and regulates your living. You have a moral obligation to take care of it, yes, but it has a bigger purpose of giving you a sense of belongingness. An identity that only you can claim, in life and in death.

I say all this now with a certain degree of awareness and conviction; what brought me here was not just any flimsy self-awareness journey but one that I had to embark on to survive. One that I was forced into by the dark throes of depression — wrought by the pandemic and the sheer suffering the world is facing right now — which pushed all of these body-dysmorphic worries into a remote sphere of unimportance.

I don’t think I have the right words to articulate why, how and what anxiety and depression have done to, and for, me. But the intensity of these feelings are so all consuming that nothing else matters. In fact, it is my body that keeps me safe and connected to the present world. The whole “get out of your head and into your body” lesson, so I’m not lost in loops of spiraling thoughts.

How is it then that this body could be a bad thing?

I know now and believe that a lot of it is cultural, including those of the diet culture and fitness culture trends.

It’s not so much that they’re trying to say the wrong things — there is undoubted and definite value in eating healthy, exercising and taking care of one’s self in the best way possible. But it is the implication that if you’re not an active participant, then you have reason to dislike yourself. It is the notion that despite your depression, your injury or dipping energy levels, your focus must be on clean eating or strength training because they are the path to elevated living.

It is the idea that a socially acceptable body is the first step to feeling better. And if not, then you probably will, and should, feel terrible about yourself. Terrible enough to feel the guilt weighing down your already-heavy body. And terrible enough to convert that guilt into momentum, into action.

I don’t think the society or culture gets to tell me to hate myself for the way my body is. I recognize that now, but I wish I had known that back then when I was hurting the most. All those years and experiences that became the building blocks of my disordered eating habits and poor self-image. The veil over my eyes that prevented me from seeing my real self, the inner critic that highlighted all the flaws of my contours instead.

So much wasted time that I could’ve spent on learning better habits, if only they were taught to me with kinder, more accepting words. I could’ve learned to love a healthier lifestyle without feeling like the only reason to keep at it was to fit in to some arbitrary standards.

I know it’s never too late, but I can’t help but mourn the parts of me that still hold raw pain.

Now, I re-enter the world a fat woman again — a world of delta and lambda variants, a world of war and suffering. My head is held high and stoic, resting on a body that is still standing alive despite the odds. I don’t feel shame anymore; I’m quite numb in fact. Or perhaps it’s the resilience of wisdom from being gentle to myself these days.

I feel at peace right now with this body. The kind of peace that only exists at home. And if home is where the heart is, then I know that there is love here too. I just have to take the time to find it.