I am a published writer!

And, here is the 2k word version of that article!

Hey y’all! As many of you saw on my social media, I just had an article published on Insider! I am so excited to work on taking my life this direction, and I am so beyond grateful for all of your support, encouragement, and enthusiasm for this accomplishment.

I have been quietly working so hard for the past handful of months on sending out pitches and trying to get published. You have no idea how much I have kept from you all during this time. It has been so hard to keep it a secret.

A lot of you have read a much longer version of this piece, years ago when I posted it on my old Chicago Now blog (which is now defunct and completely shut down). I had a lot of really great feedback from y'all on it, and how much it meant to you.

The old version was called "Don't Comment on Anyone's Weight. Ever", and it clocked in at about around 5k words. LOL. This version on Insider, is at their max word limit of 700 words. So, it is a much different and shorter article than you remember. I worked beyond hard to shave my baby down. It was an intensely challenging process that I am beyond proud of myself for achieving.

So, some of you read the really messy, unedited, highly raw, emotional 5k word version in 2020, and some of you haven’t. If you haven’t and want to, it is on this new blog site under “Please Don’t Comment On Anyone’s Weight. Ever”.

Some of you read the highly edited and polished 700 word max version on Insider. If you haven’t, and want to, here it is.

My favorite version is between those two. It is the one I edited down to 2k and submitted in all my pitches. I am so grateful to have been published, I am so incredibly proud of myself for cleaning it up to 700 words, and I am so happy with the way it turned out. But below is my favorite version, cause it includes more of the nuances and personal examples that feel like they have my heart and emotion in them, without all the unpolished extraness of the original one.

This is dedicated to Olivia, who inspired it, and her memory. She sadly lost her battle to cancer a few months after I wrote the original version.

I give you an exclusive look at the 2k word version:

I was scrolling through Instagram and saw my friend Olivia’s post of herself in a new dress. Like me, she’s a very tall blonde with a broad frame and has dealt with fluctuating size over the years. In this picture, she looks like she’s lost a lot of weight. I thought, “Wow! She looks so pretty.” Then I read the caption, which she gave me permission to share and write about, “New summer dress. P.S. Please don’t comment on my weight. I know I’m much thinner and it is because I have cancer and had part of my tongue removed. I’m thin because I can’t eat. When you comment on someone’s weight, you never know what they are going through. It’s not always something good. Compliment something else, anything else. Love you all.”

I was blown away and so proud of her, in awe of her vulnerability. I had been wrestling with this concept for awhile now, and she articulated it perfectly.

My earliest memory of being baffled by this concept was in 5th grade history class. A classmate told the teacher, “You look like you’ve lost weight.” I was shocked. My initial instinct was, “Why would anyone ever comment on anyone’s weight? It’s so rude.” I was expecting the teacher to get embarrassed and chastise the girl for commenting on something so personal. But, the next shock came quickly for me when she reacted completely opposite. She smiled and said, “Thank you.” I was gobsmacked and could not comprehend it. I told my mom what had happened and then came my third shock of the day.  My mom said, “That’s a compliment. It’s nice to tell people they’ve lost weight.” That was a pivotal point in my life. As someone who always sought approval, I learned it’s best to lose weight, be thin, notice it about yourself and others, and “compliment” people on it. 

I was stick thin until I was 12 years old, and puberty hit. Afterwards, my mom’s best friend said to me innocently, “You aren’t a stick anymore. You’re starting to get some meat on those bones.” When my mom’s BFF said this, I felt it like a punch in the gut. If losing weight was good, then gaining it was the opposite. I went to my room and cried.

In junior high my mom told me about the food I was eating, “It’ll catch up with you. Someday you’ll stop growing this way," motioning growing taller, "and start growing this way," motioning growing fatter. Neither my mom or her friend was malicious, it was society’s message their whole lives. We have all been taught damaging things for a long time. It’s ingrained.

Another formative memory is a family vacation in Silver Dollar City in Branson. They had a shop where you’d put on old western saloon costumes and take a sepia picture where everyone held weapons and no one smiled. I was SOLD. I don’t know how, but I convinced my dad we needed this. They dressed my dad and brother in pants, long sleeve shirts, vests, and cowboy hats. The costumes they had for women were sexy, revealing, small dresses that showed your chest and arms. (Mine had fake boobs in it, to make it appear that a pre-teen had breasts the size of a woman.) The dress for my mom made her feel awful. She felt fat in it and didn’t want to wear it or take the picture. I didn’t understand and pressured and pushed her. She cried the whole time, in the picture her eyes were puffy and her face was tear stained. My mom instructed my dad to hide the photo when we got back home. Whenever I wanted to see it, I had to ask him to pull it out of hiding.

Throughout my childhood “junk food” was locked in a cabinet. My dad had the key. He wanted me to be healthy and eat snacks sparingly.  When he opened the cabinet for me, it became this special thing that felt like a reward.  Although, I learned how to pry open the cabinet, and sneak food out to eat in secret. 

In college everyone talked about the “freshman 15.” So I made sure to lose weight that year. By summer, I was 6ft tall and 145 lbs., the skinniest I ever was as an adult. With my height and frame, I was practically a stick again; but with big boobs. With that and my long blonde hair, I was a living Barbie. I brought all the boys to the yard. But, no one ever wanted to see or care about anything beyond my body. Again, I was forced to feel that your body is your entire worth. But how could I be skinny and still feel so bad about myself? 

Later in college I met the guy who would become my husband. I got "comfortable" and started gaining weight. A girl at work told me that she and other people had been talking about it and they all decided it was because I was in a relationship and “gave up.” Once again, the message was, “My weight is something people notice, talk about, and judge me on.”

I got to a point that I considered “fat.” When I got engaged I went on Weight Watchers, did tons of cleanses and fasting, and worked out like a fiend. Some of it was healthy. Some of it was not. I wanted to be skinny and look good in wedding pictures, not uncommon. But the problem was, throughout my life, any diet or exercise I had ever done was to be skinny and never to be healthy.

When we married, men were still hitting on me, making me uncomfortable and my husband upset. I decided that I needed to make myself less attractive. How could I do this? Maybe gain weight? In the first year of my marriage, I gained 90 pounds. I was miserable and depressed.

My marriage was terrible, and this man was not the person I thought he was. I was lost. Throughout my life, I coped by eating. I got home from work first and would scarf down fast food then hide the evidence. In the middle of the night I’d sneak away to the 24 hour McDonald’s and pound a double cheeseburger and fries in my car. I threw the bag away in a dumpster at the front of our trailer park before turning off my headlights and parking in our driveway, sneaking back in bed with him none the wiser.

Throughout my marriage, when he told me I looked pretty I told him he was wrong. I cried when things wouldn’t fit and unflattering pictures were taken. Just like my mom in Branson. I didn’t love myself, and didn’t believe I was worthy of love. I was always trying to convince my husband to admit that I was fat and he was no longer attracted to me. Eventually he gave me what I asked for. When he was leaving me, some of the reasons given were that I had gained weight, he wasn’t attracted to me now, and didn’t think I was pretty anymore. 

I decided if I didn't want to be alone forever, I better lose weight. So what was the first thing I did? I lost 50 pounds. It was to look good and attract new men. Because if experience had taught me anything thus far, it was that all of my worth was in being hot and skinny.

And get men I did! Your girl HOOKED IT UP.  Then, after a while, it stopped feeling good. I became tired of the effort it took for online dating sites, and dealing with reprehensible behavior from dudes on them. I deleted all of my accounts and blocked a bunch of guys on my phone. I was closed for business. Then, I gained weight to keep them away. After that I got depressed.

As of today, I have not lost that weight. At times, I’ve tried REALLY hard. At other times, I haven’t tried at all. Losing 10 pounds here and there. And gaining it all back. I’ve had people tell me, “It looks like you’ve lost weight. You look really good.” When I gain weight, I feel that I have let everyone down. That shame and pressure are comforted by food. And so the cycle continues. 

Until a few years ago, I was still binging food periodically. Followed by spurts of dieting, losing nothing, getting depressed, and going back to binging. Sadness, loneliness, and boredom were all reasons to eat. I would see people who were losing weight, or already skinny, talk about working out all the time or dieting constantly, and I would hate them.

Now, when I see posts on social media where people are making fun of themselves for gaining weight, and people putting so much unhealthy pressure on themselves to lose weight, it makes me really sad. But, I stop and tell myself that maybe they are where I was a couple of years ago. Maybe they need to hear another narrative.

I’m hoping I can do my part by writing this: The weight gain jokes, memes, and posts aren’t funny. They are reinforcing toxic and negative narratives that are only going to make you and others feel worse. Those feelings drive you towards unhealthy behaviors. Whether it’s binge eating out of shame and guilt, or starving yourself. Making fun of yourself and others for weight NEVER leads to a healthy attitude towards it.

I’ve been seeing my therapist for a few years now, and she’s helping me learn to love myself, and that food isn’t moral. You aren’t “good” for eating broccoli and going on a run, and you aren’t “bad” for eating a brownie and laying on your couch; it doesn’t determine who you are as a person. You’re making healthy or unhealthy decisions, which can impact your health and happiness, but they’re yours to make. You aren’t a failure if you gain 5 pounds, and you aren’t a success if you lose 5 pounds.

Accept yourself. This doesn’t mean you lack motivation and have given up. It means you aren’t in denial about reality. Interestingly, it was accepting myself that led me to more success with getting healthy. Acceptance leads to loving yourself, which has made me want to make healthier decisions. If I love myself, then I want to take care of myself and be healthy. If I hate myself, then I have no motivation to take care of myself, and spiral into self hate more.

In the past month I have lost 5 pounds. I may lose more. I may gain it all back. Please don’t comment on it. You don’t know what is going on in my life. And I don’t need the pressure from people noticing it. I know you mean well and society has deemed that a compliment. But I don’t take it as one. My friend Olivia does not take it as one.

The person who lost weight may have a terminal disease, disordered eating (and you’re reinforcing unhealthy behaviors), massive depression, be unable to afford food, or possibly dealing with a substance abuse issue. Telling them that they look good because of weight loss reinforces that their worth is dependent upon that, that whatever they’re doing they should keep doing no matter the cost. 

Can we agree it’s weird and invasive to comment on people’s weight? Because we’ve got to start changing this dialogue. The same as you would never say to me “you’ve gained weight and look bad,” please don’t say “you’ve lost weight and look good.” It has the same effect on me, and it’s never necessary to comment on people’s bodies.

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