Welcome to Hips 'n Salsa

I've been writing this blog in my head for the past week. When you start a blog it’s only fitting to introduce yourself and tell you all why I chose this subject.

I have so much to say when it comes to weight and body image that I don't even know where to start. All these memories float around in my head, starting with being conscious of my body at a very young age. I'm the youngest of five girls so that was inevitable. Therefore I was pressured at a very young age to conform to society's idea of beauty. And I rebelled.

When I saw the movie, "Real Women Have Curves" I finally found a movie that verbalized how I felt growing up. The protagonist, Ana Garcia (played by America Ferrera) is fed up with how society expects women to conform. In a liberating moment, and to her mother’s horror, she pulls off her t-shirt and her pants and works in her underwear in her sister’s hot dress shop. That is how I felt as I grew older.

I remember dieting at eleven, the summer I was taking a ballet class because I thought my best friend was much more graceful than me. I remember thinking that her natural grace was related to how slim she was. I started drinking Diet Coke after swim practice when I was in eighth grade. In high school I did aerobics religiously every day at 5:30 p.m. with a show on the Lifetime channel, “It Figures.” I kept my weight steady but it still crept up.

Once I went to college and I entered by twenties I felt liberated. I felt like I was an adult and no one was going to tell me what to do. I was living at home and had to conform to my parents’ house rules, but I was paying my way through college with financial aid and I earned my own spending money selling advertising for my university’s newspaper. From then on the weight came on and the yo-yo dieting continued.

I steadily gained weight through my twenties. It was such a contradiction of feelings. On one hand it bothered me that I was gaining weight, but on the other hand I didn’t want to let it bother me. I wanted to just enjoy life without worrying. I thought that thinking about my size made me shallow.

Then my mother died the month before my 30th birthday from complications of diabetes and my whole outlook on body weight and size changed. To be continued…