I Am (Mostly) Grateful for My Body

For the month of November, we’re featuring stories from BAMRs who share what they are (mostly) grateful for. Gratitude doesn’t have to come in a beautifully wrapped gift box once everything in your life is perfect; you can find gratitude in the imperfect, too. Up first, TLAM Club Support Specialist April Hopkins explains why she’s grateful for her body.

I am (mostly) grateful for my body. It hasn’t always been this way. Just like my eyebrows, my self-esteem took a real hit during my teen years. I was 15 years old when Kate Moss posed in her Calvin Kleins in 1992, and with her came the rise of the waif supermodels. Not a fun time to be a teenage girl in America. I’m sure many of you can relate. 

It didn’t help that I was obsessed with the glossy magazines of that time and kept a huge stack next to my bed. I flipped through them over and over and analyzed everything about the models:  the skin, the hair, but mostly the bodies. I had a mom who was thin but always on a diet, and a grandma who was very critical of my body, for a reason I didn’t—and still don’t—know.

April conquers the Smith Rock hiking trail at the AMR Redmond Retreat

My grandma took me shopping for my high school graduation dress and made me get a girdle because she said my stomach was too big. I remember every detail of being in the dressing room. I tried not to cry as I pulled itchy garments made of thick nylon over my totally average-sized body to hide what my grandma told me was a huge stomach.

It wasn’t the first time she’d done that to me. She had been making snide comments about my weight my entire life. A few years before the girdle incident, she took me back-to-school shopping and made me pass by my beloved Wet Seal–THE place to buy cute clothes in the 90’s–because she didn’t think anything in there would fit me. Those core memories with her shaped how I thought about my body. 

Have I mentioned how average-sized I was? Back then, I thought I was a huge person.  When I see photos now, I realize that I was actually fairly thin. I believe I was a size 7 or 9. I remember seeing a size 9 tag in a dress I wore once and wondering if a 9 was good or bad. I was so disconnected with my body that I don’t even remember what it looked like back then. 

I just believed I was fat, so I started skipping meals.

Occasionally skipping meals evolved into one diet after another until I had full blown orthorexia in my mid-20’s. Orthorexia is an obsession with healthy eating and I was full-on obsessed. At restaurants, I would order a salad with no dressing and then pore over the menu and think about what I would order if I “could” eat anything I wanted. I went vegan for a few years, not out of concern for animals—sorry, animals—but out of concern for eating too much fat. 

I had an eating disorder and I was miserable, but I was thin. I got a lot of praise for how disciplined I was. During office potlucks, I would chant, “Size 8, size 8, size 8,” when I was tempted to eat birthday cake with my co-workers. They all laughed and told me I was so strong while they ate their delicious cake. When I hit a size 8, I just kept going. I would set a goal and hit it, only to still be unhappy and set a new goal. It was never ending. 

I started running during this time, mostly to lose weight. I also joined a gym and took spinning and Body Pump classes everyday. I don’t know how I maintained my fitness level based on how little I was eating, but I’m sure being 20-something helped. Despite not being overweight, I joined Weight Watchers and started counting points. I counted points 24/7 (even in my dreams) and ate terrible diet hacks—hello, sugar-free Jello— that were supposed to satisfy my cravings. Predictably, the hacks didn’t work and I often ended up binging, using up all of the bonus points I was allowed each week. 

Counting Weight Watchers points became exhausting and I just couldn’t keep it up anymore. I discovered the Intuitive Eating book in 2006. It was revolutionary. The main principle is to eat what you want when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full, which is really scary to do after very restricted eating for years. Over time, I learned how to allow myself to eat anything I wanted. 

I gained some weight at first, but my body adjusted and went back to the averaged-sized body it had always been. I have mostly stayed diet-free since, minus a few slip ups: I joined Weight Watchers again after my first baby. I was dieting while nursing, which should be illegal, btw, to fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans. I quit after a few months because I remembered how terrible it is to count points for everything you eat. I also used a calorie tracking app over the years, but after a few days I’d realize measuring and counting every single bite I put in my mouth took all of the joy out of eating. 

I am currently the heaviest I have ever been, thanks in part to age, a wonky thyroid, and perimenopause. (The two kids I grew and birthed took a toll as well.) While I wouldn’t hate to suddenly wake up 40 pounds thinner, I have mostly made peace with my body. I have toggled the line between straight and plus-size for the last few years. I’m fully on the plus-size side now, which is ok. It has taken a lot of work—both physical and mental—to get to this mostly grateful place, but I have decided my mental health is more important than my body size. 

April’s bad*ss body that runs many, many miles

I also have a 12-year-old daughter who I am desperately trying to keep off the path I took. Her generation has a heightened version of my glossy magazines: social media. I am very conscious about how I talk about food, bodies, and weight. No food is good or bad; it’s just food. No body is good or bad; it’s just a body.

Because the world won’t stop talking about women’s bodies, it will always be something that I think about more than I want to. I might grimace at the way my stomach looks in a certain shirt, but I won’t starve myself because of it. I could definitely eat more vegetables, but for the vitamins—not for the lack of fat. I exercise most days of the week, but it’s for health reasons now, not trying to shrink my body. My tummy bounces when I run, but at least it’s not growling anymore. 

I am (mostly) grateful for this body. This body that can run, (mostly) keep up with Cody Rigsby on the Peloton, kick around a soccer ball in the backyard with my youngest. A body that understood when I took my grandma’s words to heart and didn’t give up when I underfed it. 

My relationship with my body will never be perfect (whose is?), but I can say with certainty, I am (mostly) grateful for this body, my body.