Body Confidence

Right picture 10th July 2018. Left Picture 10th July 2019.

I’ve always had a difficult relationship with my size/ figure/ weight - whatever word you want to use.

I think it all started when I was about 10 years old and I put on a lot of weight which I struggled to shift throughout most of my teenage years until I was about 17. The problem was by that time I only knew myself as fat. Even when the weight had come off I still saw myself as the fat one, or the chubbier one compared to my friends. When I looked in the mirror I saw a little chubber looking back and no matter what anyone said they couldn’t change my opinion of myself. 

Throughout university and life post uni I would go through cycles of being very slim and a little chubby yet I never could really differentiate between the two, in my mind no matter what everyone else said, all I saw in the mirror was chubby Soph. 

I moved into my own flat in London in 2012 and the flat came with a pair of scales. Disaster. We’d never had scales in the house growing up and now I understand why. I’d weigh myself everyday sometimes twice a day and get so upset if the needle on the scales shifted the wrong way. If I wasn’t seeing anyone for the evening I’d eat a bowl of peas for dinner after having had salad leaves for lunch and maybe some prawns if I was feeling generous to myself. I lost a lot of weight, too much weight but I still thought I was fat. 

I’m not sure at what point it clicked that at 5ft 8 with hips and boobs I was never going to be a size 6 but it did. It was a step towards accepting my body more, accepting that I didn’t have to be a size 6 because it wasn't physically possible. However the way I looked at myself in the mirror still hadn’t changed, even when at my slimmest I’d still think I looked chubby. 

Which brings me to these 2 pictures. The one on the left is July 2018, 2 weeks before our wedding. I was gymming for an hour before work, lifting some pretty heavy weights and then going on a three to five mile run pretty much every evening. I look at that picture now and think Jesus Christ I was slim, so slim and yet at the time I just couldn’t see it, I still thought I was chubby and flabby. I was taking pictures each day to make sure there was no extra weight creeping back in and if it looked like I was a little bigger I'd restrict what I ate that day.

One of my biggest fears about being pregnant was getting fat, I’d say it to Nick all the time. “Oh god I’m so fat” or “what happens if I get really fat and then I can’t lose weight afterwards” he’s very good at dealing with me when I’m like that and telling me “you’re not fat, you’re pregnant and you look beautiful” and gradually the message has started to sink in.  

As pregnancy has progressed and the bump has got increasingly bigger I’ve found a whole new respect for my body and all it can do. I don’t look at it and think I hate my tummy or I hate my thighs, I look at myself and think I can not believe this body I’ve hated and given grief to for the last 15 years is growing a human. I think and I hope that being pregnant has helped me deal with some of my demons when it comes to my body and given me a new found appreciation for all it can do, especially as I don't ever want our little alien to go through the same struggles I have with my size. 

That being said if one more person asks me if I’m having twins I might club them.