Eternally Chubby, Occasionally Slim

I have always been chubby. A couple times I have been fat. But being slim has been the exception in my life, occurring in particularly image-conscious seasons wherein I was trying to attract a mate. I have known that my body is structured in such a way that it really wants to hold onto calories. My sister who is fifteen years older than me has essentially the same body type as me. I watched her struggle after having two kids, but started to notice as I went into college that her approach to losing weight was always extreme. 

She has subscribed to every diet fad that I can think of that has passed through pop culture. The low-fat and low-carb diet in the 2000s, then keto in the 2010s. It has been a joke in the past few years to see whether she was vegetarian or not on a given day, because she started and quit nearly every week. Now she is 40 and quite overweight. I watched her fight to stay in shape for years. I'm grateful, because I saw that throwing one's self into a difficult diet sets one up for failure.

Now I'm on my own journey of trying to stay slim in my 20s. My mom told me she has never been able to stop watching her weight her entire life, so I know what lies ahead of me. I ate very healthy in college, only "whole foods" for two years, but once I quit eating that way I gained more weight than ever before.

My current approach is to use portion control and eat in moderation. I stop eating as soon as I start feeling full. I also don't overdo it with carbs and, theoretically, I don't give myself days that count as exceptions. One fully embraced cheat day tends to turn into many more. Instead I will indulge but let the rest of the day still be healthy.

I always wondered what it took for girls like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid to stay trim. I knew that being professionally beautiful and getting paid to look that way surely helps. Other people are financially invested in you looking good. But what goes on in their minds in relation to their own body?

I have run into an issue a few times with allotting the proper amount of time to both looking good and doing interesting things. A person can read more books, surf the Internet, and put their mental faculties to work in other ways when they are completely disregarding their appearance. Sometimes when I pass through a "skinny season", I relish the positive energy I receive from other people, but I also remember with fondness the nights I spend reading interesting Wikipedia articles, and I sometimes mourn the fact that I had to let go of my nerdier self in order to exist as my pretty self. This is likely not true for other women who are smart and beautiful, but it has happened to me.

I do not think all beautiful women are stupid, but to focus on looking good require focus to be taken away from alternate endeavors. So, my brain presented me with a theory today: beautiful women don't struggle to remain beautiful because looking good is just one of only a few things they think about.

I want to believe the best about my gender, but this nugget floated to the top of my consciousness, and I cannot ignore it. Being aware of your image means there is something else you aren't aware of, because there is no perfectly well-rounded human that exists. This touches on the general knowledge that pretty women are less funny because they never had to fight to put a smile on another person's face the way other people have had to. 

In my case, I had to develop both a sense of humor and opinions about the world, and I can feel myself today hope that people will notice my opinions and think I am smart because of them. I cannot shake my desire to be recognized for things besides my appearance. It would feel wrong to let myself sink into being "just pretty" and stop stating my opinions and stop telling silly jokes because I have (hypothetically) risen into the ranks of pretty but boring people.

I run into this wall with dating a lot; the most handsome men are also the dullest. I nearly convince myself at times to just become a less intelligent version of myself so I can attract someone, because then I might embody the "vibe" that a woman who was always pretty might possess. But my inner chubby girl always comes out as I try to entertain and impress the other person.

I am fairly certain that I will always be slightly chubby and nearly-but-not-quite slim. As I am ultimately not willing to sacrifice what I would think are the best aspects of my personality, I will remain as I am, always trying to find happiness and self-esteem in some other way. No guy will ever be hot enough to make up for not being interesting.