The Thick Girl Sees the Light

For most my life, I have been thick. If being thick sounds strange to you then let me just say it is the happy medium between thin and fat; that is you are full figured in all the "right" places.  

When you are a thick girl in the black community, you get mad props from guys and skinnier girls who didn't "get it from their mama" might hate but they aspire to be thick like you.  You look great in everything from a pair of jeans to a dress, due to the fact that you can fill it out and you have curves and you become the subject de amor of rappers. In short being thick is great.

I was thick until 2005 when I walked into my doctors office for my annual physical and he told me I weighed 205 lbs.  That was a startling change from when I had last weighed myself, which to be honest maybe was two years prior to that.  Then I was a thick yet petite 135 lbs which looked awesome on my 5ft 3 in frame even though BMI says I should have weighed 10 lbs less. My doctor, always good natured and confident that I would lose the weight, simply told me that I needed to get into some exercise and watch what I ate. I agreed, but didn't heed his advice until I was almost 220 lbs within two years.

The strangest thing was that I had never even thought anything of it.  Yes I realized that my clothes were getting snugger, my sizes were increasing, and that I didn't walk as fast as I used to. Still, I was ok with what I perceived in the mirror, I was still thick right? Full figured, plus sized, nothing wrong with that. There was nothing wrong until neighbors started to tell me that I had become "healthy" which was a nice way of saying I was fat and when my boyfriend of six years told me that I could stand to lose a few pounds.

I was no longer thick, I was fat and I began to feel every inch of it from standing next to thinner friends who I used to share clothes with to almost taking up a seat and a half on the bus. At 25, people began to think I was much older. I began to suffer from severe depression, sleepless nights, and my hair began thinning and falling out...mostly due to the stress and being unhappy.  But there was something else: I had been diagnosed with a thyroid disorder and high blood pressure which contributed even more to weight gain. The doctor was adamant this time: lose weight or be on medicine and possibly have to get your thyroid removed.

I knew I needed to do something and that I would never lose weight if I trusted myself to exercise at  home. So in 2011, I joined a gym and discovered Zumba. While I lost about 30 lbs, I kept yo-yoing because I didn't add the one element that is most needed: a healthy diet.  Finally in 2013, I adapted a healthy diet and regular exercise plan which includes Zumba, Yoga, and Weight lifting to reach my goal of 170 lbs by my 29th birthday this year. In changing my eating and exercise habits, I have noticed that my hair is growing back very thick and healthy, I have more energy, I sleep better and I have a more positive outlook on life. I am also now saving up to become a Zumba instructor so I can impact someone else's life.

I should mention that my goal is not to be skinny, it is to be healthy and you can be healthy and thick. Right now, 58% of African-American women are obese and we have higher death rates than Caucasian women due to illnesses such as heart disease, breast cancer, and hypertension.  This is a serious problem that can be fixed if we are educated about managing our weight, and eating right.

I'm still not where I want to be physically but I know that as long as a I stick to the plan I will get that thick, healthy, and beautiful body back very soon :)

It's A Different World...Than Where I Come From

Don't ask me what I was doing as a 7 year old watching a show about college kids with grown up problems. Bottom line: that was my show!

In the late 80's and very early 90's, the Cosby Show, A Different World, and the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air were really the only television shows that I knew of that depicted minorities in an educated and positive light. In addition to the wisdom of my grandmother, mom, and uncles, the shows helped my still small yet developing brain understand that success in life is only achievable by hard work, an education, and pride in one's self and accomplishments.

Not only did these shows show that minorities are and can be educated individuals, it also showed that we were...people! I say this because if you look at television shows prior to the 70's that featured African-Americans and other minorities, we were usually primarily portrayed as maids, criminals, or just always down on our luck.  There was no room for romance, weddings, college degrees, mansions...no room for success. Granted that the lives that the people lived on these shows weren't the lives that my mother and her brothers lived growing up in the exact same era as the stars of these shows, they still gave a sense of hope and a positive image.

Even though I started college some ten years after A Different World went off the air, I still carried the image of what I had seen on that show with me.  If I had to identify with a character, I'd have to say I was a cross between the revolutionary Freddie and the southern-belle Whitley (without the money). I yearned for the undying love of a man like Dwayne and to have the ambitious nature of Freddie (who very much like me changed her mind half way through college about what she desired to be). However, going to an women's, Catholic, liberal arts, university wouldn't necessarily give me all that ...but it was nice to think about anyway!

Anyway, to my point: it's a totally different world than where I came from in the 90's. There are no shows that showcase black universities, or showcase African-American students or young people in positive light. Instead we live in an era of reality piss (yeah I said piss because thats what it is). We live in a world of fast money, a denial of culture, and still a very low achievement gap in schools for minority students.

A lot of young people I come across, are simply passing through when it comes to education.  They know they have to graduate in order to be able to get some kind of job, but are not concerned about their futures as a whole.  They are not aware or do not want to be aware of their impact on the world. Many have given up hope. The sad thing is that many of these same young folks are the ones who has been desensitized by media images of nothingness. They have not been taught their history because it's no longer required or has been absorbed into the whole of American history. While OUR history is American history, it is a history that is filled with so much information, tragedies, triumphs, and glorious lessons that it cannot and SHOULD NOT be relegated to a few chapters in a book. 

That is why A Different World still means so much to me; it was a sitcom but also an educational piece. Where else could you see the drama of a freshman romance unfold while learning about Lena Horne, or the transatlantic slave trade? 

Not to get on my old lady soapbox but I really think that the youth of today could benefit from a show like this now. They are the ones that consume that majority of the media so why not? Maybe then, just maybe, we would see a change in the collective consciousness of the community as a whole. Maybe then we would see the new leaders because as cliche' as it is:They are the future.

It is a different world than where I and my friends come from. At 28, I am beginning to see that what I thought of as progress is nothing if you didn't get it by being a housewife or a rapper. It is sad but not hopeless. 

It just really is...different.