The Vain Body Journal: I'm in love with the Shape of You

As you all know, I’ve been going to the gym for about two weeks, and I’m loving it so far. I am now more physically active than I was, I know have to deal with the guilt that used to plague me daily about me not working out.

I found out that the gym is a good place for networking, though I haven’t started doing that because I just have one hour to spend at the gym in the morning before I resume work, so right now, “ain’t nobody gat time for that…”

Anyway, one morning, as I was dressing up to leave, a lady came in to the dressing room. First thing I noticed was that she really had a great figure but her stomach was protruding. She was slim, but not very slim, slim with the right amount of hips, butts, and breast. If not for her stomach, she would have been a perfect hour glass. I automatically assumed that she’s just someone with a great figure, but just had a baby. She changed to her gym shoes, brought out a workout waist belt, which is the rave on social media, and wore it.

I them asked her if she just had a baby. She smiled with a surprised look on her face, and said “Me? No o. I am not even married.” I wondered who sent me message, but quickly improvised the situation, and said “Oh, sorry. I was asking because of the belt you are using. Please tell me, does it work?” She said it works a bit. She can even wear the belt all day, only that it will make your shoulders look abnormally bigger than your body. I thanked her, and told her it was important for me to know because I just had a baby (even though I really wasn’t interested in the belt. I was just making conversation because I really liked her figure, and wanted to let her know without being weird).

She went on to say she doesn’t have any child. The only issue is that she adds weight in her stomach region when she’s growing bigger, so she wants to work on her stomach so she can add weight in other regions while keeping her stomach flat.

All the bells in my head immediately rang at the same time, and my mind went

BLASPHEMY!

I screamed “Nooooooo, please don’t add weight. Your figure is perfect. Why would you want to do this? Just work on your stomach. People are killing themselves in the gym to have a body like yours.”
This lady wasn’t fat, wasn’t thin. The closest person I can compare her with is Ciara so you can understand better. I was just so surprised that someone who looked like that wasn’t happy with her body, so I just told her that “Well, I understand. We ladies are never 100% happy with our bodies, no matter how good it is. There’s always something we think can be better about it.”

She went on to say that it is not that she isn’t happy with her body, but she realized that people don’t respect her because of her body structure. They take her for granted because she doesn’t have the body mass to go along with whatever respect she wanted to command. To summarize the whole story, her figure was sabotaging her!

In my mind, I was like “what is this woman saying? So what does she want someone like me to say? I am short, petite, and not fat. Should I jump inside the river? Lol.”

In my own opinion, and according to my own experience, people might take you for granted when they first see you, but if you are good at your craft, know your onions, and are confident in the way you speak and carry yourself, once you open you open your mouth, everyone will take a seat. This is my opinion and I stand by it.

I made my opinion known, and she agreed. Her major worry though was the lack of respect given to her before she even opens her mouth to speak. However, I begged her not to add weight because people were dying to have her body. I told her how she would love this body in her mid-forties and fifties, when she doesn’t really age fast. We laughed over it, she kept thanking me for the compliments, and she said she won’t add it again.

As for me, I pondered on the irony. When it comes to body goals, many of us are not satisfied. We want what others have. Fat people want to be slim, slim people want to be fat. We want to be taller, we feel our legs are too long. We want bigger hips, while some are paying for hip reduction surgery. We wear coloured contacts, while some hate their naturally-coloured eyes. It goes on and on and on. We are always in love with other people’s body. We might as well be looking at other women out there singing “I’m in love with the shape of you.”

So at what point do we say “look at my body. I am 100% happy with it, and I wouldn’t change a single thing in it for the world.” I will be honest enough to admit that I haven’t gotten to that point yet. Please, let me know if you have or haven’t.