Don't Big Women Go to the Beach?

My friends and I are going on the trip to the beach this weekend, and I have nothing to wear.

I'm the largest that I've ever been in a long time, and anyone who has been in this yoyo life will understand when I say with conviction that I really have nothing to wear.

I've always loved the beach, and it's one of those things I've tried my best not to let my size take away from me. I could be self-conscious everywhere else, but when there's sun, sea, and sand involved, I ironically lose all my qualms about my body. I'm going swimming in swim attire, and that's that.

Unfortunately, everyone else in Manila seems to think that fat women don't like going to the beach - or that we shouldn't even think of going to the beach.

Why do I say this? Because I cannot find anything to wear! There's nothing to be bought. Even in plus-size stores. Especially in plus-size stores! It's the height of summer, and not a pair of board shorts or cover up in sight.

Then again, what to expect from a country where clothings stores carry 2XS and hardly go above XL in sizing?

No, not all the big women are already mommies who are interested in big prints and capri pants. There are some of us here trying to live a normal life.

*sigh* I have nothing to wear.

Breaking Out

"Whale sighting!"

This is the voice I have to contend with in my head every time I look at myself in the mirror.

People often say that body image should never define how we see ourselves. We are more than the size of the clothes we wear or the number that flashes when we get on a scale.

The person who said that must have been a thin person. Or at the very least, someone who has never been fat.

I've been a yoyo dieter since I was 10 years old, when my mother first put me on her version of the South Beach diet because she felt I was growing too fat. Several cycles of weight loss and subsequent weight gain later, I am the heaviest I have ever been coming from the lightest I have ever been, and I am still reeling and wondering how I could have stumbled so far.

Because of inertia and an inner sense of hopelessness, I have been in denial about having to start another weight loss journey. It's hard to motivate myself when my experience constantly demonstrates that the quest is a futile one. I want to learn to be comfortable with myself as I am, fat rolls and back boobs be damned.

But I am not okay at all. Not by a long shot.