Perks of being The Fat Kid

hi my name is Alyssa and for as long as I can remember I have never been satisfied with the way I looked I hated how my calves were too wide to fit into the boots that all the other girls had no problem wearing I hated that squishy part under my chin that stuck out when I smiled on picture day and I hate hate hated shopping for new clothes even if my current ones no longer fit me honestly especially if my current clothes no longer fit me because according to my childhood that meant I was fat and based on how I was treated as a kid for being fat that three-letter word brings back so many bad memories I wasn't aware that being shaped differently than my peers was a bad thing until I started Middle School I was bullied by a group of girls and one of the daily ways they messed with my head was by comparing my body to different animals penguins being their favorite and they would follow me around waddling like penguins to mock me I made a whole video about bullies and my advice on how to deal with them a while ago but here's a little excerpt I didn't include back then okay so I'd gotten a Halloween costume but when I opened the package the costume was broken so I said that in my Gmail status thingy then I got a message from the girl who was bullying me who I'll just call Minnie Minnie the only reason your costume broke is cuz you so damn fat me shut up and leave me alone Minnie oh now you want me to leave you alone when you always harassing me me you know I ain't any bigger than me no no idea what that means Minnie I know but you way bigger than me me will you shut up seriously yeah oh get her Minnie why are you the scared one now well why are you me that made no sense what you said before none of this makes any sense this isar Minnie yeah it really did stupid me if you hate me then why did you start chatting it's a good point yeah smart Minnie cuz now I'm a join decide you're on when you always cussing at me I know I'm smart that's why I'mma be playing sports what me yeah you'll make a good bench warmer get get I'm laughing about this now but this really hurt me back then the shame of being picked on for things you're already self-conscious about feels like lava is being poured all over you and when you experience harassment like this for days weeks months on end with no support it singes your confidence into ashes cuz the world makes it crystal clear that they resent your presence they will be cruel to you for it and if you don't like how you're being treated that's your fault that's your problem to fix so you better change how you look and you better do it fast oh come on you should be grateful you even have curves o that's another thing putting aside the suspicious peak in cat calling I experienced as a middle schooler fat kids can attest to this picking out clothes was so stressful a lot of the stuff we liked either didn't fit us or didn't come in our sizes so we had to shop in the older women's clothing section to find something that would fit our bodies so instead of dressing like a cool trendy tween we were more business casual and aside from getting judged by your classmates for how you dressed you were also getting judged by adults because of dress codes and we knew those rules came down much harder on us sometimes it felt like they only applied to us while a v-neck top on a skinny girl would be praised for being fashionable the same v-neck top on me would lead to the school shirt of Shame with a side of next time leave something for the imagination and so the only clothes you're left with and conditioned to choose so you don't get in trouble or have to endure unwanted attention from creepy older men are things that hide your body and amplify the shame of even rolling up your sleeves and listen listen I love a good comfy cozy sweater but not in the North Carolina 90% humidity summer heat I deserve to wear a tank top just like anyone else so what did I do as a young girl who wasn't confident in her body I started dieting at the age of 11 I looked over at whatever weight watching Jennifer Craig Fitness and pal MLM Facebook scam my parents were up to and I copied them now was this diet recommended by my doctor did I check in with a certified dietitian on a monthly basis did I consult with any healthc care professional for this restrictive shame-based dieting I put myself through to lose enough weight in hopes The Bullying would stop nope which unfortunately is really common for school kids according to the National Library of Medicine about 1/ half of teenage girls and 1/4 of teenage boys have tried dieting to change the shape of their body and of those girls more than one out of three were actually at a healthy weight to begin with and these numbers numbers are wild to me Teenagers should be focused on getting good grades hanging out with their friends and seeing the Timothy shalam Willy Wonka movie not counting calories why are kids so body conscious why are they getting bullied who is teaching them this well we all are whether we realize it or not it's called diet culture according to self.com diet culture is an entire belief system that Associates food with morality and thinness with goodness and it's rooted in the very Colonial belief that every individual has full control and responsibility over their health no no no that is woke propaganda everyone knows being fat is unhealthy and anyone can lose weight by focusing on diet and exercise calories in calories out it is not that hard okay well I'm glad that works for your body but here's how that went for me at the end of 2022 I was nominated for a streamy award in the animation category so I got to walk the streamy ready red carpet and attend the awards ceremony which was a blast but when all the photos came out I felt that oh so familiar lava flow of Shame consumed me I hated how wide my legs were when I posed I hated that squishy part under my chin that stuck out when I smiled and I felt awful knowing that I had to order that dress online because they didn't have my size in store but most of all I hated the way I looked because I knew I was the heaviest weight I had ever been in my entire life in fact I was 15% heavier than I was when I got bullied in middle school but now I have a YouTube channel I have millions of eyes on me at all times especially when I show my face and don't hide behind this cartoon character and let me tell you the things people say in that comment section about how you look can feel just like middle school so what did I do as a young woman who wasn't confident in her body I started dieting I found a gym I found a personal trainer and I got to work and after a month of working out for 3 days a week 45 minutes at a time doing Cardio Abs arms legs as well as going to cycling and or yoga class once a week for an hour I lost 0er lbs how I was doing everything right calories in calories out more greens less takeout gym membership personal trainer this made no sense unless maybe I just wasn't working hard enough maybe I wasn't serious enough maybe I just wasn't good enough and I was too far gone to be fixed but my personal trainer assured me that I was doing great I might not have seen the scale move or felt like my clothes fit better but from her perspective she noticed an improvement in my posture she saw my energy and endurance had increased too even the way I talked about life I was noticeably less stressed and although I did agree with her my back wasn't hurting as much I was getting better sleep and my mood did recover faster when she did hit the fan I told her thank you for the reassurance but I still didn't like how I looked and I was scared I never would but she assured me I just needed to keep at it and have faith in myself and besides it had only been a month surely soon I'd no two months of diet and exercise no change on the scale and I had worked my way up to jogging a mile easily on the treadmill doing crunches and sit-ups for a minute straight I was even starting to match my personal trainer's strength and we worked out side by side and she told me to keep at it don't look at the scale just focus on how working out makes you feel not how it makes you look so I did until out of nowhere I started getting fainting spells five reps in my head would get light and the room would start spinning my muscles would fail on me my eyes would unfocus and the dizziness would take over even when I was just walking on the treadmill as a warm-up we thought it could be something with my heart like maybe I had an irregular heartbeat I mean my mom does have an arhythmia so maybe I did too so I saw a cardiologist and I got hooked up with all these wires to track my heart over a 24-hour period but when the results came back the doctor said I was perfectly healthy in fact my heart was doing amazing but he understood I came here for answers and these tests sadly couldn't explain my sudden setbacks at the gym so my personal trainer and I scaled back the intensity of the workouts and we did exercises that didn't require too much up and down but then 3 months of diet and exercise and still no change on the scale it was so frustrating my personal trainer asked if I was eating enough and drinking enough water and I promised her I was I left those unhealthy restrictive eating habits in middle school I was even Consulting a dietitian and following a very strict and honestly triggering meal plan but I was still not losing any weight so then we thought okay maybe it's my hormones my uterus does have a history of growing life-threatening tumors for fun so maybe something like that was happening again so I saw an OBGYN I got a ton of blood tests done and they did an ultrasound of my thyroid which is a butterfly-shaped gland everyone has in their neck that regulates your hormones and we were all expecting the results to point towards some imbalance or insulin resistance that could explain why my body was like this but it all came back perfectly normal perfectly healthy so we continued the workouts and I just had to hope for the best but 4 months into diet and exercise there was still no change on the scale and it made me feel like such a failure come on Illy you need to be patient losing weight is a lifestyle change you have to be serious and committed to it if you really want to lose weight and you probably weren't losing weight cuz you weren't doing enough high-intensity interval training uh no she needs to be doing strength training if she wants to lose weight no she needs to eat more protein to lose weight actually someone with her BMI should probably lose weight by no no no you guys are missing the point I'm sure there's some other workout routine I could do to lose weight I know if I cut out some major food groups and restricted myself to a specific number of something every meal I could lose weight and I don't doubt the fact that there could be a million in one tests and medical possibilities to explain why my body and so many others have such a difficult time losing weight maybe there's some diagnosis we overlooked maybe there's a different way I should be doing this or maybe just maybe this was proof that all the workouts I was doing was enough maybe this was proof that all my body really needed was a little more stretching a little more strength and a nice walk every now and then to make me feel better and maybe as weird as it may sound maybe this was proof that my body and other people's bodies don't need to be less fat to be considered healthy which I know sounds crazy we've been told our entire lives that you can't be healthy if you're fat yet here I am at the heaviest I've ever been in my entire life categorically overweight and well within Middle School mocking range but also the healthiest I've ever been according to multiple doctors now coming to this conclusion wasn't easy for me I had a lot of unrealistic and frankly problematic ideas about health to unpack and rep prioritize in my brain but it was around this time I Revisited a podcast I hadn't listened to in a while the show is called maintenance phase and it's hosted by Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbs each episode they go over diet Trends and fads the history the myths the biases and they offer their personal insight and humor on how to be kinder to yourself in the wake of diet culture this isn't sponsored I just love this podcast I've been a patreon supporter for a long time now and I say this because they have really helped me reconsider what it means to be healthy and I can't thank them enough for it one thing I learned from from them that has stuck with me is the idea of body neutrality body neutrality is the idea of taking a neutral stance on how we look not bullying ourselves for what we think we should change but also not worshiping the parts of ourselves that do align with diet culture this way of thinking challenges us to look in the mirror and say yep that's my body and finally celebrate its existence for what it can do not for how it looks and when it comes to food that same logic should apply a carrot isn't an inherent good good food while chocolate is an inherent bad food food is just food no matter how many calories carbs sugars whatever is in it unless you have life-threatening allergies or dietary restrictions to follow you should feel free to eat whatever food you want to without beating yourself up about it oh great now she's glorifying obesity I'm not glorifying anything my point is simple don't be a to fat people and don't use I just care about their health as an excuse being fat doesn't automatically mean someone is less healthy or too lazy to look like you or however you think they should look you don't know these people but what if they're not healthy even if you've stalked this person to somehow come to that conclusion you're still not allowed to be a to them okay or stalk people bad Devil's Advocate now maybe this all sounds stupid to you maybe you don't need body neutrality to mend your relationship with food or weight but I do cuz frankly I'm sick of crying in dressing rooms I'm sick of getting mad at myself for eating a french fry I'm sick of seeing other girls and wishing I looked like them I'm sick of hating my body and feeling like a prisoner in my own skin because that that is what's truly unhealthy no matter how skinny or fat you are holding yourself to the expectations of diet culture is not healthy or sustainable and I don't know about you but I can't keep keep living like this I don't want to be afraid or angry or sad about how my body looks mirrors were made to just show us our reflection not to be a weapon of self-destruction so when I look in the mirror and I start to pick on myself the same way those Middle School girls did I try to remind myself of what really matters that my legs can sit me down next to the people I love my arms can hold them and hug them my face can squish exactly how it needs to so I can smile my body can be draped in any clothing and my Silhouette can be any shape or size and I must throw away what all the Mean Girls and the media made me believe about myself based solely on how much I weigh cuz us fat kids we knew back then there was so much more to a person than how they looked we knew that before anyone else did so why should we forget that thank you for watching my videos make sure you eat something today and as always always stay safe

Channel: illymation

Views: 2,360,876

Keywords: illymation, illymations, illyanimation, illystrations, storytime animation, animated storytime, animation, illymation real life, illymation face reveal, illymation ex, illymation boyfriend, illymation abusive boyfriend, illymation song, illymation animal crossing, illymation vidcon, illymation cat, illymation luigi, illymation fat kid, how to lose weight, how to lose weight fast, obesity in america, obesity epidemic, being fat is a choice

Id: xfG_Er6lyJE

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 21 2023