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Am I Curvy or Fat – What’s the Difference?
Fat /fat/
Adjective: Having a large amount of excess flesh
Curvy /ˈkərvē/
Adjective: (esp. of a woman’s figure) Shapely and voluptuous
Hmm… “excess amount of flesh” sounds pretty relative. I know plenty of girls who have “excess flesh,” but they are far from what I would consider “fat.” (Don’t you hate that?) So, all in all, I see that must draw he conclusion hat all of us curvy girls are fat. There, I said it. We are fat. But we can still be curvy too – no matter how fat you are.
@PreciousKissOfDeath and myself (@xosersclub) on instagram
This weekend was filled with new experiences. I went to a runway show in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. I had work prior, so I was fashionably late. I sat down next to a young, African-American, plus size girl to change my shoes. Dressed in an all black sweatshirt and sweatpants at a block party on a hot summer day, she asks me, “Do you do a lot of modeling?” I told her somewhat, and that I do more acting and such. We engaged in some conversation, and I found out she was only 11 1/2 years old! I told her about this site, and I hope she reads this.
Anywho, after our little talk and mingling with some beautiful straight size models, I realized that – not only was the I only other Full-Figured model there, but I was also the only white person there. Hey, no problem with that, but needless to say I stood out like a sore thumb. Well I made it through my walk, but during the final walk around, I fell on my fat ass at the end of the runway! As the crowd gasped, I gracefully grabbed the next girl’s hand, stood up, an kept walking. The crowd applauded. I stopped feeling fat and felt curvy. If I could make it through that, I could make it through anything. At the same time, I felt like I showed that young girl how hard modeling can really be sometimes.
We are Plus Sized, BBWs, Fill Figured, Curvy, Thick, PHAT, and Fat, but we are as sexy as we want to be as long as we dress right, look right, and keep a fabulous mentality!
Keep Curvy and Stay Curious
Overcoming Anxiety – Just Do It?
“Get over it.”
“Just do it.”
These are words I tell myself every day – unfortunately I don’t always listen. That is because I am one of the millions of people discretely struggling with an anxiety disorder. In my last post, I spoke a bit about my struggles with my body issues and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). I will come out and say that I have Depression and Social Anxiety. There is a stigma in this country about mental illness, but sometimes the people, like myself, who hide it so well are the ones suffering the worst. Anxiety disorders come in a range of specific diagnoses, but we all have from anxiety sometimes.
Do you get butterflies in your stomach before making a presentation at school or work? Do you feel like everyone is staring at you when you enter the cafeteria? Do you sweat bullets when you’re the center of attention? I Do.
Socializing comes naturally to me, but deep down I am the most self conscious person I know. The reason I find this interesting is because I am more self-conscious of my personality than my looks. The silver lining in that is that I really am happy with who I am on the outside. The dark cloud is that I am not happy with who I am on the inside.
I was a social butterfly until I was about 20 years old, but I was able to push away my anxiety by drinking and partying. Gradually the monster of depression crept up on me. I slowly started isolating myself. I know that what really sent me into a downward spiral was my breakup, but the depression and anxiety were monsters deep inside just waiting for their chance to escape -and they took over.
A few years and many medication cocktails later – here I am. I am a strong, confident woman, who is carrying a dark cloud, but I am not trying to hide it anymore. I am pursuing modeling because I’m so confident in myself outwardly. The problem is, when the anxiety takes over, sometimes my body will just not let me do things. I’ve skipped countless casting calls and even turned down appearances because the thought of leaving the house terrifies me. I’ve learned in the past few months that in order for me to be successful as a model I MUST learn how to break out of my comfort zone, which I have been stuck in for nearly five years.
I have actually been following through with my self improvement plan. I have made friends. The next step is allowing myself to spend time with them so I am not so withdrawn. I am RSVPing to events and following through every time, because messing up once could be a career killer. Now I’m booked for live events for the next two weeks. When I’m thinking about it now, I get anxious, my stomach turns… But I will take it one day at a time.
I promise to myself and my readers to overcome this hurdle in my life, and show myself that I am stronger than I let myself be.
#IAmAFullBlossomBeauty – Click the Pic to check out FULL BLOSSOM MAGAZINE!
Keep Curvy and Stay Curious
I Weigh HOW MUCH?!? That Doesn’t Look Right..
When I look in the mirror, I don’t think, “So this is what 225 pounds looks like?”
When I look in the mirror, I do think, “So this is what I look like.”
Why the difference? Because for so many years I never felt like I weighed as much as I did. Maybe it was my lifestyle – the fact that I wasn’t bullied or made fun of for being fat – but I just didn’t feel like the fattest girl in school, but I was. This was all fine and dandy until one day riding the escalators up to the plus size department at Macy’s, looking at the wall-to-wall mirrors around us, I asked my mother, “Do I fatter than her?” She said yes.
I’m not mad at her for being honest. I think that moment changed my life forever (though not necessarily in a good way). From then on, I became obsessed with the number on the scale. I switched between anorexic and bulimic habits – starving for days, then eating more than anyone could imagine in one sitting, and sticking my fingers down my throat to make myself throw up. I don’t think anyone noticed the problem. I mean, duh, fat girls can’t be anorexic or bulimic! Anorexia is only for girls that look like this:
Right??
WRONG.
In my case, what I saw in the mirror was smaller than what I really was. I saw pictures of other people that weighed the same as me (290 lbs.), like her:
Jamie – 290 lbs.
But I felt like this:
Laura Johnson
But I really looked like this:
Me – 2008 – 280 lbs.
I eventually realized that, on top of my depression, I have some form of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. According to Wikipedia, BDD is…
“…A type of mental illness, a somatoform disorder, wherein the affected person is concerned with body image, manifested as excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of their physical features. The person thinks they have a defect in either one feature or several features of their body, which causes psychological distress…”
BDD is known to effect 1-2% of the population. It is most usually linked to people with anorexia, and pretty much works like this:
Though, much less common, my case of BDD worked a bit in the opposite way, like this:
Weird, right?
Well a huge help for me was learning. Learning about proportions, metabolism, how medications effect my weight, etc. I think what snapped me back to reality was being integrated into the BBW/size acceptance world in my late teens. I HIGHLY recommend this website to give you an idea of how your weight looks proportionate to your height. It really gave me a great comparison, and helped me learn how to present myself (especially in modeling). Here is my comparison:
So all in all, don’t be in denial of your body. Be aware of your height, weight, and proportions, only for the sake of dressing well! Try (as hard as it may be) to focus on whats really in the mirror as opposed to the number on the scale. Just like age, weight is just a number!
Stay Curvy and Keep Curious
Curvy and Curious 