Rainee Blake

On a recent trip to LA I decided to lose a few kilos. I have always had an issue with my thighs which sounds so ridiculous now, like they’re the inappropriate uncle at a family gathering or an artsy friend who wears flowy pant dresses. But it’s true. Even though I’ve always been pretty healthy, I never had that thigh gap business and my bottom half was always disproportionate to my upper half.

So I started dieting in LA. And by dieting I mean skipping dinner. I started sharing my weight loss secret with other hourglass women I met. When a friend came to visit and remarked that I’d lost weight, he asked me if it was because of being in LA, had that changed me somehow, was I conforming to the beauty standard of Hollywood? I swore that I wasn’t. But maybe I was.

We’re so inundated with media that presents women with stick thin legs and hook lines about how being slim will make you look better in that pair of jeans. And I’ve always denied being influenced by them but I guess I really am. No matter how many hippie, ‘I love my body’ women’s circles I go to, at the end of the day, I’m still looking to lose that last few kilos, no matter good I look or feel.

***

Things were going well and I felt accomplished that I’d starting getting skinnier. But then something awful happened. I looked in the mirror and my ass had disappeared.

 Beloved ass,

 I am sad and inconsolable. When I walk down the street I can’t look in shop windows and admire your once fleshy derrière. Nor can I, while lying on my side, pick up your fatty parts and wiggle them about gleefully. I find myself comparing you to every ass in yoga class, desperately trying to gain back my confidence. 

I wish someone had told me how great my ass was. But I guess they had and I just didn’t listen. I wish they’d told me that if I lost too much weight there would be no guarantee that sweet pear would return to its full glory.

Today I ate a croissant because I thought it would go to straight to my ass (here’s hoping).