Author Archives: April Noelle

For Labor Day, I had some family over. As a hard-working single mother of three children, she tries her best everyday. She’s a heavy gal, like me, but the more time that I spend with her, the more I realize a couple of things. First, she lumps me in with her every weight discussion we have, regardless of the purpose of the conversation. Second, she doesn’t think that our family can be “thin”.

Lumping… I like that word for this, mainly because that’s exactly what it is. When discussing weight, she says “we” can’t be thin, “we” have never been thin and “we” shouldn’t look to be thin. I will say that I’m not quite sure what her interpretation of “thin” is. Is it something like this?

Victoria’s Secret

Or is it like this?

Dove’s Real Woman Campaign

 To be frank, I have been “thin”. I was a size 5 at one point in time – for about six months. I felt weak and unhealthy, so I put on a little weight, taking me to a size 7 for another six months. I maintained it until I fell into a major depression, losing my best friend, I ate. Then before I got healthy, I fell into another depression, putting me at then-all-time high of size 18. But’s that’s all an aside, the point is I can be thin and each person is there own.

There is power in our thoughts. When we lump ourselves in with someone else, you feel safe, you feel safe to not make a change. When you can hold on to the idea that you and this other larger person are the same person, if they don’t do it, then you don’t actually have to try. Don’t let your attachment to your current self stop you becoming the person you want to be.

Our family… like a lot of black families, the women, especially, are large. My mother is larger now, maintaining a size 5 until her third child in her thirties. She never took it off, but she was tiny for a long time. My sister is also thin, donning a size 3. It’s not our family, it’s our decisions. We make awful decisions. We use food to console us, we eat too much, and we eat fried and starches.

That’s it. No genetic differences, no “big bones”, no “phat”. We are just big. You know how I know this… when other people who previously said they were big-boned and couldn’t lose weight, actually loses weight (through diet and exercise or procedure), they drop to a svelte size 5 or 7 and all perception of “big-bones” disappears.

However, we do have different body shapes. I can never look like that Victoria’s Secret model above and I’m ok with that. But I will be thin… thin and HEALTHY!

If we would change our thinking, we would be thinner.

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