Katie Sturino - Body Talk How to Embrace Your Body and Start Living Your Best Life.

You know what makes me mad? Like just super, super pissed off?

The AMOUNT OF TIME I have wasted thinking NEGATIVE THOUGHTS about my body.

I would estimate that I have spent about

Six million hours
feeling like all I wanted to do was shrink myself down and make myself disappear.

Eight hundred fifty years
thinking about how much exercising I had to do in order to cancel out calories consumed.

Twenty-three thousand hours
wishing I had someone elses arms/legs/ stomach/boobs/butt/ hands/height/chin.

Forty-six thousand hours using various forms of torture trying to achieve said arms/legs/stomach/butt/chin, etc.

About a bajillion minutes worrying what people said about me behind my backincluding what they said about how my back actually looked in that dress.

Ten hundred thirty million minutes hating myself when I skipped various forms of torture to do something that sounded way more fun (which of course turned out to be the opposite of fun, because I spent the whole time feeling guilty for skipping said torture).

Eleventy million hours dreading walking into social situations with my smaller friends, because I didnt want to be seen as a giant standing next to them.

At least three centuries feeling like a straight-up loser.

Twenty consecutive years apologizing for, and trying to make other people feel comfortable with, my appearance.

My entire adult lifetime worrying whether or not Id fit in the seat at an upcoming event .

When I say event, I mean at the movie theater, on a roller coaster, on airplanes, at the dentist, in meetings, at tiny trendy restaurants, at any and every restaurant with communal seating, andless relatable, I know, butduring fashion week (the seats are teeny-tiny), in the studio where I record Boob Sweat, my podcast (Ive gotten stuck in those chairs before), in broom-closet-size bathrooms, at my friends housesof all the lists in this book, this one could go on the longest.

Can you imagine what I could have done with all those hours and days and months and years and centuries spent on body hang-ups? I could have learned how to make flowers out of fondant for wedding cakes, or I could have joined the CIA and put my super facial recognition skills to good use. At the very least, I could have focused more of my attention on the things I valued and enjoyed but never seemed to have enough quality time forlike my friendships, family, career, or traveling (not to sound like a 2011 dating app bio, but). Instead, I exerted all of my time and energy on a never-ending list of things I was convinced were wrong with me.

• Because of my body, I genuinely felt I would never be successful as a working professional in the fashion industry.

  Youre too fat, I told myself. Not only did I know I would never fit into the clothes, or even the shoes, I suspected that Id never fit in with my colleagues and into their physical ideals. (Definitely wasnt gonna fit into their tiny desk chairs.)

• Because of my body, I never wanted to go dancing with my girlfriends.

  Youre too much. I didnt want to fill the entire dance floor with my height and my width and my voice and my wingspan.

• Because of my body, I avoided yoga classes, boxing classes, and Spin classes.

  Youre too big. Too big to be there, to be seen sweating, to be seen struggling. Too big to be welcome in a space meant for tiny people with god-knows-how-many abs.

But I am here today to tell you that none of it was true.

NONE
of it.

It took a long time for me to realize this. It took even longer for the realization to sink in. I was still talking shit to myself behind my own back when I started The 12ish Style. At the time, I was in a weird place in my first marriage, which would eventually end in divorce. I was in a weird place in my career, which was no longer fulfilling me the way it had been. And I was in an extremely weird place with my bodyin part because of my marriage and my industry, but also because old body-bashing habits die hard. Ultimately, it was the words of other womenblog and Instagram comments from women who related to me, and to whom I relatedthat encouraged me to work through the beef between me and my body.

I started by paying attention. I already knew I gave myself a hard time, but I didnt realize how often I did soor how harsh it really wasuntil I started tracking my thoughts. Paying attention forced me to hear my complaints: all of my Ugh, I feel so fat today whines, my declarations that I look like a whale, my promises to lose twenty pounds before [insert arbitrary season/event/vacation here].