Not My Cup Of Tea

It was a friend of a friends Birthday, and I got invited out for afternoon tea, odd you might think, afternoon tea in Madrid, it’s hardly a place renowned for such little quirks, and you’d be right.

Besides the slim slices of cake and tea offered in a mug, with not even a little teapot to keep it company, it wasn’t exactly The Savoy! Yet, it was a nice change, meeting people over tea and cake rather than beer and tapas.

I must admit, I love alcohol and food. Its practically in my blood; my family are thorough bred foodies and of course I have a strong Irish connection to boot (bad combination)! The only problem is both of these fine things, food and alcohol, don’t necessarily like me very much.

A few years ago I decided to scrap my old ways, in short, junk food was banned and so to was the vodka (et al). This, actually helped me. Physically, mentally and emotionally I felt relieved, it was like a breath of fresh air! I hadn’t realised how good it could be to be free of the shackles of, for want of a better expression, bad living.

Now, I’m no paragon of virtue, I still like to eat burgers and love a good cake and still enjoy a tipple, but since moving to Madrid I’ve noticed how easy it has been for me to slip back into my bad habits. Temptation is everywhere.

In the UK, I would choose not to go to bars, clubs and restaurants. I would meet friends in my home or theirs, we’d go walking, meet for coffee, go to the movies, shop, visit the beach, museums, National Trust properties and so on and so on. I seemed to have the opportunity to do more than merely meet people and friends in bars and restaurants to then eat and drink.

I had friends who were my party pals, they only wanted to get drunk and eat too much junk, consequently we soon parted ways as I didn’t want that lifestyle any more. I’d lived that lifestyle for too long, and frankly I was bored of wasting my money and time on a useless pursuit of what always was unhappiness the day after (hangover, arguments, tired, sick and so on).

Now, you may think, what a boring mare – no, actually I’m not. I enjoy diversity, I enjoy not having to do what other people expect I should do, because they are happy doing it. Yet, here in Madrid, everyone meets for beers and tapas, even a day of pottery making ends up in one of thousands of different bars open until the small hours.

WHY???!!!!!!

I am once again being forced to apply the breaks on this ‘lets have a drink and lets eat all the fat infused food we can find’ ethos, and I’m discovering just how difficult it is to keep up with friends.

Not all of my friends, as some of them get where I’m coming from, but there are those who don’t.

I have friends who just because they are happy to while away their weekends over bottles of booze and then the bathroom sink, they think I should want this too. If I don’t, then the invites to do things just suddenly don’t arrive any more. 

They think, I’m sure, that I’m miserable or purposefully avoiding their company. Well, I’m not, I just can’t physically or mentally do this drinking fest every weekend or weekday. 

If I accepted every offer to go out during the week:

A) I’d be flat broke

B) I’d have an inflated liver the size to envy any poor force fed goose

C) I’d be thoroughly miserable

D) I’d be the size of the Titanic before it sunk.        

What is it about these points that people find so hard to grasp and take seriously?!

Also, my life here isn’t necessarily like their lives.

I don’t work full time, I have a boyfriend I enjoy spending time with (which usually consists of mainly weekends as he works so much), and I also have a life which still exists in the UK too. In fact, I have one foot here in Madrid and one in the UK.  I suppose, in a way, I have more responsibilities than they do too.

No, I’m not taking about kids, but about bills, mortgages, a career I’m once again trying to revive, I’m learning Spanish (still) and they’re fluent already, plus I didn’t move to Madrid to extend my student years (as some of my friends seem to have done).

I suppose I’ve lost the thread here, or the initial thread in any case. I begun with afternoon tea. Well, the people I had afternoon tea with are these friends I’m taking about, and they are somewhat one dimensional in their offer of friendship.

The reason is I’m the outsider. They are 3 friends who know each other through teaching together, and I came to know them through one of the Madrid meet-ups.

Don’t get me wrong, they are lovely in many ways; they are very complimentary, kind and I have fun with them, but, I notice too that they only talk and don’t really listen. I don’t like that, it really is a sign that people aren’t really friends. I don’t enjoy being ignored, or cut short or spoken over as though I’m not important, and they were doing that quite a bit. Of course, they also were eager to depart as they had a drinking fest planned – which of course, I hadn’t been told about or invited to. So, I know, well now know, from our last meeting, that I am an outsider to them. I don’t fit into their type of friendship. I can dip in and out of it, but because I’m not a party animal, I’m not really their cup of tea (well, we all like coffee from time to time don’t we).

So, have I told them any of this – no, I didn’t see the point in really going over the ground with them. I know I can’t sacrifice my lifestyle choices to meet their own, and I know they wouldn’t stop going out or drinking the volume of beer that they do for me. So, it is what it is.

I suppose I feel a bit peeved. I mean I have lost one friend over this already. I couldn’t afford to do what she wanted to do every other weekend. Yet again though, our ideals of friendship clashed. She was looking for more friendship than I could give. I couldn’t be there for her and her alone – I have a life when I don’t see her and I have to maintain that! So, I don’t see her any more and that actually upsets me.         

I think too, I have sacrificed what I really wanted – not having to get drunk and eat junk and be out till the small hours, just to gain friends. How pathetic is that?! I’m too old for that crap! Either people like me for me, or they don’t. If they like the fact I can drink them under the table and stay up all night dancing, then what type of friendship is that? Hardly a firm foundation for me to rely upon.

For me, friends are people you can share everything with. I don’t want a one sided party fest, I’m not 20 any more, I want something connected, deeper and diverse. I won’t settle for superficial.

In saying all this on Saturday I return to the UK again, and this time it will be for two months (a very long time for me). I will then see which friends are left standing when I’m not in the picture for this length of time, and which forget I even existed.

I think the way I have been feeling of late the change of scene will do me well, as I am getting a little narky here (I think this post reflects that well enough), I seem to get ‘itchy feet’ after a few months in one place! God knows how I’ll cope when I don’t have another country to escape to, and am stuck in one on a permanent basis! I always thought I had some gypsy blood in me somewhere!

 

Anyway thanks for reading my rant!! I appreciate it as always.

Hasta luego!!!

Your Fat And You Know It!

Katie Price – Glamour Model

Another celebrity slap down, in the sense of spiteful name calling, the type of which belongs in the playground and to  childhood antics.

This time it is loud mouthed Katie Price on the rampage, yet again.

The ‘much loved’ glamour model v’s the more ‘demure’ Kelly Brook.

Katie slammed Kelly for looking considerably larger than she used to, akin to the size of a ‘heffer’ by all accounts.

This ‘your fat’ statement, didn’t go down too well, especially on that font of all knowledge ‘Twitter’.

Pathetic – I mean really, a grown woman clawing the eyes out of another grown woman. Why, just to be in the media spot light, just because she felt threatened by another women and she had to reclaim her throne as ‘queen bee’.

What can be gained by it??? What motivated it – jealousy?? Probably.

Why would a woman jump on the ‘women hating’ band wagon – there are enough ‘haters’ on that wagon by now! Can’t women have reprieve and actually like one another, themselves and support each other for once; instead of ripping shreds out of each other – like we are all in competition or something, for what exactly??????? Men???????

Ridiculous.

Isn’t there enough negative body image permeating the ‘rags’ that pass as newspapers???

Isn’t there, and hasn’t there been enough; back biting, bitching, positive reinforcement for anorexia, dissolution, low self esteem, self hatred, negative body image and zero confidence amongst women all over the world??????

Aren’t there enough women struggling to accept themselves without Katie Price, or anyone else for that matter, digging other women for being a normal size, and actually naturally beautiful rather than plastic manufactured or starved.

I think Kelly Brook was quite dignified though, regardless of Katie’s petulance towards her. Miss Brook said it well; Katie’s attitude and behaviour was “unladylike” – and so it was, and also peevish, petty, spiteful, jealous, hateful, crazed – and the list goes on and on!!!

So why in this day and age – the 21st century, are women still being restrained by a corset, which is in reality society. The laces, hooks and eyes in that corset are all the expectations, self imposed ideals, objectifications, judgements, negativity. prejudices and so on and so on. Women are still binding themselves up with this ‘feminine’ concept; this ideal of what a women is or isn’t, should or shouldn’t be; but the goal posts always change.

Women want equality or to be accepted as they are, and yet they cannot accept themselves, they cannot cut themselves some slack. It seems to me this is biggest contradiction that remains!!!!!

So, with February the 14th looming – no not Valentines’ Day, but the campaign ‘1 Billion Rising’; how can women stand up and be counted and protest against hatred, violences and so so????? When women are their own worst enemies, and do damage to themselves everyday by providing the ammunition for others to use against them??????????????

OPINIONS PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I WANT TO HAVE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS TOPIC :

Women ‘hating’ on each other – what can this prove, what can this solve???????????????

Does such antics cause self loathing in other women??????????  

Are the media encouraging the perpetuation of negativity for women to indulge in????????? 

Are women in competition with one another; do women see other women as a threat?????????

Are women their own worst enemies?????????????????

Is it a case of a male dominated society controlling women’s minds???????????

Are men to blame???????????

Do men want to see a certain ‘brand’ of women only???????????? 

State YOUR piece – tell me YOUR thoughts…………………….

Who Is Being Allowed To Redefine Normal: Women The Endangered Species – A Life In Vain

Google search results for websites:

Those displaying Anorexia – 32,500,000
Those displaying Pro-ana websites – 8,530,000
Pro-ana tips – 2,840,000
Those displaying ‘thinspiration’ – 2,700,000

……And those displaying ‘curvaceous women’ – 3,950,000

Women with ‘lovely lady lumps’ are indeed outnumbered, maybe they are even becoming an endangered species.

I have become quite obsessed with body image lately, seemingly revisiting my own troubled teen years, but looking at it all through very different eyes now I have gained life experience. I am more analytical of what I once took to be the truth about what women should be. I am fortunately no longer crippled with self-doubts and hatred, albeit, even I’ll admit it is difficult to keep a healthy mind and attitude with the constant bombardment of what we now call ‘normal’. It has reached new heights, far and beyond more extreme than it ever it was when I was a teen (which isn’t that long ago let me add)! So, if I struggle as a grown woman to see myself as a complete person, even though I am not a size 8 and below, then how do the teens of today cope?

I have been doing some research, looking at and listening to; websites, photographs, opinions and documentaries. I have looked at UK Parliament Publications, Mind, Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) Service, B-eat UK and also pro-ana sites (which I am not prepared to name here for concern of promoting such sites). I have seen the fashion shoots of Solve Sundsbo shown in ‘V’ magazine of normal women with curves, Dove’s ‘real women’ campaign and considered the successes of Beth Ditto and Adele. I read about celebrities who struggle with, and eventually succumb to losing the pounds such as; Kelly Clarkson, Kourtney Kardashian, Jennie Garth, Bryce Dallas, Kelly Osbourne; and even Lady Gaga. I have watched ‘Living with Size Zero’, ‘The Truth About Size Zero’ with Louise Redknapp, Dawn Porter’s ‘Super Slim Me’, ‘Dying To Be Anorexic’, ‘Anorexia’s Living Face’ CBS News about Isabelle Caro’s struggle, ‘The truth About Online Anorexia’ with Fern Cotton, Jennifer Livingston’s response to being bullied about being ‘fat’, ‘Supersize v’s Superskinny’, so on and so on.

The amount of information available and the opinions on the content is vast and confusing. It seems starving to be thin is OK, as long as no one really discusses the effects; mental and physical (using Isabelle Caro as an example; how shocked the world was to see what starvation had done to her body, and yet in other ways we are happy to promote such actions. It is all very contradictory, so is there such a thing as too thin? The fashion industry may not think so, but there are people out there who do and are at last being heard.

So why would the average woman, and by that I mean every woman who will by definition of being a woman, have curves; want to destroy her body to re-gain the body of a teen, or of a prepubescent girl? Who would want to have the body and measurements of a seven year old? Why is that deemed attractive, the ideal model and ‘norm’? Why would anyone starve and make themselves so miserable, weak and unhealthy just to have the waist-line of a child; to become a size 8 or below when that is a highly unrealistic goal for them? Since when did exercising daily, eating healthily, taking all things in moderation become the route to being a painfully thin young woman, with unhealthy body and food relationships?

Surely there is still a place for flesh on women’s bones?

Women should have curves, and frankly what is being classed as ‘obese’ these days is ludicrous, and damaging for peoples psyche; hence the confusion over ‘normal’. A size 14 is seen as ‘fat’! Why? When did that become OK as the new rule? Who was responsible for making that rule?

There is no doubt people are being sent mixed messages about what is healthy and normal; vulnerable girls and boys see it everyday, so why do we wonder that so many people are dying to be thin. One minute size zero is terrible, the next, size 14 is obese; who can win the battle of the waist-lines with this destructive attitude being forced on us all. Yet it isn’t just size zero, now we see size 8 as curvy, when I was a teen size 10/12 was the ‘norm’, now size 8 is the ideal of the curvy woman. Yeah, if you happen to be petite, great; I have a niece who is a size 8 and is petite beyond belief, she still eats and drinks like a horse though. The reason, size 8 is her natural frame for her body shape! It isn’t normal for every woman out there though!

If celebrities and people in general stray off extreme diet paths they soon gain weight, and quickly. Yet, the weight gain is more shocking than their lack of weight and the reasons behind it. Maybe their initial weight was too low to be sustainable; their diet and exercise regime too restrictive and unreal. Isn’t having children also a time of normal weight gain for women? Yet even that is shunned and a disgrace.

What then is so abnormal about gaining weight? Every week a new celebrity is seen larger than before, because they are failing to cope with what the world dictates they should be naturally, and they are not! The weight they gain is seen as gargantuan and unhealthy, but no doubt nothing more than again, a size 14, as the camera is said to also add 10 pounds to the body. If in reality everyone is struggling to remain unnaturally thin, and what appears as their natural thinness is a sham, a lie; then their weight gain merely takes them back to the size they should be!

Look at Christina Aguilera at the moment. I applaud how she is embracing her body as a 31 year old mother and enjoying being curvy. I hope she doesn’t cave in to the mounting pressure and relent to revert to her teen image. Which, people also censured as too thin!

Christina Aguilera now

Christina Aguilera as she was in her early career.

I know there are some people who once they gain weight, do become far larger than Christina, but it is no wonder. In the spot light, their heads must be ruined; all the pressure to conform to, the rules they must obey, the ideals of others they have to attain. How can they know what a healthy food relationship is? Yet, it is as equally unhealthy to starve; eating only 800 calories a day, exercising obsessively, seeing protruding bones, skin and hair falling from the body and having no periods. Being ‘obese’ or too ‘thin’; neither extreme is healthy, yet one gets more encouragement as normal, acceptable and healthy than the other.

I know there will always be people who think ‘fat’ is bad. Kate Moss may believe the mantra: ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, but then whenever I see a picture of her face (without airbrushing), it tells the true story of not eating, clearly enough. She maybe a size of a child, but her face isn’t as youthful. It is just so darn sexy substituting food for alcohol, drugs and nicotine! It’s a glamorous life she leads, yeah, the life of an addict; substituting food for every other prop she can find. Ralph Lauren may have famously airbrushed a model to look so thin that her head was wider than her waist; it says freak show to me, it says he likes to make women look like a joke. It is not a ‘must have’ look, it is not healthy or sexy!

It is the insistence that thin is healthy, and fat of any description is bad, which perpetuates ‘sick’ and destructive thoughts in the younger generations. People can insist they are a size zero and don’t starve themselves, but after watching Louise Redknapp and Dawn Porter both struggle to try to become a size zero, I’m not so sure. Losing weight, restricting calories below a healthy level, and exercising 52 hours a week, hearing what the experts said people do to become a size zero; how unhealthy it is, what damage it causes and how it can kill them. Well I think that is not how a healthy life should be led. Why is eating so unhealthy? People eat, as humans we should, because without it we’d die. It is normal not to eat, but not normal to survive off apples and cucumbers, black coffee and cigarettes!

There are pro-ana and thinspiration sites which help to encourage extreme thinness, as opposed to being a healthy weight. As I have already mentioned previously, I won’t give the addresses or names of these websites in this post. On these sites ‘fat’ women or girls, are encouraged with hints and tips, and the mutual bonding, and understanding of a friendly support system, so they can shed astronomical pounds. It is basically camaraderie of death that is being publicly flaunted. Then there are message boards on ordinary sites in response to articles about weight issues; how distorted people’s views are about being ‘over weight’! I was shocked to read them! People don’t realise that thin models can be ill, anorexic, bulimic, and airbrushed. It seems at every turn normal women are being rejected by an ever harsher societal view of once again, female beauty.

Yet, who is anyone to be a judge and jury; no one is perfect. To blatantly authorise women to kill themselves in pursuit of thinness is ghastly though; morbid and akin to genocide. We ignore these issues every day, and everyday someone becomes victim to anorexia and someone will die as a result of that illness. How is that OK, but being ‘curvy’ isn’t?! Priorities and very wrong, spring to mind.

What is this hate campaign waged on normal women? Lack of food and nutrition kills too, not just ‘obesity’, and it will store up trouble for any woman in the future; low Estrogen levels, infertility, brittle bones, heart disease, wasted muscles (including the heart), kidney failings, and so and so on.

No wonder our children suffer with body issues if the media and world at large project this ‘norm’ onto them. We have a responsibility to readjust body image back to healthy, but we refuse.

We keep reaffirming there is a boundary between; merely thin, losing a bit of weight, counting our calories, increasing the exercise, avoiding eating in public, and being anorexia, but I don’t know anymore. What constitutes a disorder, what qualifies you to fit into food disorder statistics? Is it merely a BMI under 18? There isn’t one person I know who hasn’t some issue with food in one way or another, or issues with themselves and their own body image; so what do these statistics mean when everyone is engaging in some form of abnormal act or relationship with food and their own bodies? Are what we see on thinspiration sites, ordinary chat sites, celebrity sites that pull women apart for being a woman to blame; or is it complex internal and genetic issues that spark food and body issues? Who can be sure for all cases?

So much nonsense saturates into the public domain every day, now our view of ‘normal’ is skewed. What people aspire to be is skewed, as we as a society have become increasingly; obsessed, restrictive, and denying our bodies nutrition for the sake of thinness. So what is so unnatural and wrong if we are seeing it promoted everywhere, hearing about and seeing websites dedicated to extremely thin ‘inspirational’ role models?

Maybe this is the new normal; thin, ill, underweight and so on? It will be, if we cannot curb our hatred towards difference and real women, and quit the morbid fascination with skeletal women.

I’m not saying naturally thin women should be scorned or reviled with disgust either, but neither should everyone above a size 8! Who perhaps doesn’t fit this thin mould we are all pressing as the norm. If we continue this way then it will be the norm for young people from now until eternity; always subjected to hating themselves, pulling their minds and bodies apart, making themselves ill, punishing others to succumb too, and even killing themselves. This viscous circle will never end.

If we are happy with that, happy to kill off the next generation of women and men who become afflicted by body issues, then we should by all means carry on this way. Yet, I would rather see someone eat, be happy with themselves and to live their lives; rather than starve and be miserable, feel pain, waste their lives revolving around food and body issues, only to then die an even more miserable death. All of it in vain.

Is this image grotesque? Does it portray a ‘fat’ or ‘normal woman?’

What about this woman?

Are these images inspirational? Is this the face and body of ‘normal’?

Below are some interesting statistics on Eating Disorders; food for thought for us all –

UK Parliament – Publications:
The amount of people suffering has increased from 419 in 1996-97 to 620 in 2004-05.
These figures only represent individual cases admitted into NHS hospitals in England (not the whole of the UK).

Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) Service:
The highest rates of anorexia are seen in female teenagers aged between 13 and 19, with 51 per of 100,000 cases being seen each year.

Approximately 10% of cases of anorexia arise in men.

Around 5% of cases of anorexia will be fatal.

Currently, in developing countries and black communities, anorexia nervosa appears to be somewhat rare.

Mind UK:
In the UK, 1 in 100 women aged between 15 and 30 suffers from anorexia.

Reports show girls as young as five years of age have weight concerns, and think about going on a diet.

There are many documentaries on Youtube regarding children anorexia sufferers. Very upsetting, but honest.

B-eat UK:
‘The most accurate figures we are aware of are those from the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. These suggest that 1.6 million people in the UK are affected by an eating disorder, of which around 11% are male. However, more recent research from the NHS information centre showed that up to 6.4% of adults displayed signs of an eating disorder (Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, 2007). This survey also showed that a quarter of those showing signs of an eating disorder were male, a figure much higher than previous studies had suggested’.

Thank you for reading my post, I hope it has given you something to consider?
Leave comments below please!

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