The Beginning
My first diet (age 11 to 14)
Hi everyone! Thank you for signing up to my newsletter. I am grateful to have you here. First and foremost, I would like to explain why I had to break down these information into pieces. We develop a relationship with food, fitness and body image ever since we are young. It starts from the environment you have, be it family, school, friends. Everyone grows up differently, so in order to begin telling about my story - we have to begin from the early days.
I spent a great deal of my childhood growing up without my parents. When I was 7, I was sent from Jakarta to Singapore to live with my grandfather. I don’t recall learning about proper nutrition from anyone around me (from my caretaker, parents or school). I recalled some of my childhood experiences of being much bigger and chubbier than the people around me. When I was going through puberty (around age 11 and 12), I thought my weight gain was caused by eating too much. I was sometimes made fun of especially because I didn’t look like my other friends. My parents also commented on my weight a lot and wondered why I was chubbier than most children. They brought me to my first “nutritionist” was when I was either 11 or 12 years old. It wasn’t pleasant. I now still have flashbacks of stepping on the weighing scale when I was at this nutritionist. The advice given to me was to eat lesser rice.
In Singapore, after completing your primary school education, you get to choose which middle school (and high school) you go to. I ended up choosing an all girls’ school, because most of my girlfriends were going to that school. I was 13 when I started gaining more weight - and at that time, I was chubby and always sweaty. That of course added to my insecurities, because other girls around me were slim and they didn’t sweat as much. Life at an all girls’ school is also being constantly surrounded by different girls who were very beautiful. I remembered that in Singapore, they had a Trim And Fitness Club (stands for TAF club, which a lot of people called the FAT club). This is a special club where you’re put into if they considered you to be “overweight”. In 2014, health was a certain look and there was only one way of measuring how healthy you were - by measuring your height and weight to see if it fits to the “normal” standard. Height and weight measurements were done after every semester breaks, and it is a traumatizing experience.
In a classroom of 40 girls, you’re told to line up to get your height and weight taken. You’ll then get told whether you’re underweight, acceptable or overweight. When I was 13, I was going through puberty, and changes in the school environment and was “overweight”. Being in TAF club is a very shameful experience. You had to do extra runs early in the morning, sacrifice your lunch breaks to exercise and repeatedly get reminded for being heavier than a standard girl.
Combining the shame of being overweight and some success stories of weight loss from some relatives who sold Multi-Level Marketing products led me to my first diet — The Herbalife Meal Replacement shakes.
The diet was simple (I ate lesser than 1000 calorie):
1. Replace breakfast with a shake
2. Eat a normal lunch
3. Replace dinner with a shake
Within a short time, I lost all of the weight that made me “overweight”. Everyone was amazed at my transformation and complimented me for the weight that I lost. I suddenly could buy clothes that didn’t fit me before (all-sized clothes that were TINY) and started feeling more beautiful. Of course, this weight loss wasn’t sustainable. It was hard to maintain a 1000-calorie diet while you’re still a growing teenager. You start missing your periods (or getting it irregularly), start to worry when you put on weight and not able to wear the clothes that you just bought. You feel hungry, tired and moody all the time. I felt terrible and ashamed if I put on some weight. This way of living went on till when I was 16 years old. By the time I was 16, I ended up gaining more weight that the weight I lost from my sad, pathetic shakes.
Tonight, I am going live with my friend, Cindy! Cindy is a well-known fashion influencer based in Jakarta. We will discuss cyberbullying (how she got called fat when she was undergoing treatments for her kidneys), body insecurities (how beautiful people still feel insecure) and how to eventually start finding self love. We often assume that pretty, beautiful and skinny people don’t come under public scrutiny for gaining weight or being less perfect. This is far from true and I hope to continue to shed light that insecurities exist in everyone. 7pm JKT time, be sure not to miss it!
In my next newsletter, I would talk about the weight gain I experienced before I went into university and throughout my university days. It will also include some of the crazy diets that I’ve done in those days. If you enjoyed this, please share it on your social media page or share it with your friends!