say no to starvation

i've been thinking lately a lot about body image (duh)
having reached my weight loss goal awhile ago, i've struggled a lot with whether i should continue trying to lose weight or not.
part of me keeps thinking, no, i was at the weight i'm currently at for quite some time and i never had a problem with it...
then part of me thinks, i was also five to ten pounds thinner for awhile and didn't mind that either...
i guess it's all coming down to personal preference, how i like myself to look
of course, there's the outside influence, the media and people who think every woman has to be a size four to look good. i've really tried hard to escape that, because ever since gaining weight and losing it again, i realized i really really don't want to be one of those women who is "dieting" forever because i'm never satisfied. and even at my thinnest, i was always "dieting". after losing close to fifty pounds, i'm ready to be done with that! i want to enjoy how i look.
i've never wanted to look like mary-kate olsen. some women do. i don't. i don't think being bony is appealing on me. but eff if the media doesn't try and MAKE me feel that way. i was looking at pictures from the mtv awards show last night and couldn't believe how effing BONY. downright BONY all of the women were. is this really what we're subscribing to? this belief that women have to be stick thin to be beautiful?
i get irked seeing photographers only photograph tiny little women. it's beautiful at first, until you see that ALL of their photos are the same that way. i think it's boring and lame. some people like really skinny people. it's "in" right now to think super skinny is beautiful. well, i guess i'm out because i think there's more than just that.
now, don't think i'm advocating being overweight because i'm not. it's unhealthy and everyone should work to be healthy. but that's just it. we should be healthy, not emaciated. it seems like it's one extreme or the other, there's no place for people like me, who are "average" to "slender", not "skinny" to fit in with everybody else. it's sad to me that icons like jane russell, marilyn monroe and rita hayworth would be considered "Fat" by the sheep american public these days because they have actual shape. (and yes, i'm resisting using the word "curves" because i resent that word and the fact that overweight people use it as an excuse. curvy seems to be synonymous with overweight or obese these days.)
when i was heavier, i went through this bitter phase where i would say EVERYONE who was thinner than me was "too skinny" and blah blah blah. i'm being totally honest here, i was ugly because i was so bitter and loathed myself so much. i tried to justify my weight gain by saying that this or that person was "too skinny."
but this that i'm doing right now, this rant per say, is not like that. i'm well within a healthy weight range. i have nothing to be defensive about. and i'm not. i'm saddened that having shape is something that so many women don't like. i personally actually really like the way i look now. i've decided not to try and lose anymore weight because i don't want to look like a kid. i watch old movies and think those women are beautiful! they look like women! and no, i'm not saying super skinny women are any less "women". There is just something gorgeous about being a woman and having this beautiful womanly shape....EVERYONE should watch more old movies and shake themselves of this mindset that they have to look like....kristen stewart or something lol.
i guess what this whole rant leads to is that i have DECIDED: i'm going to be one LESS woman who adheres to the pressure to be a stick. i'm going to be a woman who keeps working out, keeps eating healthy and pretty much says to hell with trying to be a stick because the media tells me to be. i enjoy food (in moderation, and mostly healthy of course :P) and i'm not going to starve myself. sorry, just not going to do it.
some people are naturally like that and that's fine. we do what's best and healthiest for ourselves. but for the majority of us, we're not going to always be as skinny as we were when we were teenagers. i strongly suggest that as women we set our OWN standard and stop blindly basing our ideas of how we should look on what a bunch of hollywood women who have nothing to do but work out and pay for personal chefs and crap tell us to. let's figure out what we're supposed to be and learn to love it. seriously.

and with that, i'm outta here.