Tuesday 1 April 2008

Size Matters

Clothes I have bought in the past two weeks:
1. A Dili, East Timor t-shirt in a child’s size medium
2. A 40s style belted white jacket, UK size 10/US size 6
3. Yoga pants from Sweaty Betty, size small (15 minutes before a yoga class I wanted to try, but didn’t have gear with me)
4. Radcliffe skinny jeans, size 29 (chosen for me and approved by the designer herself)

I can’t help feeling tedious even writing the above, especially with the current fuss over Sweet Valley High sizing. (What I found perhaps more irritating than the twins’ perfect size six figures was the fact that they were always going to the Dairi Burger and eating more food for a snack than I would have eaten in public for dinner.) But at least as much as I struggle with food, I struggle with my image of myself.

I still think of myself as wearing size 20s, worrying that a one-size-fits-all won’t fit me. I walk sideways through narrow spaces, often sucking in my stomach. (A friend even pointed this out to me – though not the stomach-sucking-in part – at a shop in Sumatra). My stomach and throat tighten in fear when someone’s about to show me photos that include me, and I automatically scan for the largest body, sure that that’s how I’ll locate myself.

Yesterday I had a random conversation with a slim acquaintance about how when she thinks of herself as fat, she overeats and eats poorly and puts on weight. When she thinks of herself as thin – or really, reminds herself that she’s thin – she says she stops eating when she’s full and stops thinking of various foods as off limits (and thus doesn’t overeat them). Unfortunately, she couldn’t describe how she flips the switch from one to the other – only that, ironically, the switch always flips from fat back to think when she gains about 10 pounds.

* * *

Today I spent £45 on a yoga class I loathed.

Technically the class was £13 – but I spent £20 on yoga pants and £12 on a t-shirt (both on sale at Sweaty Betty – even I have limits) because I didn’t have any kit with me when I happened to end up near Triyoga Soho just before a class was starting. (For several reasons, my schedule is in huge flux -- and will continue to be so for several weeks -- so I wanted to grab the opportunity to try the class when I could.)

I think I’m spoiled from so much great yoga in Bali (which is what’s prompted the current yoga class hunt), but this class was particularly appalling, especially for a studio frequently named one of the best in Europe. I have a tendency to chafe at the unfamiliar (I usually have to try classes a few times – I never like them instantly), but I think in this case it really was the class/teacher and not me. It was overcrowded. The pace was frantic, with nothing explained. (It was billed as suitable for beginners.) At one point, the teacher said to me: “I have no idea what you’re doing there.” (This said as she was standing half on my mat, half on another student’s demonstrating something because there was so little space – and I was trying to shrink out of her way.) And at the end of the 75 minutes, she pimped her book, CD, and yoga retreats. Ugh.

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