I have been overweight for most of my life. I was teased, more like tormented, in elementary school for it. My parents did their best. My mom was at the school at least once a week trying to handle the situation and I really appreciate it, but it did not work. The more they protested, the worse the bullying got. Junior High was better because I was not the fattest kid in the class. By High School, I knew how to laugh it off, how to turn the joke on them every time. But that did not stop it from hurting.
I waited to lose my virginity. Not because I had any religious conviction or wanted to save myself for the 'right' person. No, I waited simply because I was not comfortable with my body. I could not imagine getting naked with someone, sharing that body with another person. The amazing thing is that sex was a magic bullet. Once I started to have sex, I became happier with myself, with my body. I discovered that there was a whole group of people, men and women, who preferred big girls. I did not like the term 'chubby chaser' but I certainly enjoyed their attention.
Then the day came when I decided to lose the weight. I decided, that was the key. I was getting closer to thirty, too close. While I was happy with my body image, perhaps for the first time in my life, I began to realize that there could be long term health issues as I aged. The most pressing of which was my fertility. I had finally found 'him.' The one. The man I wanted to marry. We were engaged and wanted to start a family as soon as we were settled.
So I joined the gym. I got a personal trainer. And I began to lose the weight. Three to five pounds a week, sometimes more. I went from a size twenty-four to a fourteen in six months. So a size fourteen is not skinny, but even then I noticed folds of skin around my tummy getting loser and loser. I dared not go much lower or it would become disgusting.
What is more, not everyone is meant to be thin. There came a point when rather than getting healthier with each pound I lost, I got sicker...colds, lack of energy, depression. Of course, there was another reason for the depression...him. Mister Right left me. For a bigger girl. That's right; he was another 'chubby chaser.'
I thought about giving up then. About buying chocolate cake, ice cream, burgers and fried chicken. I seriously asked myself, 'what the fuck am I doing?' and 'why?' But I did not. I had come too far. This was my chance to change my life and my body.
But I was spiraling into insecurity and self-doubt again. He had been gone for three months and I had not had sex in that whole time. I was back to that confidence thing. I did not even know what I was anymore. I mean before when I went on dating sites I proudly boasted that I was a BBW, Big Beautiful Woman. But a stinking size fourteen is not big enough to qualify as BBW. At the same time it is too large to be 'average.' I was stuck in no-woman's land somewhere in between. And it sucked.
Then I saw it...an email from the zoo. They were having a fundraising event to raise money to save the tigers. Did you know that a group of tigers was a streak? I mean lions are prides and wolves are packs, but I never knew that tigers lived in streaks. To make things exciting, the zoo was asking its members to 'streak' around its entrance after closing. To brings your friends and raise money by running naked around the place with dozens, hundreds of others. It was just the crazy crap that I needed to break this cycle of negative thinking.
I signed up. I posted it to my social networking sites. I asked friends who kept telling me how good I looked to put their money and support where it counted most by pledging and coming out to show me that support. I was surprised at how many people responded. Dozens promised to come out and support me. Dozens more pledged money. I raised close to a thousand dollars for those tigers.
