Thanks to the kids having summer vacation, I’ll have to do my ‘countdown’ a little differently, so I’ll start here:
Today, July 19, 2019, marks ten years since A Black Girl’s Guide to Weight Loss. Ten whole years, y’all.
Ten years talking about what it means to eat healthy in a world that makes it increasingly difficult to do so.
Ten years of designing strategies to make healthy eating more affordable.
Ten years trying to understand why the foods we like the most tend to cause us the most harm.
Ten years trying to understand the flaws in the metrics used to measure our health.
Ten years of deconstructing the use of photoshop as a means to manipulate our understanding of our own bodies.
Ten years of trying to understand why hating our bodies seems to be the norm and why loving our bodies seems so revolutionary.
Ten years trying to figure out what healthy relationships with our bodies look and sound like.
Ten years trying to understand the policies that make it so difficult to achieve a healthy life.
Ten years of realizing that no one will protect us the way us do.
Ten years of taking a stand. Over and over again. Ten years of doing politics and not thinking twice.
Ten years learning how revolutionary our elders, ancestors and loved ones really were and are.
Ten years of learning that soul food is not what is killing black Americans, regardless of what a white supremacist society insists on shoving down our throats. (I’ll come back to this in a few days. Rest assured.)
ten years of saying what everyone else was too shocked to say. (Hands down, without exception, one of my favorite things I’ve written for another medium, to this day.)
Ten years of understanding how shame controls, isolates and destroys people. Ten years of understanding that the only way to fight shame is to actively seek the opposite of what it does: bring people closer to you, talk, learn, love, build, grow. Ten years building the kind of community that can do it honestly and seriously.
Ten years of difficult decisions, difficult pregnancies, difficult admissions, difficult setbacks, and most important of all, beautiful rebirths. Not because I’m close to my pre-drama size, but because I’m healthier mentally than ever.
Ten years, ten years. And I was almost not here to see it, celebrate it and remember the wonder we have created.
Ten whole years of questioning myself, being questioned, being challenged and being improved. Ten years of being a writer, thinker, trainer. Ten years of blossoming into something I never imagined. Ten years of people believing in this community and trusting me to lead it.
Ten years knowing that this is my vocation. Is my vocation. Talking to people, helping them understand what it means to live a healthier life, getting access to real scientists and researchers and being able to ask them difficult questions and translate them into information that can transform the life of the woman who, like me, at first, was afraid silently that his health was out of control and he could be transmitting a series of harmful habits to his children; the woman who may not have insurance but needs help; the woman who might not have more than $50 to shop for that week; the woman who has a long road ahead but would gladly travel that road alone if she could get a map.
Ten years, ten years. I can’t believe we made it, but we’re here. Thanks for sticking with me until now. Thank you to my muse, my inspiration and my support for changing my life. Thank you to my loved ones (some here, some no longer) for encouraging me. Thanks to my mom, my biggest cheerleader, for sending me DVDs that she somehow mysteriously and magically burns after every television appearance. Thank you to all the editors I’ve had and all the journalists who have interviewed me for politely reminding me that I have things to say that are worth listening to. Thanks to Ed, my eternal family, for supporting me. Thanks to my daughter, for being my inspiration; and my son, for being my boot camp instructor with his “Mommy, we should go to the gym” head and ass. And most of all, thank you for accompanying me during this complicated and bumpy journey.
I promise: things will only get better from here.
