Some days I feel like I live in a strange in-between space—one where I’m never quite sure where I fit. I’m not “skinny,” at least not in the way society so generously rewards and praises. But I also don’t feel like I belong in the plus-size community, a space that has built so much strength and solidarity in the face of real adversity; I respect that their stories are theirs, and I don’t want to take up that space unfairly. Still, there’s this lingering feeling that because I’m in the middle—“mid-sized,” as the internet likes to call it—I don’t fully belong anywhere.
I grew up believing that if I just worked hard enough, my body would shrink. Doctors reinforced this idea every single year, reminding me to “eat less and exercise more.” When I’d tell them that I was eating healthy, that I was exercising six days a week, that I was genuinely trying, they’d look at me with disbelief. The unspoken message was clear: they didn’t believe me because my body didn’t fit the mold of what “healthy” should look like. And for a long time, I believed them instead of myself. I thought maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough, maybe I was secretly lazy, maybe I was broken.
It wasn’t until last year, when a simple blood test revealed underlying conditions, that the pieces finally clicked together. Conditions that made losing weight significantly more difficult, conditions that were never considered before because it was easier to assume I was doing something wrong. In that moment, I felt relief but also anger—anger at all the years I spent blaming myself, and at the ways fat bias quietly creeps into exam rooms where compassion should live.
Learning about my body has been both grounding and freeing. For the first time, I stopped seeing it as my enemy. I started noticing the quiet ways it shows up for me every single day. In the gym, even though my body may not look like the leanest or the fastest, I’m often lifting some of the heaviest weights in the room. My muscles know what strength feels like, even if they don’t display it in the way society suggests they should. In the kitchen, I love cooking balanced, nutritious meals not as punishment, not as a means to shrink myself, but as a way of nourishing a body that deserves to be cared for.
Slowly, I’ve moved from a place of hiding—always tugging at my shirt, always trying to stand at angles that made me look smaller—to a place of neutrality, and sometimes even pride. It’s not every day, and it’s not perfect, but there are moments when I look in the mirror and think: this body is strong. This body carries me through long days, lifts heavy weights, dances with friends, cooks dinner for the people I love. This body is worthy.
And yet, the world often makes it feel like there are only two categories: thin or fat, acceptable or unacceptable, disciplined or undisciplined. Being in between feels invisible. Too big to be celebrated as “naturally thin,” too small to be included in plus-size advocacy. It’s lonely, sometimes. It feels like I’m constantly being asked to pick a side, to explain myself, to justify my existence. But bodies don’t owe anyone an explanation. They just are.
What I’ve learned, and what I keep relearning, is that the value of a body cannot be seen at first glance. It cannot be measured by a dress size, a scale, or a number on a chart. My body doesn’t always look like what society calls “fit,” but it moves like a body that is fit. It feels like a body that is fit. It deserves love, admiration, and respect simply because it is mine.
If there’s one thing I hope to do by sharing this, it’s to normalize what it means to exist in a mid-sized body. To remind anyone else who feels like they don’t belong on either end of the spectrum that your body deserves to be expressed, celebrated, and seen. That you don’t need to shrink or inflate yourself to fit a category in order to be valid.
I used to spend so much energy wishing my body away. Now, I’m trying to spend more time thanking it for what it does, even when it doesn’t look like what the world says it should. I’m realizing that my body doesn’t have to be extraordinary to be enough. It doesn’t have to be thin to be beautiful, and it doesn’t have to be plus-sized to be powerful. It just has to be mine.