Tina Jones Blog: Thoughts of an Oil Portrait Artist: success

Years ago, I attended an open drawing studio.

I brought my sketch pad, some pencils and a kneaded eraser. I am oddly, approachable, or moreso than I'm usually comfortable with. I was more concerned this time about the comfort of the middleaged woman sitting in a white robe waiting for time to start drawing. I'm not good at chit-chat, but I seem to be able to leave my insecurity aside when I believe someone needs me to be more. I asked how long she'd modelled, and she happily engaged answering that and where she'd worked and soon it was announced drawing would begin with some short sketches.

The room was about 12x12 foot holding maybe ten people around a 4x6 foot platform, so there isn't much room to move to get a better perspective. I learned to work with whatever I had, and drew the backs of chairs or the bottoms of feet more than once.
The model did a very unexpected thing. Upon hearing we'd start, she turned toward me smiled, dropped her robe and lifted her joyous face and arms into the air. I scored a few mediocre sketches that night, but far beyond nudity, I won the right to shine, because she believed it was o.k. for her to do the same.

Don't be less than you. You cannot make yourself small enough that no one will ever envy you or try to cut you down to make themselves feel better in the absence of taking any action to believe in themselves. That job is theirs, and you can't save them their work. Yours job is to live.
Don't be less of you.

Don't be less beautiful, intelligent, sexy or hard-earned strong.
Don't be less funny, less caring or less loving.
Don't be less playful, helpful, silly or ingenuitive.
Don't be less talkative or less contemplative or less of a listener.
Don't hold back when you dance, heal others, soap-box or make love.
Don't downplay you in order to fit in or please anyone.
Don't restrict your paintings, your unborn novels, your discoveries, and the time you spend gazing at the surface of water or blowing bubbles.
Don't downplay the work you've done, or how much blood you've spilled for something that looks like mere talent now.
Don't be less of you, neither cover nor dim your shine. Someone needs your light, and it may be that someone is ...you.

It's o.k. to try being true to yourself, and fall flat on your face.
It's o.k. to be scared.
It's o.k. to feel like you're not enough and to take up space on the planet anyway.
It's o.k. to glow, then hide, and it's o.k. burst with light.

Live your fullness, your ideas, your dreams. Be as glorious as you are, because there's also someone watching who may be even more afraid. Someone watches who may not know their own worth. Step into your sacred opportunity to be as amazing as you are for you, but also do it because someone needs to see you being happy in order to believe it's o.k. for them to be happy too.

tinajonesart

Quick Peek: Scroll to the very bottom of this post to see the side by side Before and After.

Frame Size: Though, I'm 5' 8 1/2", I am a "small framed" person, as determined by the following chart, and many others like it. My personal "elbow width," as used here, is 1 3/4", or less than an average woman of 4'10".
http://www.am-i-fat.com/body_frame_size.html
I'd always heard the phrase, "Big boned," applied to me and others like me who were overweight most of their lives. To find out I was not "big boned" was enlightening. The optimal weight for someone who is 5' 8 1/2", is a wide range falling between 123 1/2 lbs. and 166.8. lbs Being on the smaller side, I originally aimed at 135 lbs, but found that I was more comfortable between 145 and 149 lbs.
Each person is different in build and how they emotionally feel about being a certain weight. I was ok with what some would say was overweight at 149, but this is me, and I have to live in this body. I like being soft, and I don't mind some bulges. This is just my emotional feeling about me.

Coping With Other's Opinions:

Believe it or not, I even had some people say I was too skinny at that stage (beautiful bulges and all), and I had some try to push food on me even though I was well within normal range, and so very much healthier. I had to stop talking to them about my weight loss, because the guilt trips I was getting were so discouraging, and made me ashamed of my progress. Everyone it seems has had an opinion that they were all too willing to share with me about what I should weigh. I finally decided my opinion mattered. I had to get these people out of my daily diet. I don't know about other countries, but here in the United States, "Normal" wieghts are 20-40 over weight. Many are on various medications to control not only weight, but various illnesses caused by it, and many of those are on low fat diets, and starving themselves.
Facing fears of weight loss:
New Angles: I thought I was beautiful at 253 lbs., and sometimes I miss the weight. (I know that sounds strange, but it's true.) It has been hard for me to lose the pretty round face I use to have that I thought made me look more like my mother who is beautiful. Now, when I see the angles in my face, I see my father. I had a hard time looking at me during that adjustment. I'd always thought he was ugly, so seeing him plainly in me meant I had to get a better attitude about him and me. Well, my grandfather, his father, just loved a movie star who was very angular. This is weird, but I kept a photo of her on my computer to go look at whenever I felt bad about my new thin face. It was Raquel Welch! If he thought she was beautiful, and I did to, then I must have some beauty in me.Further, my granddaughter is thin, beautiful and she looks like me. It was hardly honest for me to think these ladies were beautiful while putting myself down. Once I saw the dishonesty in my opinion of myself, I had to let it go.
Attention from the Opposite Sex: It's been frightening at times when I get more male attention than I'm used to. I realize now that alot of the weight gain was to protect me from having to deal with that. Again, I had a reality check. It has NEVER mattered what weight I was. Someone was ALWAYS attracted. Honesty came in the acceptance that I cannot control that, that I'm safe, and other people's issues need not show up in extra pounds by the dozens on me.
Old Fears: Early in life I got sick with strep, and couldn't eat for two weeks. I was ten years old. Another time, I was so poor, that I ate a meager bowl of 1/3 cup soup a day to make it last a month. Along the way of my weight loss journey, I had to face those personal fears. I had to learn to trust that I didn't "need" this extra weight in case something happened where I might starve. I had to stop keeping this fear weight to protect me, and begin to trust.
Honesty About My Weight, Health and Self Esteem: The only point is what you weigh should be healthy and feel good to you. For me, because of my small frame to weigh 155 lbs. is uncomfortable. The fat gathers on me under my ribs, and causes difficulty in breathing. I am an "apple" shape, which means I do not gain in my legs and hips, but around my torso where organs are smashed by extra weight. Size and shape do not matter to me. Comfort and health does.
Here is a common weight calculator that will provide such a range, like many others. If you find that you are "large framed," you'd probably feel better being closer to the higher amount.
http://www.calculator.net/ideal-weight-calculator.html?ctype=standard&cage=46&csex=f&cheightfeet=5&cheightinch=8.5&cheightmeter=180&x=79&y=5
Here are some photos of me at my heaviest: 253+ lbs

Early, 2001 :Me at 253 lbs. and a size 24 jeans.
I felt beautiful at this size. I loved my round face, but I was in a lot of physical pain. I had very high blood pressure, borderline diabetes and bad cholesterol counts. I was on medication for blood pressure, and my physician warned I was only points away from having to have medications for diabetes and cholesterol.

2002: Another photo at 253 or above. I'd stopped weighing myself, and could no longer fit in any size jeans I could find. Off and on low fat diets, and kept gaining weight, often starving to try to lose, then shaking, weak and giving up. I had horrible indigestion to the point that only a few bites of food was causing bloating and horrible burning in my throat. I had problems with evacuation that felt like a partial blockage. My ankles were always swollen and the skin on my ankles would get so tight that I was in pain. Sitting or standing more than 20 minutes would bring swelling that made my ankles the size of my calves. Makeup is plastered on here to cover a very bad case of acne brought on by a wheat allergy I didn't even know I had. Shortly after this, I started the Atkin's Diet.
Within weeks, I lost the indigestion. The blood sugar spikes went away, the swelling was gone, and I began having energy for the first time in years.
It took a total of 2 years, and by 2004, I hit my goal, and had lost 108 lbs.

145 lbs. This photo is in 4/2008. There are not a lot of thin photos of me during this time. I was still having trouble with accepting my new body and facing those old fears, and I was very horribly camera shy.
I maintained this weight with a few pound fluctuation from 2004-2010. I was healthier in every way, but there was one thing that didn't get better. The problems with evacuation didn't leave. A few Doc's brushed it off. By 2009, the pain began, and finally in January 2010. I was diagnosed with anal squamous cell carcinoma. I read heavily, and found that quick carbohydrates are needed for the growth of cancer. Stunned, I thought of the years I'd gone without sugar, wheat, rice, corn..all of those high carbs that are quickly metabolized. The Doc was amazed at how slowly this medium growing cancer had grown. Beyond a doubt this diet saved my life. It did not metastasize, it grew slowly. I had surgery and I'm ok now. I tell this to point out that a ball of bad habits that started rolling before I stopped eating things that were bad for me, didn't just stop, because I quit. Other illnesses may linger for others too. Not unlike having an old bad tooth pulled, I'm grateful the cancer is out of me, and I feel whole again. I was unable to eat much for months, and one month before surgery, I had to eat so very little. Low Carb taught me that protein packs the most nutrition,. It is the body's building blocks. Fat is needed for the brain to work, so I ate what little I could in proteins and fats. Four days days before surgery, eating was no longer possible. I did lose more weight than I wanted, but it was maybe 20 lbs, and nothing like would have happened had I tried to survive on cereal.
I did get scared though, and post surgery, I set about to gain my weight back. I knew how. Count more carbs than needed to maintain, and slowly regain just as I'd lost, but I panicked, and reintroduced high carbs and sugars. In four months, I gained not just that 20 I'd lost ,but 40 more pounds. I also lost the first tooth since I started the diet. Sugar does bad things to me! Also the acne, feelings of weakness, lethargy, mental fogginess, indigestion, swelling of extremities, and all that gross sick feeling returned in full regalia. Enough!

185 lbs: 11/24/2010
The Photo that made me get back on my
diet. I'd gained 40 lbs! I gain weight in my belly and chest. My legs are thin here, and they were small before I lost a single pound. (Some complained that I didn't need to lose weight, because of my smaller legs, but I could not breathe!) I began again, fears faced, stronger, and out of love for myself and others, desire to be here for my children and grandchildren for a very long time, and frankly the desire to keep my teeth!

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Fear of cameras or not, I had to become accountable, and my major sources of support being online can only see me by photos. I take at least one a week now, and post them regularly. I had to let go of having to *LIKE* them. Who cares? I just post them anyway, to stay accountable. My life is more important than my ego that says all too often, "Not good enough!" Ego lies! Sometimes (brace yourself, and to my shock) I actually do LIKE them now. I didn't see THAT coming. What a surprise! I also report my weight and inches lost to at least one other person if not by online posts. Yes, it's for me, but it's also to give hope to others.

175 lbs

170 lbs
You know that phrase usuallly said in anger?
"No Woman Is Built Like A Barbie!"
Well, I have nothing to say about that. Fortunately, I do have a photo. (See above) No photoshopping, no surgeries, and yes I am sucking in my gut. The point is we have to accept our own bodies. We're all built differently. I was descriminated for being overweight, thin and everything in between. I'm the one, however who has to live in this body, and that nullifies anyone else's opinion of it. Being fat never meant I was lazy, infact I worked very hard often starving to try to control it, and kept gaining back then. Being thin never meant I was starving, infact I eat more now than I did at 253 lbs. Having a large build does not mean you're not a sexy, beautiful and sensitive woman. Having a small build does not mean a person is a weak pushover. Being tall doesn't mean I can or should try to lift monstrously heavey objects. Being short doesn't mean helplessness. Finally, because it's what irks me personally, being large busted does not mean nymphomaniac, that a person is dumb, fat or in any way interested in you, whoever you are. Neither does being small busted mean frigidity or less than in any way whatsoever.
If we women don't stop comparing ourselves to others, and start seeing the beauty in ourselves as we are in this moment, we are not going to think or feel we are beautiful even if we do lose the weight, get that tatoo, dye the hair or whatever we're thinking of doing to alter our outsides. Forget other's opinions (Including mine). Work on the inside, and the outside changes.

165 lbs

10/28/2011: Me at 159 lbs:
I am obviously not skinny. Check my belly. I am wearing a CHILD's size 6x. Seriously concerned about over weight children. I remember my children wearing a 6x, and there is no way they were half the size I am in this photo. The numbers have stayed the same on clothing, yet the clothes have gotten bigger.
http://marilynmonroepages.com/facts.html
Marylin Monroe's Measurements as told in above link: 37-23-36
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20055694-10391704.html
Barbie's Measurements as told in above link: 39-18-33
My Measurements: 40-34.5-39
(I figure since I once resembled an adorable to me, Cabbage Patch Doll, why not play Barbie Doll? The point being, no matter what size a person is, they are beautiful. No, we're not dolls, but I'm in no position to be cutting Barbie down any more than I was to cut down Teddy Bears or Cabbage Patch Kids. End Rant.

!!!GOAL!!!
12/09/11