Today I am honored to welcome SA Smith to #BeReal.

When I was asked to participate in the Be Real campaign I was honored. I thought of course, this is right up my alley. If you are familiar with my column, Byte of Life, at Feminine Collective you know I am all about being your own advocate, living in the present and honoring your true self. I thought this will be easy, this is what I do, no problem. Then I started rereading the amazing “Be Real” articles by my fellow colleagues and friends, and knew I had to dig deeper than just my normal stuff. I needed to find out what it really meant to Be Real to me.

Then I had an epiphany:

If I was truly “being real,” I would be a 300 pound woman.

It’s true, after much soul searching on what being real meant to me, I had an “ah ha” moment last Saturday night. I found myself at yet another dinner party, quietly trying to get through the night without anyone noticing I wasn’t eating. With my ninja like ways, I inconspicuously moved the food around my plate, while talking and laughing with friends. It’s not such a hard thing to do really, when you realize most of the other women there are doing it too. I knew then that I had found my answer on what being real meant to me. If I was being the true, genuine me…I would be overweight, with my hair clipped to the top of my head and no makeup. I would have a wine glass in one hand and a cinnamon roll in the other and a gigantic smile on my face.

That’s the real me – hippy, happy and enjoying the moment.

Unfortunately, I can’t do that. When I over eat, I balloon up like the blueberry girl in the Willy Wonka movie, yet there isn’t anyone around to juice me. For some reason the universe has decided that the food I love should go straight to my hips and arms. Arms, I know right? I’m a low-carber, which basically means I don’t eat anything with flour or processed sugar. So I am forever worried about what I’m eating, what’s in it and if it’s under my carb limit. It is exhausting, but necessary. I have been very heavy and fought my way to thin, and I work very hard to keep it that way.

Having been on both sides of the fence, I know how difficult and emotionally draining it is to be extremely overweight. The double standards, the mean comments on the street, the bullies, and mistreatment by others – it’s very tough to live that way. You’re not only fighting with yourself emotionally, but others feel the need to degrade you on a daily basis as well. Usually they think they’re giving advice, but really it’s just hurtful. Seriously, at one point I felt that if I heard, “You have such a beautiful face, if you lost weight you would be so pretty,” just one more time, I was going to lose it and tell them what I thought of their face – and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

If I could be downright, naked real with myself, I would love to be able to let go, and not worry about what I look like – and I’m not just talking about weight. I would love to be real enough to not need to wear makeup, to not care what other people are saying about me. To let go completely, be happy with myself, no matter the size, and find beauty within me, the person…not the cover. The trick is, if you love you…everyone else will too. It’s really not about the size, but your self-esteem. Your attitude towards you dictates everyone else’s. This I know, but the weight of society’s bullshit beauty ideas have been ingrained in me. We must be thin, we must look good, we must take care of ourselves or we are worthless. Is that what we’ve become? Is that really what our worth should be as women?

No. NEVER. We are more than our sizes, more than our looks, more than the color of our skin, or style of our hair. What is truly important and real, is what’s inside our “cover.” It’s what makes up our character, our soul. That’s our meaning, our worth…not whether we look good in a bikini.

Be real. This is where we as women need to stop pandering to the ideas thrust upon us from the media and start embracing what is real life. What is real in our world, what real women really look like, what WE look like. We should embrace each other, and let everyone be whom they choose to be…inside and out.

I want to be real, be real with myself.

Stand with me, be real and let’s eat the damn cake together!

SA Smith has always loved the magical life. She is the bestselling Amazon author of Forever, her four part young adult paranormal romance series. She also pens the Byte of Life column exclusively at The Feminine Collective. Having been diagnosed with CRPS over 12 years agao, SA uses her writing to spread social awareness of the disease. Writing is her passion, she often tells friends that writing is a journey for her. It’s like spending time with friends. “I just follow my characters along on their adventures, like a fly on the wall, and see where they take me.” SA currently lives in Florida with her best friend/husband and their one son.
SA Smith Online:
www.AuthorSASmith.com

Facebook:
WWW.facebook.com/SASmithOnline

Twitter:
@SherriAnnSmith

StumpleUpon:
www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/LoveBytes-SAS

Feminine Collecive:
http://femininecollective.com/byte-life-sa-smith/

Amazon Author page:
http://www.amazon.com/S.A.-Smith/e/B009G5C0SU/