#ModelProblems: Getting Too Thin: it can Happen!

Hello everyone! I’ve been having a hard time with my weight, lately. After spending most of my 20s feeling too ‘big’ – squeezing into size 8s, even finding 10s a bit on the tight side, worrying about thighs and arms and chins – I’ve gone the other way.

This wasn’t intentional. I lost a dress size through my dance classes simply because I was going 2-3 times a week and giving them my all, and I was happy as I was eating as much – if not more – than ever.

Over the course of last year’s ups and downs, my weight fluctuated, but that felt pretty natural.

Then last year around November, I started feeling nauseous for no particular reason. Eating became a chore and I skipped loads of meals, finding food a struggle.

I then had a terrible cold and flu that stuck around for at least a month and had me floored. Eating made me feel teary – it just hurt so much and made me feel so sick – I remember even crying over a bowl of chicken broth and downing it and trying to keep it down.

Just to make it clear here: that isn’t ‘me’. Usual ‘me’ eats dinner and goes to bed dreaming of breakfast. I LOVE food, I love eating! I can make people stare at the sheer quantity I can imbibe. But for a good while, food was making me feel sick, so of course I was eating as little as possible.

This year has been all about building myself up, mentally, physically and emotionally, but there have still been testing times and it seems like my relationship with food in times of stress has changed. Strangely, I used to do the opposite and stress eat. When I was at Select, I was in a permanent state of semi-fear and as soon as the phone would ring, I’d start mindlessly shoving food into my mouth. Now, if I’m stressed, it’s like there’s a ball of tension in my throat and the thought of eating is very off-putting. I had become able to skip meals easily, not for weight reasons but just to avoid feeling uncomfortable and sicky.

The result was that my measurements dropped, at one point, to 26-23-34.5. They’re currently more at the 28-24-35 mark. They should ideally be an inch or two more all over.

Just to put that into perspective, that was the sort of measurements I was when I was 16. But now I have amazing clients like Fat Face and Debenhams and The White Company, and many of them want a bigger size 8-10, even 12, and I face losing them. My face can’t get away with being gaunt and I miss my chubbier cheeks. My ribs were poking out, my hip bones showed through jeans and my thighs, which I’d always berated for rubbing together, were like two little toothpicks.

OK so I hadn’t slept a wink the night before and this is on job 2 of 2 for that day. You can see that my face is gaunt, my chest is flat as a pancake, the clothes are hanging off me and my collarbones are really jutting. This was MID flu, and I was really badly ill and on top of that had sprained a rib, but I don’t like what I see. However, the more I got unhappy about that, the worse I felt, and the less I wanted to eat!

On top of that, I do find that people comment on it a lot. “You’re so THINNNN!” “OMG you’re so skinny!” “Woah what’s happened you’re TINY!” There is perhaps an assumption at times that I’m doing this to myself on purpose through extreme dieting, especially considering my job. As soon as they do, I feel quite protective and want to hide my body as I feel like there are deeper judgements attached to someone calling me very thin. It’s definitely been a journey as this is all quite new to me (of course I was super skinny as a kid and people commented on it, but now there is perhaps more of this judgement/concern attached now I’m older).

So I have been all about feeding myself up, and I wanted to give some words of advice to anyone in a similar position. I’m not on the other side, this is more of a freewheeling exploration of the last few months.

1) It takes time

For me, it’s taking AGES. I actually can’t even believe I’m moaning about it, as my industry is seen as so skinny-focused, but there is a pressure there not to lose clients and to look bustling with health and vibrancy. Bookings have been really good. Igor has gently told me when clients have mentioned my weight, but also realises that stress will make me lose it right away and tells me to just keep taking care of myself.

I could, of course, eat lots of donuts and chocolate and junk, but I don’t like eating lots of processed food and that will make me feel low and affect my energy, as well as giving me cellulite. I’m trying to do this quite methodically, and it’s getting there.

2) Have a plan

OK I’m not a nutritionist and I don’t have an exact diet plan. But I started small. I stayed at my parents and sipped Dioralyte and ate what I fancied: crumpets with Marmite and cheese, toast with butter, crackers. Then I moved up to super simple soups, and built myself up.

If I were to start sitting down to huge, rich dinners, I’d have made myself sick.

3) Fats fats fats!

I’ve just found ways to add fats to every meal. A drizzle of hemp oil, extra olive oil, nuts and seeds, nut butters. I love That Protein’s Nutty Nutty Peanut Butter protein powder: stirring it into porridge with honey in the morning is DELICIOUS! I cook with butter a lot and make cocoa with full fat milk.

Obviously not sustainable forever as I don’t want cholesterol problems but for now, it’s working and making my skin glowy!

4) There are enjoyable aspects to this…

There is a certain joy to all food being TOTALLY GUILT-FREE! Burger, chips and milkshake, sweet treats, pudding, large portions, another biscuit with my tea…I’m not going wild with sugar as cellulite and bad skin is a realistic concern, but the fact that I can eat these foods without an ION of consideration about future shoots/bikini polaroids/castings is rather joyful!

5) Implement structure

I’m much better now with the sickness. The nausea has largely gone, thankfully. And in making sure I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and plan my meals and my shopping for said meals, I am now hungry three times a day. In fact I’m ravenous when the time to eat comes around! Previously I just ate whenever I was hungry – sometimes tonnes in a day and sometimes twice – but now I’m quite regimented and that’s what is needed here.

In an ideal world I’d be vegan, but my body just reacts extremely well to meat and dairy, Having upped these lately, I can feel my energy truly start to rise from the inside.

6) It’s hard to figure out exercise

I don’t want to stop exercising! Also, I really don’t want to be skinny but lacking in tone. But the more cardio I do, the more calories I burn off, which doesn’t help with my weight goal.

I guess that what I’ve done with exercise is the opposite to how I’ve approached food lately. Usually I’m quite regimented with exercise, cos I don’t want to miss out on classes, improving and getting the mental clarity from cardio. But there have been times I’ve decided actually, I’m tired and I don’t want to do class tonight. Or I’ve gone with a really chilled out one like Yin Yoga. Overall I’m chilling out lots more and skipping classes for a big meal and early night at times.

7) Little by little

My dear, late departed Gran had a mantra: ‘little by little.’ She was all about making small steps and celebrating the small successes.

So each time I’m hungry even though I ate a few hours before, I give myself a pat on the back. When I look in the mirror and think that my face looks a bit brighter and healthier, I smile. Because my progress is pretty incremental, it can get very stressful for me, but that’s counter-intuitive as the second stress courses around my body, the weight seems to drop off.

I know I’m eating more, I know I’ll get there, so I have to celebrate the little victories.

8) Talk to people

One day, Igor said that a regular client had said I still seemed underweight. He said it VERY considerately and told me not to stress about it as he has the same problem with dropping weight as soon as he’s anxious, and knows I would worry. But I did get a bit upset. My Mum could tell and we chatted about it. I felt that:

Number 1, I hate not feeling professional, and turning up to jobs not at my best makes me sad.

Number 2, it felt like perhaps a very turbulent time in my life had made me sadder, but I’d still been able to turn up to jobs and faked it til i made it. I worried that maybe I looked as weak as, well, I felt and it was now showing.

She didn’t belittle how I felt, but she also said, “Look, you’ve been really, really ill. You just need time to build up. You’ll get there. And it’s a nice problem to have, enjoy all the food!”

Sometimes these worries can multiply and dramafy and escalate when you keep them inside, which doesn’t help! Having that chat made me realise that I needed to just chill out and enjoy the chips – I’d get there in the end.

I also talked to fellow model and blogger, Emily Vickers-Willis. Emily is frequently referred to as ‘the body’ because with the minimum of effort, she has a triathlete’s six pack, she’s extremely slight but also has boobs and a butt. It looks great in pics but in the flesh, over the years, I’ve noticed that she be prone to dropping just a miniscule amount of weight now and then. That’s not in ANY way a criticism, but, like me, her ribs can show with just the slightest illness or time of stress and I guess I can see it because I know that feeling myself. Also, I know that lots of ecom clients book Emily as the perfect ecom body, but that certain commercial clients will call her too thin. You’re never right for everyone! It had never seemed like a particularly bothersome issue to me, but then I experienced the last few months and figured she must hate hearing those words.

Click here to head to Emily’s Instagram

I also know that Emily speaks a lot about social anxiety and how she deals with it, so I reached out to her. She said….

“Being called too thin or very very thin has happened too many times for me to count. Each time I hear it my chest tightens. It sparks anxiety and sadness in me instantly. After almost 10 years of modelling I thought it would get easier to hear, but it doesn’t.

I’m exactly the same [as me – R] with food and stress. I feel sick if I eat when I’m stressed, and I think all my adrenaline goes towards the stress – then my body shuts off other things.

I have to force feed. Be educated in the right types of food to eat. I make sure I don’t skip a meal a day when I’m stressed, even if I feel like s**t when I’m eating it.’

As you can imagine from my earlier post: I totally relate! I think that surmising everything I’ve learned so far, it is important to find the balance between listening to your body and fighting it. I need to override the reluctance to eat, but also be kind and caring and gentle. It’s a positive thing in a way, because it’s made me address some of the causes of stress and anxiety and build myself back up from the bottom. Though the progress is slow, my energy is on the up and I’m feeling like I’m caring for myself a whole lot more.

If you have any tips on putting on weight, please share! And if you’ve faced similar problems, I’d love to hear how you dealt with them? Comment below!

Rebecca xx

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