Welcome to Body Type
This is Body Type, a newsletter about the tricky business of the physical self.
What is Body Type?
This newsletter will cover many topics under what I call the “body stuff” umbrella, like:
My thoughts (kudos and critiques!) on how people think and talk about bodies these days; how the tides are shifting away from “everyone should be as skinny as possible” and the nuances of that shift
What it’s like to be a fat person and then not a fat person: how people treat you, how it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, how you lose some bodily angst and gain some, too
How loaded and vague terms like “fit” and “healthy” can be
Learning to have a mostly peaceful relationship with your body (and why it’s OK if you can’t always get there)
Why learning to lift weights (for mental and physical strength, not just aesthetics) is the best thing that ever happened to me
What I won’t write about: weight loss strategies, diet tips/tricks, body-shaming/fat-shaming “advice,” anything with the intention of selling you products, plans, “detoxes,” etc.
Body Type is written by me, Mikala Jamison.
And who are you, Mikala Jamison?
I’m a writer (in my day job and freelance) who was once much heavier than I am now. I had binge eating disorder for years. Through my recovery, I’ve explored a lot about how I interact with food and exercise and how those interactions affect my brain. Now, I lift heavy weights, eat a lot of food that brings me joy, and work as a fitness instructor with a goal of shifting the “fitness” and “health” narratives away from the idea that working out is only for weight loss (you’ll never hear me talk about working off food or burning calories in my classes).
I’ve encountered the ideas that as a person who lost a lot of weight and is into working out, I must push a weight loss agenda on other people, that I must think of foods as “bad” foods or “good” foods, that I must reject or be ashamed of my former self—none of these ideas are true. I just have the perspective of having lived as a fat woman for 10+ years and a smaller woman for the past seven. I’ll use that perspective to explore a lot of “body stuff” with curiosity and empathy.
Having a body is complicated. I’m not entirely “cured” of my disordered thinking or behaviors just because my body changed. We live in a world that blasts us with a lot of noise about “body stuff,” and I’m trying to cut through it. I hope you’ll join me.