Guest Post: A Former Miss America Contestant Weighs In on Weight Loss, Body Image, and Whose Opinion Really Matters
For Fitness Monday this week, we have a guest post from my friend Kelli Talicska Turner, a former Miss Michigan and Miss America contestant, who is sharing with us a little bit about her journey with beauty pageants, weight loss, and body image.
Here’s Kelli:
When Harmony asked me to write a guest blog post about some of my “weight” experiences, I didn’t know where to begin. I had no idea what I was going to say. I mean, how does a girl explain 34 years of something in 500 words or less? And just so you’re warned, I can’t even say “good morning” in 500 words or less, so this will be a little bit lengthy. Ha! So grab that yummy coffee and settle in with me for the next 3,000 words or so. I am so glad you’re here!
If I started by saying that I’ve never really cared about my weight, there’d be a crowd of people behind me calling me a big fat liar. Okay, so none of them would actually call me “big” or “fat” or “liar” – they are too kind for that, and they don’t use such words – but let’s just look into a few things they might happen to mention:
Mom: What about all those years of high school prom/homecoming/dress shopping trips that ended in tears with you asking for ice cream and me re-constructing dresses for a “perfect fit” that was also “flattering?”
Sister: I seem to remember mailing you countless outfits for dates because you had nothing that fit and could find nothing in the stores.
BFF: Remember that pot of cabbage soup you brought to my house and left out on the porch during winter so you could “complete” the Cabbage Soup Diet? (I never did “complete” that diet… I mean, cabbage soup? For a week? YUCK. What was I thinking?)
Grad School Peeps: Weight Watchers? Atkins? And remember how that last one turned out? How we had to fetch pizza and coke for you after class because you nearly passed out from carbohydrate deficiency?
Husband: That Anti-Cancer Diet? Paleo? Remember when you wanted to be vegan? (Hahaha… yeah, that lasted about two seconds. Then I ate a piece of cheese and remembered the goodness of dairy. Mmmm. Cheese.)
Here’s the thing. I’ve always been a bigger girl. “Pretty plus” or “big boned,” I think they called it back in my day. I always thought that it was just my genetic makeup – that I could just never be a smaller person. And unless I totally blocked it from my memory, it never really bothered me growing up. That’s why I said I never really cared about my weight. Oh sure, I do remember being a little bit self-conscious about it at pool parties. (Yay for baggy t-shirts to cover swimsuits!) Other than that? I can’t remember. And yet, all of these diet/weight-related things that friends and family have experienced with me are true. I cannot and will not deny a single one.
Yes, I’ve always tried new diets. Yes, I have cried about my weight or how I’ve looked, but in a really, really odd way, it never bothered me to the point that I cared straight deep into my soul. Though my actions spoke loudly and I did try to lose weight, inside, I was just kind of like, “eh” to it all. I was generally happy with myself. Maybe I was trying to protect myself? Maybe I was just trying to not care? Maybe I really didn’t care? I don’t know. But if I really had to speak to the core of myself and be honest with all of you, I can say that I never cared to the point of devastation or self-loathing, and I am so thankful for that.
I laugh when I say that I’ve gained and lost about a thousand pounds in my life, but it’s pretty true. I’ve been 115 pounds and I’ve been over 200 and I’ve been everywhere in between. Right now, I’m rocking the 190’s and I tell you that to be honest. Because why not?! You’re going to see it if you look at me. You’re going to see the chocolate I’m eating as I type this and the fact that I haven’t been to the gym in, oh, about four years, and you’ll see the leftover stomach from that almost-three-year-old angel sleeping upstairs, and you’ll see the arms that stick out way farther than I’d like them to. (Okay, I have always hated my big arms. Sorry, I felt like I needed to confess that. The big arms. Yes. Never liked them.) And while all of that is part of my story, it doesn’t tell my story and it’s not the end of my story. It’s just the truth about me right now.
When I was 21, I entered Miss Auburn, my first local pageant, and a preliminary pageant to the Miss Michigan Pageant. I competed for something to do and to try and win some scholarship money for college. Also, the directors of the pageant were awesome people and I wanted to be supportive of their program. I got a“flattering” swimsuit, and I learned how to walk in heels at about 155 pounds. I got second runner up. A few locals later, I got first runner up, but ended up being “promoted” to winner when the actual winner gave up her title. That meant I got to go to Miss Michigan! Wow! It was a learning experience and very fun. I probably was the heaviest contestant on the stage, but that pales in comparison to the other issues of that time. Did I mention I sang “Swannee River” in a sequined pantsuit? I totally did. See? Bigger fish. Anyway, I didn’t place at all at Miss Michigan that year (shocker), but I kept on competing and placing as runner-up in locals over the next few years, winning excellent scholarship money along the way. Two years later, I won Miss Heart of Michigan and then placed as third runner-up at Miss Michigan. I was ecstatic about it (side note: my sister won fourth runner-up! How awesome is that?) and with all my graduate school work and crazy-busy life, I decided that third runner-up at Miss Michigan was a great way to end my pageant days.
But God had a different plan. The directors of the Miss Heart of Michigan pageant (Jeff and Kathy, who were my local pageant directors) are Godly, beautiful people. Actually, the pageant world is filled with many wonderful people I am blessed to know. Anyway, Jeff and Kathy came to me and said, “We really believe God has more for you to do. We want to ask the Board of Directors if we could release you from your local title early so that you can compete one more year.” (You can only compete through age 24 in the Miss America system and had I not been released from Miss Heart, I would have been too old to compete the following year.) I agreed, but only if they initiated the request, not me, and I saw in writing that it was approved. I also decided that I would not compete in any local pageants that did not support the same for their titleholders. That seemed only fair to me. I ended up competing in the Miss Kalamazoo pageant and won. (Side note 2: my sister was the outgoing Miss Kalamazoo and got to pass off her crown to me!)
When I won Miss Kalamazoo, I knew I was heading to Miss Michigan for the final time. It was never my life goal to be a “Miss” anything, but I was overwhelmed by the feeling that if God really wanted this for my life, for whatever reason, I would have to do my part. I knew without a doubt that I would have to do everything I could to prepare myself for whatever doors God wanted to open, and that meant readying myself emotionally, cognitively, spiritually, and physically. I was supported by an incredible local director, Evelyn, whose family and husband “adopted” me as one of their own. My parents invested in a trainer for my sister and me when we competed the year before, and I continued my work with her. I ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and did Pilates and ran and ran and ran and ran and was in the best shape of my life. And contrary to pageant stereotypes, I was really healthy. I felt awesome! (Side note 3: most girls who compete in pageants are healthy.) I trained my body, and I trained my brain, and I loved my community service, and I did all I could to really search deep within myself to pinpoint my values and my worldview in Christ. If I was going to go “all in,” I wanted to go as myself, and not as a version of anything or anyone that anyone thought I should or could be. I wanted to be real. I wanted to be authentic. And I wanted to reflect Jesus.
As it turned out, I won Miss Michigan that year. If you would have told me even four years earlier that I would be Miss Michigan, I would have laughed right out loud. Probably for days. And then I would have laughed some more. It just wasn’t even a blip on my radar. So I trained some more to get ready for Miss America. At that point, I didn’t even care about winning Miss America. I was just so proud to be Miss Michigan and to serve and love the people I was fortunate to meet along the way. It was like a fairytale. Getting to experience Miss America was just icing on the cake.
And then…
I went wardrobe shopping with my amazing wardrobe manager/traveling companion, Wendy. We bought some beautiful clothes and I couldn’t even believe the sizes I was buying! Some things I even initially refused to try on because I swore they would be too small… and they ended up being too big! It was one of the most fun times of my life. From being the girl who always thought she was “big boned” to slipping into sizes that seemed unreal, I felt like I was in some sort of fashion movie.
Many of the clothes we bought had to be altered even smaller. Things like my interview suit required an extremely snug fit, to look as professional as possible. Could this really be? Me, the girl who had to buy not-so-favorite outfits because they needed to cover all “those” areas was now buying off the smallest size sale racks and then altering the clothing to be even smaller? Insane!
For anyone who has lost and gained and lost and gained and lost weight, you know the euphoria of fitting into something that seems unreachable. Even though I had never “cared” about my weight, I have to say that day felt so good!
After the alterations were completed, I scooped up all my clothes in excitement and I took them to show them to someone close to me. I could have burst, I was so thrilled. I expected this person to celebrate with me. Instead, this person said through a snort and anger and words of disgust, “I don’t even know why you altered those clothes so small. What a waste! You’ll wear them once for Miss America and then they’ll never fit you again. What. A. Waste.” And then that person walked away.
And there it was. Out in the open. Like a slap to my face.
I now understand that person had some own hurt of his/her own. We all say things we wish we could take back (PSA for guarding your tongue!), and I’m sure that person would take back those words if he/she only knew. But in those hurtful words, in that instant, I wrongly gave a foothold to an opinion that had no place or validity in my life. A person’s words hurt and uprooted me, but I continued to hurt myself by not planting myself back into God’s truth about my life. If I never cared too much about my weight before that day, if I never cared too much about others’ opinions regarding my weight, that was the day I did care. I cared that one person expected me to fail, to not keep the weight off. And if someone who cared about me thought that, well, then I assumed other people felt that way too. Following Miss America, I had a steady weight gain throughout the remainder of my year as Miss Michigan, along with some amazing opportunities to love on people. I asked God to anoint my year, to lead me to people who needed love. To let me know and share Himself. God didn’t let a second of my year go to waste. I loved being Miss Michigan. I would do it again in a heartbeat.
And sure, I didn’t like that I gained weight, but from the moment that one, stinging statement was made, I had invested a part of my heart in an earthly opinion, and I came to believe a lie that hurt me both emotionally and physically. And so I quit. I quit trying to be healthy. I quit trying to take care of the vessel God gave me. I quit maintaining everything about my physical body. Well, except my hair and makeup, because please. Like I could quit on my excellent hairdresser and MAC makeup. Um, no.
It’s been ten years since that pivotal moment, and my weight has been up and down, and now steadily up with the addition of a growing family. Writing this article really forced me to look at some things in my life and to understand a truth about weight, weight loss, weight gain, and life in general that I think speaks to the core of many women (and men, too):
God’s truth about us should never be exchanged for other people’s opinions of us.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a battered heart. I don’t want to be confused or live according to people’s changing opinions of me. I don’t want the world to say who I am. I don’t want to walk through my short earthly existence in a messy fog. I’ve done those things, and it’s exhausting and depressing. And it’s not biblical. It’s not God’s design. I’ve walked some really awesome paths and some extremely difficult emotional roads, and I’ve found that being a wife and a mother are about the most sanctifying jobs ever. I’ve inadvertently tied my identity to so many things – childhood scars, friends, boyfriends, husband, child, jobs, family, hobbies – and I’ve finally come to grasp the truth that my identity can only be found in Christ. And when I look back on my life at this very moment, it’s like I can see God just smiling and shaking His head. Can’t you see that? The laugh lines and the wide open arms? Like home for a weary soul. An everlasting place of love.
It’s taken me 34 years to even begin to understand much of anything, but I see more clearly than ever that identity is not found in any one thing or in any one opinion. It is found only in the Truth of God. And since I was asked to talk specifically about weight and body issues, let me state in plain English that regarding your body, no one’s opinion matters but God’s.
Do I think that God wants us to be healthy and maintain a weight that is ideal for our bodies so that we can live out His plan for our lives? Absolutely I do. And for me, that’s going to mean making some changes in the way I eat and exercise. God certainly has strong words regarding gluttony and taking care of our bodies because they are temples of the Holy Spirit. He does this to help take care of us. But do I think that God thinks we should be skinny or fat or medium or pudgy or trim or [fill in your preferred body adjective here]? No. No, I don’t. And if God doesn’t have an opinion about those things, than neither should you give anyone that authority in your life. Remember that even your opinion of yourself (negative or positive) is trumped by God’s truth of who He made you to be.
By the world’s standards, I’ve been fat, I’ve been skinny, and I’ve been everything in between. I’ve been encouraged and I’ve been defeated and I’ve been loved and I’ve been hated. I’ve felt acceptance and I’ve felt the bitter pain of learning the deep secrets about how people really feel about me, even if it really was just their own pain. Pain is pain. It’s going to come from somewhere. We live in a fallen world, and we were guaranteed pain because of sin. But God is so much bigger than pain. And He comforts and soothes and loves and gives us grace and mercy. He gives us the ability to forgive others so that we, too, can be forgiven, and in turn, heal, as we live in His truth: We are perfectly and wonderfully made by the Creator of the Universe.
Maybe some of you need emotional healing. Maybe some need physical healing. Or spiritual healing, even. I urge you to find it. To hear God’s voice in your life. To understand that He is the only Truth. That only He can bring redemption and joy and love and peace.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Not that I’ve glossed over this verse, but because people quote it frequently, I don’t think I’ve given it the full measure it’s due. It kept coming to mind as I was typing, and I think it is so fitting.
God never says this world will be easy, but I don’t believe for a second He won’t give you more than you can handle. On the contrary, I think He’ll give you more than you can handle so that you have to rely on Him to make it through.
Whatever your “mountain” is right now – whether it’s weight or relationships or work or finances or personal issues – God knows the plans He has for you. Regardless of what you think, regardless of what other people think, God has plans to prosper you and not harm you. God has plans for your hope and your future. And He’s had those plans since before the foundation of the earth was laid.
May God bless you today in all your struggles and in all your victories. You are loved. And you are amazing. Because God made you perfectly. Celebrate His creation today!
~Kelli
