Dominique Cortez-Montiho
Weighing In
Gain weight. Lose weight. Body dysmorphia.
I arrived six weeks early, weighing four pounds and six ounces. I stayed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Kapiolani Hospital for a week as the doctors and nurses inserted various tubes and wires into my fragile body. The beeping of monitors–the only sound that let them know that I was alive.
“You were so tiny. I was so scared to hold you,” my mom said. “All you wanted to do was sleep. We had to wake you up to feed you.”
I remained underweight as a young child. I could wear my toddler clothes at five. My favorite was my long-sleeved purple nightgown with a smiling Barney the Dinosaur printed on the front.
“As you can see on this chart here, she weighs below the average of kids her age,” Dr. Chad said as he pointed to the paper graph. The blue lines represented the normal body weights of healthy children in my age group. The red line charted my weight–which fell significantly below the blue one.
“Have her drink some Pediasure,” Dr. Chad added.
I hated Pediasure. I hated the thick, chalky aftertaste that lingered in my mouth. I lied to my parents about drinking it, pouring the liquid down the sink and throwing the bottle in the trash when they weren’t looking.
My family members said I “ate like a bird” and nicknamed me Skinny Bones.
They said I would gain more weight if I ate more rice. I hated rice. Its texture felt mushy in my mouth, but rice was a staple dish at our family parties. My mom put a scoop of it on my plate to encourage me to eat it. I slowly scooped a tiny piece of rice onto my spoon and brought it to my mouth. I scrunched my nose and eyebrows as I took a bite. I spat it out into a napkin and threw it away. I remember seeing the disappointed and surprised looks from everyone.
“How come you don’t eat rice, Dominique? No wonder you’re so skinny,” my Auntie Doreen said. I had an overabundance of aunties on my mom’s side, and cooking was their love language. Their memories of growing up poor and without much food lingered at the backs of their minds. It was their life’s mission to ensure that none of their children went hungry.
I continued to avoid eating rice at all costs. That changed when I entered the second grade.
One night, my mom cooked a batch of crispy fried chicken thighs. Its salty and savory flavors lingered on my tongue. I had a huge scoop of rice on the side of my plate. Combining the two was a delectable experience and I did not hesitate to have a second serving.
I liked eating.
But the thrill and excitement of eating did not stop there. I ate when I was hungry. I ate when I was bored. I indulged in various bags of salty chips, chocolate chip cookies, fruit snacks, and sweet canned juices throughout the day. I ate to feel a sense of happiness and to escape from the chaos and dysfunction of home. My body froze every time my parents argued, but the surge of dopamine that flooded my brain from eating took me out of freeze mode. My mind began to associate eating as a reward. I did not learn to control it.
My yearbook photo at the beginning of second grade and my spring photo in the second semester showed my drastic weight gain. My once chiseled features were now hidden under my round, plump cheeks. I still felt cute in my pink blouse and black skirt and smiled widely. I was not yet aware of my heavier frame, or of the judgements that came with it.
My Auntie Jade picked me up after school one day and we stopped at the gas station. One of the afterschool program leaders worked at the mini mart part time. “I can’t believe how big she got,” she said as she rang up my auntie’s purchase. She sat on a small metal stool behind the cash register and peered down at me. I felt the judgment in her eyes. I shifted behind my auntie’s legs to conceal my body.
Why would she say that? Does she know that I can hear her? It’s not like she’s the smallest person in the world. She should take a look at herself.
“She’s a growing girl,” Auntie Jade replied with a smile.
This was the day I knew my body’s weight. It was the first time I felt shame. Self-hatred and insecurity had taken root in my young eight-year-old mind. I remained quiet during the car ride as I internalized her words.
The comments did not stop there. The worst ones were from my father and brother.
“Haha, you’re so fat, Dominique!”
“Look how chubby you are.”
“You’re so fat and ugly.”
I went from being called Skinny Bones to Thunder Thighs.
In the third grade, I was determined to lose weight and get in shape. My Auntie Lynn let me borrow a few of her exercise DVDs. I could never keep up with how quickly the instructors and participants moved, but I did my best to mimic their motions. Moving and getting my heart rate up was better than doing nothing at all.
Twenty jumping jacks. Twenty push-ups. Twenty sit ups. You can do this, Dominique.
I repeated this workout routine in my bedroom every day after school. I increased the sets until I reached thirty, then forty, and then fifty. I eventually worked my way up to one hundred.
My mom walked into my room to check on me one evening and saw me lying on the floor gasping for breath.
“What are you doing? Why are you breathing so hard?”
“I was exercising,” I replied.
“Take a bath,” she said, turning to leave the room.
I had a small growth spurt in fourth and fifth grade–I was skinny again. I enjoyed the feeling of running around the field during recess. My steps were quick and light. I felt like I could fly. I climbed up and down the playground, and I easily swung across the monkey bars and back. I joined the basketball team and pushed myself to do well during practices and exercise drills. I dribbled the ball across the court and scored three pointers with ease. Sometimes I overexerted myself and puked on the court from exhaustion.
I’m never going to let myself get chubby ever again.
I regained the weight in middle school.
My best friend and I were eating lunch in the cafeteria with two boys in our class. One of the boys was friendly and kind to me, while the other was not.
“I don’t know why you like her, dude. She’s kinda chubby,” he whispered, not knowing that I overheard him.
His words lingered at the back of my mind for the rest of the school day. Summer break was quickly approaching, and I used his words to fuel my motivation to get back into shape.
My dad inspired me to get back into shape. He was passionate about body building – he was six feet tall and weighed an average of 250 pounds. He frequently flexed his huge muscles and posed in front of mirrors. I wanted to be as strong and muscular as him. I worked out rigorously with him during the summer before eighth grade. We walked up and down the hills of Makakilo–it was the only time I got to bond with him. I did jumping jacks, squats, sit-ups, and push-ups while he weightlifted outside on our patio. The only weights I lifted were light five-pound dumbbells for bicep curls.
I copied my dad’s poses and admired the toned muscles of my arms, thighs, and calves. My hard work was paying off. I was determined to reach 100 pounds before going back to school. I restricted my diet to a small bowl of cereal for breakfast and tiny salads, sandwiches, and apples for lunch. I carefully placed tiny portions of my dinner onto my plate.
No seconds, Dominique. Only drink water. No sugars or dessert.
I tried to eat a couple of Oreos and milk one night as a reward. One cheat day shouldn’t hurt, I thought. The headache and nausea set in quickly as I finished eating my dessert. My hands shook. I clutched my mouth and stomach, and I ran to the bathroom and puked. My body had adapted to consuming a low amount of sugar. The sudden increase of my baseline sugar levels caused my body to reject it.
I ate like this for a couple of months in addition to working out five times a week. My weight quickly dropped on the scale. Towards the end of summer break, I weighed in at 113 pounds. I smiled seeing my thin frame in the mirror. I ran my hands down my stomach and liked its flatness from my side profile. A tiny set of defined abs visibly defined my stomach when I lifted my shirt. My collarbones stuck out. I could wrap my entire hand around my wrist. It was a measure of being almost thin enough.
A few nights before the beginning of eighth grade, my father yelled up the stairs. “Dominique, get down here.”
I’d just finished taking a bath and was getting ready for bed.
I walked down to the kitchen and was surprised to see the upset and concerned looks on their faces.
“Dominique, you’re getting too skinny,” my mom said.
“I’ve been working out and dieting,” I said as I raised and dropped my arms and shoulders in disbelief.
“You’re losing too much weight too fast. You’re getting too thin. It needs to stop,” my dad said. “Do you want the bigger girls to beat you up and bully you?”
I was so confused.
They teased me for being chubby as a child, and now they’re telling me I’m too skinny. I can never win – I wrote in my diary that night.
I remained skinny throughout my early high school years but gained a significant amount of weight during my senior year. My life was full of chaos. My parents fought constantly, and I was stuck playing referee and therapist. I didn’t get along with one of my teachers. Sitting in his class was the epitome of being in hell. My relationship with my boyfriend was rocky–we broke up and got back together several times. The stress was overwhelming. I turned towards the only solution that always seemed to relieve the stresses from my life: eating.
The heaviness of my life weighed on my mind, body, and soul. I realized that my family would never stop commenting on my body no matter what size I was or how much I weighed. I gained 30 pounds towards the end of senior year. I attempted to hide the weight I gained by wearing large sweaters and sweatpants. I tried to lose weight before graduation by running around the field at the neighborhood park. I gasped for air and nearly threw up from overexerting myself.
I continued to struggle with my weight. An unhealthy and toxic marriage brought me to my heaviest. We lived on the East Coast, surrounded by an overabundance of fast-food restaurants. It was easier to order takeout on the nights we argued, neither of us having the energy to cook dinner. Our meals were silent, and we often went to bed without saying a word to each other.
I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror. I had never been that heavy. In my eyes, my short frame didn’t help to distribute the extra weight and fat in a pleasing way. I began to worry when I constantly woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.
Something is wrong. I’m always waking up to pee in the middle of the night. I’m constantly tired throughout the day. My brain is foggy. The thoughts haunted the back of my mind for months. I expressed my concerns to my husband, but his usual response was, “I don’t know what to say.”
One day I decided to google frequent urination and saw diabetes listed at the top of the search results. Diabetes plagued both sides of my family. I saw my father struggle to maintain his and watched my mother actively deny hers throughout my life. I decided to get my blood levels checked.
I had to know.
The severity of my situation dawned on me when I received a life-changing phone call. “Dominique, we’re calling to inform you that your blood tests came back. Your blood sugars are high. You have prediabetes,” the nurse said.
“What do you mean I’m prediabetic? I’m only 21!”
I’m so ashamed. People my age don’t worry about things like that. I should be healthy. Am I going to die young? The worrisome thoughts were endless.
I would defeat this monster that invaded my life.
I cut out sugary snacks and high carb foods from my diet. I restricted myself to salads, grilled chicken breast, and fruits. I forced myself to eat this same meal every single day. The medications quickly dropped my blood sugars, so I had to monitor how often I ate. There’s a delicate balance for healthy blood sugar levels–the highs and the lows two opposite extremes of each other with their own sets of complications and risks. I have experienced both. If I overexerted myself or did not eat enough before working out, my sugars quickly dropped to hypoglycemic levels. I did an excessive amount of cardio – determined to lose the weight and fat as quickly as possible. I lost 40 pounds in four months.
Success! I lost 10 pounds every month. I can do this. I’ll be at my goal weight in no time.
Four months later my A1C levels dropped significantly. I bought new clothes as my old ones no longer fit me. I did not see the progress of my work until I took before and after photos.
Gain weight. Lose weight. Body dysmorphia. Every time I looked at myself in the mirror, all I could see was a larger and distorted version of myself no matter how much weight I lost.
I posted my collage on Facebook and Instagram. I wore the same cobalt blue workout shirt and black leggings in both photos. Comparing the two photos side by side finally showed me the progress I made on my weight loss journey. My posts were instantly flooded with comments and likes.
Wow! Congratulations!
That’s amazing!! What’s your secret?
So so soooo proud of you!!
You go girl!
No one was aware of the reason I’d embarked on a weight loss journey. I was determined to keep it a secret from anyone outside of my immediate family. The praise motivated me to continue–until my entire life fell apart. The timeline of my undoing went as follows:
July 2019: Dad passed away.
August 2019: I moved back home.
December 2019: My husband deployed.
January 2020: I started working as a phlebotomist.
March 2020: The COVID-19 pandemic, and the world went into lockdown.
May 2020: My husband cheated on me and wanted a divorce.
February 2021: My divorce was finalized.
I went to the gym to cope with the pain from my separation and divorce. Pushing and pulling the weights distracted me from the negative thoughts and pain in my heart. My aching muscles and exhaustion only helped to numb my mind. I looked forward to the rush of endorphins after a good workout – the elevation of my mood. My time was filled–work, gym, school, repeat.
It is easy to fall into old and bad habits. I went on several dating apps. I was not used to the overwhelming attention. Messages and match notifications bombarded my phone. I got excited whenever I received compliments and flirtatious messages – they served to distract me from my broken heart. Some were easier to talk to than others, and we bonded over traumas.
I was a twig in high school. I could never put on weight no matter how much I worked out, he texted.
Lucky you. I always gained weight so easily. I used to be so heavy before, I texted back.
Really? Let me see.
Only if you show me how skinny you were before.
He sent me a picture of him in high school and I sent him my progress picture.
Wow, that’s a big difference. Good job.
I know. I hated the way I looked back then.
At least you look good now lol.
It was a backhanded compliment.
People–strangers, my family, men online–treated me better when I lost weight. My relationship with my body, my eating habits, and my weight loss journey are still works in progress. No more starving myself. No more overexerting myself to the point of exhaustion. No more seeking validation from others. I know that one day I will learn to fully love and accept myself as I am. One day, I will not allow body dysmorphia to plague my life.
Dominique Cortez-Montiho is an alumna from the University of Hawai’i–West Oʻahu. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities with a concentration in English with distinction. She was born and raised on the island of Oʻahu and grew up in Kapolei. She is a former phlebotomist or “professional vampire,” as she calls it. Her life goals are to publish a bestselling book series and to travel around the world. The proud cat mom and self-identified pop culture nerd enjoys watching anime, reading fantasy novels, and eating sushi.