It doesn’t matter if you were one of those people who played sports growing up or someone who has been a couch potato for a majority of your existence–working out sucks for everyone. Or at least, it blows in the beginning. The beginning, as in, that time when you’re trying to motivate yourself to get your life together after realizing your favorite pants no longer fit. That time when the new year begins, and you decide to use that as inspiration to get it right and tight (before heading back to the couch in March). That time when you realize your bikini body is not looking the way you had hoped and decide to do one of those 30-day squat challenges people post on social media in the hopes that at least your booty can be perky.
Knowing how much it sucks, and how much time and energy it takes to drop the pounds, if you could, would you avoid the gym altogether and just get the fat sucked right out from under you? I’m talking liposuction.
Love and Hip Hop LA‘s Teairra Mari decided to do just that recently. The “Feel Good” singer started her career as a tiny little thing when she was working with Jay Z and was signed to Roc-A-Fella. But by the time she joined Love and Hip Hop LA, she put on a little weight. It was nothing major, and nothing people really noticed–until it was brought up by a co-star who blamed an out-of-breath and out-of-tune performance by Mari on her being out of shape. He said such hurtful things as “Her stomach was all over the place,” and “You gotta get in the gym and work out.”
From that man with a bad body’s mouth, it all just sounded like hate. But by Season 2, Mari gained even more weight and could no longer hide it. And it was also apparent that she had allowed that weight to mess with her confidence. Plus, those jabs from her co-stars (including Princess Love calling her a “hippo” and saying that Ray J doesn’t want her “fat a–“) and folks on social media about her size probably didn’t help.
So she announced on a recent episode that she was thinking about getting some plastic surgery done to slim down. And in a bonus clip, we saw her explaining why. She wanted that immediate snapback. She also wanted that immediate happiness, as she shared with a friend:
“I told you before; I’ve just been feeling a little insecure about the weight gain. I don’t feel like myself. This weight feels like a barrier.”
She continued, “It’s been a wall in my life. I just don’t want to be this big.”
And on last night’s episode, she went through with her liposuction. The fat was sucked out from her stomach, and based on the bandages she displayed during her recovery process, she may also have had some taken out from underneath her chin. And while she wasn’t happy about the soreness, Mari seemed happy to have a little bit of extra weight off of her body and off of her shoulders.
I’m not here to bash Mari and hammer down the obvious, which is that with a few months of healthy eating and consistent time in the gym, she could have dropped some of that weight without putting her life at risk. Seriously, that’s not why I’m writing this. Rather, I’m just worried about the fact that before getting surgery, Mari never actually confronted how and why she wound up gaining so much weight in the first place.
And truly, that is what is important, especially when you’re not an individual who has battled with weight problems years upon years. If you don’t figure out what led you down a path of consistent unhealthy eating, while you can always head to the plastic surgeon, you could easily gain that weight back after surgery.
I recently lost about 40 pounds. To do that, I had to figure out what piece of the puzzle I was missing during my past attempts to lose weight. I started gaining a lot of weight near the end of college and afterward because I was getting lazy, and I was stressed. So instead of cooking something, I was making late-night stops to Burger King while studying for finals. Instead of staying to work out, I was getting tacos with shredded beef with my meal plan after my shift at the rec center. I was picking up gyros and fries after a shift folding panties at Victoria’s Secret. I was snacking while working on my stories late at night after working my full-time job all day. I was treating my body like whatever because my mind was all over the place. I didn’t care about looking fit because I wasn’t happy with the state of my existence. And during those years, I wasn’t happy with the state of my existence because I wasn’t fulfilled. Plus, you know, a sista didn’t really have the time to be a gym rat. So I ate until I felt good.
And the reality is that Teairra Mari has had a lot to emotionally eat about. Her music career, which she worked hard for, never really took off. Her relationship with Ray J, despite the decade she claims that they were together, was never a rewarding one. He didn’t even openly acknowledge her as his companion during their time together. And after thinking they were going to reunite at the end of Season 1, he expressed his dysfunctional devotion to Princess Love. And then there’s the legal trouble for reportedly fighting an Uber driver. Mari was inevitably charged with battery and theft, and could face possible jail time. There are also the mean folks who have openly stated that they think she’s “fat” online. And, of course, Mari lives in L.A. A place where image is everything, and if you don’t look the way you want or need to in order to find happiness and success, you can pay someone to get you there. Hence, Mari stating that she wanted to unveil her post-lipo body on the runway of a fashion show. She wanted to show other people how good she looks and how happy she finally is.
She’s a grown woman and can spend her dollars and cents as she pleases. But she was also always a beautiful woman who didn’t look like someone whose weight was spiraling out of control. Until there’s a grasp on how she ended up with the weight that she considered a barrier to her prosperity, there’s a scary chance that she could fall back into that hole–and fill it with food all over again.
