Me…and weight

**Note: I wrote this post several weeks ago and have been too afraid to share it. I’ve been struggling with this a lot over the past month or two, and didn’t have the courage to open up. But the other day, I saw a segment about this book and I almost started to cry. It was fitting that I was at the gym at the time, telling myself to work harder because of what I ate the night before. I immediately went home and bought the book and as I’m reading it it’s really hitting home for me. So that is what gave me the courage to finally share this.**

No recipe, today…no, this is another type of post. It’s a story that I’ve been wanting to tell, but I just didn’t know how, or when, and I didn’t have the courage. I’m not sure what my goal is here, except to be therapeutic maybe? It’s a little long, so I understand if you want to come back another day, when there’s sugar. But if you stick with me, thanks. 🙂

A few weeks ago I bought Jordan a dance uniform that the local HS cheer dancers wear. They had a clearance sale, so I got a shell and a skirt for $10. She was brimming with excitement to try it on. They’re size small, but meant to be small – tight – and are stretchy to accommodate. It’s a dance uniform, after all.

Her eyes were shining as she tried it on. She was so excited! And then I noticed her sucking in her stomach in the mirror. I asked her what she was doing. And she told me she was fat, so she needed to suck it in.

In that moment, my world and my heart shattered into a million little pieces.

Because she was only doing something that I do, every. single. day. I have sucking in my stomach down to an art form. Don’t we all?

Sure, society has given her influence. She watches TV, sees magazines. She is most certainly not fat, but she is a different body type than most of her friends. She’s cursed with my genes and my husband’s: stocky and built. Not fat – solid. Big boned. Prone to weight in the tummy. Her friends are all…not that way. She’s bigger than most of her friends – by design, not by fat.

As hard as I have tried to shield Jordan from my body image issues, I’ve failed. F-A-T. It’s a dirty word and I’ve said it, a million times.

I do not have a good relationship with body image. I always say I don’t have a good relationship with food, but that’s not the case. It’s body image, the way I feel that I look and the way I feel about myself. Body image and self-esteem are BFFs, in a way. Without a good body image, your self-esteem takes a pretty good hit. I’ve always had problems with both: I’m too fat, I’m not good enough, not pretty enough, not a good enough wife/mom/friend/blogger. This has roots that go way back, to where, I have no idea.

I first realized I was overweight when I was 10 years old. I had been blissfully going along, not noticing that the pre-puberty weight was actually chunk, until one day in the fifth grade. Someone was videotaping PE class. I was wearing a turquoise sweatsuit, one that was so popular in the 80s: pullover sweater and sweat pants in a bright solid color.

My world changed when we watched the video. All of a sudden I realized what everyone else could probably see. I was fat. Big. Blubber, as I was always called. The mean boys (and girls) were right!

After a few awkward years and a puberty growth spurt where weight distributed itself (ahem), I was down to a regular, normal non-chunky me. But I was still bigger than all my friends. I had passed the 100 mark. (I still remember that day too, like it was yesterday.)

In high school, teen angst, depression, and friend drama made my body image even worse. It was at that point that FAT became a regular member of my vocabulary. It’s also when I started hearing the voice in my head, the one that told me I was fat. Ugly. Not good enough. I wanted to stop eating. I wanted to be thin. I wanted to be in control of what I ate. But I didn’t stop eating. I watched the Tracey Gold saga play out in the headlines. I was obsessed with For the Love of Nancy. I wished I could be Kelly in the Peach Pit bathroom. But those people had to stop eating to do that. Who would want to stop eating?

{A future food blogger, I was.}

The voice in my head just told me that I wasn’t good enough, not controlled enough. I was a failure because I couldn’t become anorexic. I was a failure because I couldn’t purge that meal in the TGIFridays bathroom. The voice was good at telling me I was a failure at things, be it life, school, or food.

In college I was lonely. My boyfriend lived away. I didn’t make many friends. I lived at home, and my HS friends all went to the same junior college together, so they were having a HS part two. I gained a lot of weight.

The perfect storm happened one night my senior year. I had been broken up for awhile with no boyfriend prospects in sight. Then the pivotal thing in my relationship with control and food happened: I failed a test. Not just any test, one that I needed to get into a teaching program. It was a really difficult math exam, for future math teachers. I missed the cutoff by 3 points. I had never failed something so epic in my life. I had let everyone down: my parents, my teachers, myself.

That night, I stopped eating…mostly.

For a few months I lived on coffee and Excedrin. I ate dinner because I lived at home and had no choice but to eat with my parents. There would have been too many questions if I skipped dinner, so I ate it. It felt good, not just to lose the weight, but to be able to say no to something. No, I don’t want that cereal. No, I don’t want lunch. It felt good to be in control of what I wanted. Finally, I was strong enough. I dropped over 30 pounds in a month.

People noticed. I got compliments. I also finally, after so many years of coveting it, could see the triangle. You know the one: when skinny people stand upright with their legs together you can see a triangle of light through the thighs. I had one! Finally!

I remember being hungry. All. The. Time. My friends were worried about me, they urged me to eat. But I was too happy about needing a belt to wear my jeans to listen to them. I wasn’t anorexic, I didn’t have an eating disorder. I was just losing the weight I needed to lose.

I’ll never forget the day I started eating again. I went to breakfast with a couple friends, which turned out to be an intervention of sorts. They ordered me pancakes and stared at me so I’d eat. I still remember my inner conflict: eat the pancakes? Or not? I ate a bite of the pancakes. I made a decision that day, to not go all the way down the road I was headed.

That’s also the day I discovered laxatives. We don’t really need to go into that…you get the point. That went on for awhile, even into my relationship with Mel.

I made a choice to start eating again, but that certainly didn’t solve any problems. The voice in my head was still there – and strong. It’s still there today – I have never dealt with any of the issues that drove me to that point, and even though I wouldn’t ever stop eating again, I still wish I could. Every. Single. Day.

I was 5′ 4″ and 120 pounds when Mel and I started dating. I still remember pinching my tummy and calling myself fat. Now, I want to go back and slap that girl. Dude. 120 pounds? Be thankful!

Marital bliss changed my thinking. I stopped fixating, and got to a healthier me, but Mel would argue with that. F-A-T was always part of my vocabulary. I had Jordan. I gained an obscene amount of weight, but lost 50 pounds in 6 weeks because of water weight. But the 10 pounds left eluded me, and everything moved. Since I began blogging, I’ve gained a lot of weight. It’s very hard to be in this job and not, especially when you love sugar and have no willpower like I do.

I often feel like a hypocrite: I show you lots of sugar, and tell you how good it is. It is good, and I should know, because I eat it every day. But I beat myself up for every single bite. I pinch my fat and tell myself I’ll never be good. I’ll always be overweight. I refuse to weigh myself, because every number is like a stab to my heart. And when you roll your eyes at me because I say I’m fat, know that I’m not just saying it. I actually, 100%, feel it. I feel it on my stomach, in my thighs. I see it in my head. I feel it in my heart. I don’t say it for a “no, you’re not” answer. I say it because it’s my coping mechanism for how I feel about myself.

I’m not happy with the way I look, but I never have been. No matter what weight I am, I look in the mirror and I see that chubby 10 year old in her turquoise sweatsuit. And now, I’m passing down these wonderful traits to my daughter.

#momfail

I get comments all the time like, “how do you stay so thin?” and I laugh. I joke, and say “spanx” or “photoshop” but inside I’m saying, “those people are cray-cray” because they’ve never seen me naked and boy, a good black shirt can cover up anything. But I certainly don’t feel thin, not at all. I never have, and I’m not sure if I ever would – even if I lost another 30 pounds.

That episode with Jordan made me realize how unhappy I am with how feel about how I look. I mean, I always feel unhappy with how I look, but I’m realizing I need to change that. I’m not quite sure how. I don’t necessarily mean weight loss – I mean I need an attitude adjustment. I could lose 10 or 20 pounds, sure (and I should) but that’s not going to change how I feel about myself. Will losing weight change how my clothes fit? Yes. Will it make me happier? Yes, to a point. But I’m still going to feel fat. That’s what I need to change…somehow.

Here’s the thing: reading the book Almost Anorexic has made me realize something. For 15 years I told myself I didn’t have an eating disorder. That I don’t have one. I had “failed” at anorexia. I felt that if I told someone I had an eating disorder in college, or that I still suffer from symptoms, I felt that they would either (1) look at me and laugh or (2) get angry because my saying that was an insult to anorexics everywhere. But in reality? Eating disorders are a spectrum. Back in college I most definitely did suffer from an eating disorder. And guess what? I still do. Sure, I don’t starve myself. I don’t purge. But the self-belittlment I force on myself, the anger I feel when I eat, the hatred I feel for myself when I don’t work out hard enough, those are all symptoms that can fall on the eating disorder spectrum.

These feelings have been hitting me so much harder lately. Life is busy, I’m more stressed. My husband is being so successful at his weight loss. Bloggers around the internet are talking about the Food Blogger 15. Gaining weight seems to be the mark of a food blogger; it comes with the territory. I think all of this combined is making the voice in my head get louder.

Here is another thing I’m learning about myself: I’m scared. I’m scared to diet. I’m scared to cleanse, to change the way I eat. I’m scared to work with a trainer, I’m scared to try all those so-called natural gym booster supplements everyone uses. I’m scared of my scale. All of those things are triggers for me. I think I’m past the point of starving myself. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. All of those things are scary for me because they trigger the voice in my head. If I start a diet and cheat, I’ve failed. If I don’t work out as hard as I should, I’ve failed. I think what reading the book has me realizing is that losing weight is not the answer. Before I can lose weight, I need to silence the voice in my head.

I think I need to start realizing that I am me. I’m not a number. I’m not a pound or a dress size. My self worth should not be tied to weight. My body is my body and at 155 pounds or at 130, I need to be appreciative of it. I need to learn to accept me. Now, if I can learn to do that, I can probably bottle it and sell it for a million dollars. Because it’s something all women want, right? To be happy in their own skin?

The difference is I want Jordan to be happy in hers. I want her to put on her sparkly skirts and wacky leggings and be herself. I don’t want F-A-T to define her. When she’s called that in school, and she already has and will again, I’m sure, I want her to be able to shrug it off and say whatever, dude, I’m wearing a sparkly t-shirt and I’m happy about it. I’m not quite sure how to get her to that point, but I’m going to give it a concerted effort.

I’m going to try and cut myself some slack. If I eat a cookie, I’m going to try not to tell myself I’m ugly.

If I have a second (or third) bite after a photo shoot, I’m going to try not to hurl hurtful words at myself because I’m a disgusting piece of fat that cannot stop at one bite.

If I skip a day at the gym, I’m going to try not to tell myself I’m worthless and a piece of lard, which usually results in eating a tray of brownies.

I’m going to try not to pinch my stomach fat. That’ll be a hard one, because I do it so often, it’s a reflex.

I’m not sure if I’m going to be successful at any of those, because right now I’m certainly not. But I’m going to try.

I’m also going to tell the 10 year old fat girl in the mirror to get the f$*! out of my head. It’s about time she found something better to do.

Instead of saying “I’m fat” I am going to try saying “I’m me.”

{Now…if only I knew how to do that, I’d be golden…}

Thank you for reading. I just feel like I had to get that off my chest, and I feel better knowing I’ve finally said everything that’s been stuck inside me for a really, really long time. I appreciate it if you made it all the way through. 🙂

I’ll be back with sugar on Sunday. And, hopefully, less guilt.