PREFACE: You should love your body. Being thin is not everyone’s goal, and I don’t mean to imply that it should be. This is my journey, and I share it not to compare to you. I share it so that you see who I am and understand my insecurity. Thank you for being kind.
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It’s safe to say I’ve struggled with disordered eating since college. It’s more than safe to say that I’ve had body insecurity since childhood.
Weight is my dragon.
My body’s shape and size is the beast I’ve battled my whole life. Sometimes, I have the dragon by the tail. Sometimes, the dragon has me in its clutches.
When I was a teenager, I weighed… honestly, I don’t know what my top end was. But I’d guess a good 100 pounds more than ideal for my height. My first two jobs were a “smoothie shop” (aka liquefied ice cream blended with more carbs), and then a bulk candy store. I used to drink an extra-large chocolate banana smoothie and then go home and eat dinner. I had no idea how many calories I was consuming. Forget about macros. This was the 90s. Snackwells were diet food. Seventeen magazine showed us cellulite on fucking children. We were supposed to be alarmingly thin naturally.
Not a size 0? Easy! You could fix that. Simply eat two bowls of cardboard they called cereal in a day and then have a “sensible dinner.” Or drink chalky shakes for two meals, again with a “sensible dinner” (whatever the hell that meant). Or take Xenadrine or any of the other disgusting, caffeine-laden pills that were available in your local drugstore.
I did all of those things. And I was still miserable.
I hated my body. Hated watching my peers scarf the same kind of food I did and stay thin. Hated moving in general. I wore J*NCO jeans (IYKYK) and baggy tees as a uniform for at least two straight years. I thought if my clothes were bigger than I was, then my size wouldn’t be as noticeable. I alternated between begging my mom to help (even though she didn’t know how) and hiding away from my family, denying my misery. I saw myself as ugly.
That does things to your personality. Moving through adolescence with no confidence in your desirability impacts how you show up as an adult. It’s quite the thing to look in the mirror and find yourself beautiful. I didn’t learn that until just a few years ago.
Somewhere in 12th grade, I made two small shifts. One, I started walking. Two, I stopped eating candy when I worked. I would have a jawbreaker instead to quell the hand-to-mouth itch. Not pills, not meal shakes, not anything crazy. Just those two things. But they were the starting point for a lifelong change. I lost weight through college. At the end of my senior year, I went on the South Beach Diet. Cue angels singing—I was actually thin! Take that, dragon!
Of course, I moved home, got an office job, and promptly put on ten pounds. Point, dragon.
And so the battle went on. It became less of a battle and more of a lifestyle. I became a person who watched what she ate all the damn time. I went to the gym 5-6 times a week. Plus, I lived in Brooklyn, so I walked everywhere. Sometimes I felt good in my body. Sometimes I wasn’t happy with it. Through those ups and downs, though, I always wanted to lose “a little more” weight. I perpetually desired a slightly smaller body.
I still do.
I have never had an eating disorder. I have cried over my weight, felt shame at the scale, worked out insane amounts to “balance” an indulgent meal, and even, on rare occasion, vomited if I felt like I ate too much. But I have never been dangerously thin, unable to eat, or lost my period due to diet or exercise. Eating disorders are very specifically defined, and I have respect and sympathy for that.
Disordered eating, however, is a different scenario. I’m glad that this term has emerged to cover people like me. People who can’t sit down to a meal without thinking of the caloric impact, what they’ve eaten in the day, and whether they should skip a meal later. People who work out incessantly as a counterbalance to eating or promise they’ll do an extra-long gym session to make up for enjoying a meal. People who think about macros every day. That’s me. I’m her. * That is the dragon.
*I’m not her as much anymore. In the past year, I broke the “gymorexic” cycle of working out to atone. I don’t think about foods in the same way as much, but that is because I’m following the 4-hour diet framework. The only macro I count is protein now. But on “cheat” day, while I do eat whatever I want, I definitely still think about it. It’s hard for me to eat a meal where I don’t at least think about the calories/macros I’m consuming. Even now. But it is much, much better than it used to be. I’m working on the mental bargaining a lot.
I currently weigh more than I want to, but I’m no longer ashamed of the scale. I would like to be smaller, but I don’t tie that desire to my worth anymore. I am sexy as hell, I am strong and fit, and I like myself. So while I would be happier about 15 pounds lighter, it isn’t the burden that it used to be.
The dragon, at long last, has given up the battle. He just kind of growls at me every now and then.
YOUR TURN:
1. What is your dragon? What insecurities do you hold, and how have you worked to vanquish them? Journal about this, including new tools or re-affirmations you might need to hear to realize that dragon is just a lizard you’ve given power.