Good With Cheese

I was a mean dieter.  Probably because of the hunger, but I was very, very cruel about other women’s bodies.  Not outwardly, of course, because I was mostly raised right, but unkind thoughts abounded.

I’m terribly ashamed of this now.  I recognize that I absolutely hated myself and hated what I was having to do to get society’s approval, and I deeply, deeply resented women who didn’t put themselves through the same misery.  I was jealous and also confused and terrified; what if all the pain and sadness I was putting myself through didn’t make me happy?

Of course it didn’t.  It can’t.  Because as long as your actions are telling you every day that you’re still not good enough?  You’re not gonna be happy.

Lately, I’ve found myself looking at other women, women of all shapes and sizes, and I’m stunned to find that there are so many different kinds of pretty out there.  And being able to look at them and see how lovely they are, well, that makes it easier to look at myself and see beauty there, too.

So, when I find myself in front of the mirror comparing myself unfavorably to a Weeble, I’m able to stop now and think about the many different kinds of pretty I’ve seen just today, and realize that Weebles are pretty damn cute, too.

Because I’m still very new to body and fat acceptance, I mostly focus right now on accepting my own fat and my own body.  I don’t feel like I have enough knowledge and background to really spread the message.

But I’m finding it harder these days to keep my new ideas to myself.

A coworker says she needs to lose 10 pounds? I ask why.

An acquaintance says she can’t trust herself around chocolate? I drag out the giant bag of Rolos I have in my purse and tell her about legalizing food and how restriction creates cravings.

If someone says “diet,” I follow it with “they don’t work.” 

I’m becoming quite the nuisance. 

But the thing is,  I remain in awe of how fantastic I’m feeling about myself lately and how very, very indebted I am to some fantastic books and a community of blogs that I find inspiring on a daily basis, and I just want everyone around me to know:

How you are?  Right now?  The body you’re in?

There’s not a damn thing wrong with it.  You don’t have to change a thing.

It’s been a stressful week.

My car needs to get into the shop before the brakes fall off and Big Dog is trying to lick a hole in his paw.  I can usually only deal with one Impending Crisis! at a time, and so having two in one week can throw me into a tailspin.

When the anxiety comes, it comes hard and it comes fast.  One minute I’m swimming along, mostly okay, and the next, I’m sinking, a stone.

Today I sank. 

There was some freaking out and, while at work where I can’t cry with the wild abandon I do here at home, I went for other ways of self-comforting.  Say it with me: Food.

But even in the midst of my panic, I found myself thinking, “Hey, chickie.  It’s okay.  Right now you’re upset and having this bag full of frosted mini-wheats makes you feel better and that’s okay.  But remember, food can’t fix feelings and you’ll need to take care of those when you feel up to it.”

And the bag of mini-wheats went back into my desk because acknowledging the panic and how it was causing me to connect with food?  Completely defused the moment.  I still felt panicked, but I didn’t feel like I needed to eat to calm myself. 

So, instead of crying and eating and eating and crying,  I left work a little early, took Big Dog to the vet to get his paw checked out, and made a phone call in regards to getting my car into the shop. 

My disordered eating and compulsive exercise weren’t just about my body; they were also my way of avoiding the emotional minefield of every day life.  When you obsess about your body, it pushes out all the other very real issues that are coming towards you.  It becomes a substitute for coping.

And now that I don’t let myself use that substitute?  Well, I’m finding out I’m actually pretty okay at dealing with whatever happens.

And, as long as nothing happens to Little Dog,  now I may just make it to the weekend.

Someone found my blog using the search term “im scared im too fat to get my belly button pierced.”

I think my heart just broke.

What’s too fat for a pierced belly button?  I thought all you needed for a pierced belly button was..well..a belly button.  If you have one of those, you’re good to go.  I didn’t know there was a weight restriction.

I guess I should know, though.  There are weight restrictions for everything when you don’t like your body, aren’t there?  Let’s see.  In the past I’ve been too fat for: indoor rock-climbing, shorts, sleeveless shirts, swimming, running, yoga, short hair, tennis, bicycle-riding, jumping on a trampoline, playing on a park swing, eating in public, dating, applying for jobs, and, on occasion, leaving the house.

I have let a lot of things pass me by because I thought I was too fat for them.  And you know what?  You cannot be too fat to live life the way you want.  So, little Googler out there, let’s make a pact.  You go get your belly button pierced and I promise I’ll go swimming this summer.  We’re not getting any do-overs in this life, so let’s go for the fun stuff when we can. 

We’re worth it.

Three of the women in my unit at work received their copies of a workout series that’s in heavy rotation on Saturday morning infomercials.  They’re very excited and discussed it all morning.

 I am a former infomercial lover.  I loved the hope of a new program or product telling me how I can finally, FINALLY, become perfect.  Clear complexion, narrow hips, flat abs, a poreless glowing face.  It’s thrilling, knowing you’re just a few simple steps away from your Sports Illustrated cover debut.

And then it arrives in the mail, and it’s okay, but doesn’t quite live up to its promise.  Over time, it slips to the back of a shelf.  Did it fail?  Did you?  Does it matter?

The result is the same.  Perfection thwarted.  Hopes dashed.  Back to square one.  Because if you just stop, if you don’t try the next thing, you’re giving up, right?  And if you give up, you’re admitting you can’t be perfect, and if you can’t be perfect, what’s the use? 

Initially, that was the hardest part of giving up my diet: giving up the idea that I was just five pounds away from bliss.  That in five (or 10 or maybe 20) pounds I’d be the picture of perfection.  My cellulite would disappear (A cruel fact of weight loss?  Sometimes cellulite gets worse.), my thighs would be slender and toned, pants would fit the instant I slipped them on.  I would suddenly be so pretty it would erase all the years of not being pretty, of not being perfect.

But it’s a lie.  I can’t be perfect because I live a flawed, human life.  I have scars from childhood, I have wrinkles from being thirty, I have a squishy backside because all the women in my family have squishy backsides.  My body is as imperfect as my life.  My house is rarely without drifting tumbleweeds of dog hair, my checkbook is unbalanced, I’m frequently late to work, sometimes I am a bad wife, bad daughter, bad sister, bad friend.

But I’m also very happy.  And being happy in my imperfect body and my imperfect life?  Well, that doesn’t cost me 3 easy payments of $29.99, or, you know, my sense of self-love and self-respect.  And that makes me even happier.

My size 10 pants are getting kind of snug.  I can still wear them (and do, out of necessity what with the recent horrors of shopping I’ve experienced), but I think I’d like them better in 12s. 

Since early April until now, I’ve gone from a 4 to a 12.   I’m still exercising every day (though for 30 - 75 minutes, not two hours), and eating in a very normal, reasonable kind of way, but it’s shocking to me.  How desperate must my body have been to get back to this weight?  No wonder I was hungry all the time and felt like my body was falling apart.

Honestly, the entire time I was losing weight I always kind of thought that if I just let myself be, my body would probably naturally settle at a size 12.  I don’t know why–it just seemed like where my body wanted to be.  And now here I am, inching back into a 12 and, to my suprise and glee, I’m not bothered by it.  Maybe because it’s what I always expected to be.  Maybe because the relief of not having to count out grapes for a snack is still so delightful.

I’m rounder now, but I also feel stronger.  I can see that it’s easier to develop muscle now that I’m getting enough fuel, and I don’t feel light-headed and dizzy during runs.  My body rarely hurts anymore; my hip has stopped aching and my ankles feel solid.  I still almost giggle when I get to go out for a meal without having to get online and research if there’s anything at that restaurant I can eat, and I love knowing that I can bake cookies just because I want to and it’s not going to turn into some kind of vicious test of my willpower. 

I am particularly enjoying just being honest–not making up reasons I can’t go out for happy hour on a Friday night or have sushi with my sister or try a homemade brownie from a coworker.  Not finding ways to cover how much I was exercising.  Not lying.

It’s been interesting to watch myself gain weight in this way and I am so grateful that it hasn’t been as painful as I expected it would.  In fact, it’s been an unexpected blessing.

Do people outside of Oklahoma call lunch ‘dinner’?  If not, I totally just outed myself.

I took myself to a movie and then out to dinner this afternoon.  I know, it’s not exactly a revolutionary act, but I’m proud of me, mostly because I ate at an actual restaurant where I had to be seated alone and be the big dining room weirdo all by herself.  But it was nice to be out in the world doing what I wanted regardless of how odd it might look to outsiders.

Now I’m spending an afternoon doing some online shopping because I want cute clothes that are not available here in my town, and while frugal me hates paying shipping, it’ll be worth it to feel as cute as possible.

All in all, a good day both in my body and out.  If I keep stringing enough of these together, I think I’ll be onto something.

When I first started running a few years ago (and before I had a treadmill), I did it at 5 in the morning.  Not because my mornings were so jam-packed I had to be up that early, but because running at 5 AM meant I’d be home before 6, or, more specifically, before the sun came up. 

I was under the belief that there would be something embarrasing about being seen running, something awful and repugnant about my jiggliness, my sweaty red face.  So, I’d run in the morning, in the dark, risking twisted ankles and probably a lot worse. 

Later, after I had the treadmill, I’d make sure the door to the workout room was closed when I was running and if my husband came in while I was chugging away, I’d get very upset.  Something about being seen like that made me incredibly uncomfortable.

I was ashamed of moving my body in a way that it was actually designed to move and felt I should hide, lest my movement repulse or offend.  My body.  Just being a body, out in the world, moving.  I thought it was shameful.

That same shame has kept me from rock-climbing (because of the spillage of ass over harness), has kept me from swimming (swimsuit! Yikes!), has made me unable to take yoga classes or self-defense classes, even makes me feel self-conscious waving in a short-sleeved shirt (what with the upper arm waving, too). 

I am tired of shame.  I am tired of thinking that my body when it’s just being a body is something I should hide. 

Before this summer is over, I’d like to do something to challenge that shame, something I haven’t been able to do in the past.  I’m ready to live my life out to the very edges of my body, sweaty red face be damned.

I’m reading a book right now about eating disorders in adult women, and it’s giving me a lot to think about.

I’ve never met the criteria for an eating disorder (basically because of a missing gag reflex, but that’s another story), though I clearly embraced a lot of disordered behaviors.  But today I’ve been thinking about why?  Why did I move beyond just dieting and into disordered eating and compulsive exercise?  What pulled the trigger for me?

Right now, I don’t really know.  I know living alone allowed me to go deeper than I would have otherwise, and I know I felt very proud of my discipline and control and maybe that was something that was missing for me right then?  Control over my life, what with my husband moving away and the prospect of uprooting my own life looming in the future? 

In another way, though, I felt like I finally had…edges.  I felt a real and powerful sense of identity when I was living that way–I felt concrete and real and yet transcendant.   

I just don’t know.  But I feel like I will have to get an answer to those questions at some point, or I’ll be vulnerable to slipping back into my old habits if that same set of circumstances comes along again.

Our secretary at work is reading this book by Bob Greene, the one that promises to tell me how to live my best life.  Her desk is situated in such a way that I can see her all day, every day, and that book has become her constant companion.

I may have to hide it, because seeing it every time I look up?  Making me a little crazy.

Oh, Bob Greene.  Of course I want to live my best life.  But do I really have to eat Fiber One to do so?  Must Jell-O be part of my best life?  Really? 

Honestly, Bob, I resent the implication that living a life in which I am not afraid of food and not obsessed with exercise means I’m living a worse life.

My best life is one in which I’m not fighting myself all the time, in which I devote my energy to things that bring me joy, pleasure, satisfaction, things that are reflections of what’s important to my inside.  I can’t live my best life if I’m counting calories because then my energy is wasted.  So, Bob Greene, to you I say, no, thank you.

In other news, today I said something out loud to a coworker that I’d only spoken to my mom, sister, and husband (and the internet, but you know).  She passed by my desk and, commenting on the peanut butter and saltines I was snacking on, said to another worker, “That’s how she keeps that little waist.”  And I said, “Actually, my waist isn’t all that little anymore.  I’ve decided I’m done with dieting.  I’m just not doing it anymore.”

She didn’t say anything, just walked away.  And I licked the peanut butter off my fingers, listened to the hallelujah chorus of tiny chubby cherubim around me, and realized there really is power in speaking something out loud.

My three-month no-diet experiment expires on 7/16/07, but I think I’m really done forever.

My best life just doesn’t include diets.