A Day In The Life.

This week’s question for Aunt Fattie has gotten me thinking about how I define Health At Every Size for myself.  As best I can tell, it usually goes something like this:

Today, I practiced HAES. 

I woke up at 6, which meant I got about 8 hours of sleep last night. I function best with 9 hours, but it’s not always possible.

For breakfast, I had a toasted whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter and strawberry jam, coffee, and a glass of milk.  I usually have something with more protein at breakfast, but I wasn’t feeling it today and I no longer believe in eating things I don’t want just because I think I should.  And my English muffin was awesome.  I drank two more cups of coffee as I read the paper.

I then showered and got dressed for work, making a point of putting on sneakers because my feet are achy from running yesterday; I probably need new running shoes, so I’ll pay attention to the signals my feet are sending and go shopping this weekend.

At work, I drank a glass of water and took regular breaks from my desk (usually to head for the bathroom, tiny-bladdered-freak that I am).  Around 10, I snacked on some carrots and hummus, and two squares of dark chocolate.  Tasty!

Lunch was pretty typical: ham and cheddar on whole wheat, a huge banana, a cookie (today was double chocolate chunk), and coffee.  I took the stairs back up to my office because it’s faster than the elevators.

Mid-afternoon, I got peckish, so I had a granola bar and deeply regretted not packing cheese and crackers this morning because that’s what I really wanted.  Oh, well.  Sometimes I just have to eat what’s available when I’m hungry; I don’t always make perfect food matches.

I got home a little later than usual because it was my on-duty day at work and I had to see all the walk-in clients.  It’s always super stressful and when I got home, I wanted nothing more than to pull on my comfys, pour a glass of wine, and spoon Little Dog.  During my dieting days, I’d usually force myself to run even though I didn’t feel up to it, but these days I know my health isn’t just about my body; my spirit counts, too.  So, a glass of shiraz, a Sudoku, and one sleepy wiener dog were healthy choices for me today.

Neither my husband nor I felt all that inspired at dinner, so we grilled some chicken and had it with brown rice, veggies, and a few fantastic strawberries.  After dinner, I played a little Wii and then had my nightly ice cream.  This week’s flavor is Turtle Brownie, and while my husband wasn’t looking, I dug out a few extra brownie chunks for my bowl.  I felt pretty calm and centered today because I managed to eat all day without counting calories one time.

Today I took care of myself: by eating foods I liked, not foods I thought I should eat; by wearing comfortable clothing and shoes; by passing on formal exercise because it felt more punitive than pleasant; by getting enough rest; by engaging in activities that reduce rather than elevate my stress levels.

HAES, for me, means taking good care of myself regardless of the physical appearance of my body.  It doesn’t mean eating in a certain way or working out X number of times per week.  It doesn’t mean perfect food choices or textbook intuitive eating.  It doesn’t guarantee that cancer or heart disease or Alzheimer’s won’t find me in the future (the only guarantee of that would be, like, getting hit by a bus tomorrow.  I’ll pass, thanks).

Good caretaking is acknowledging what my body and spirit are asking for today and meeting those requests to the best of my ability as often as I am able.  It’s treating myself as valuable and my needs and preferences as real.

So, today I practiced HAES.  I’ll practice it tomorrow, too, though it may look like a 5 mile run and tacos for dinner, or maybe yard work and a grilled cheese sandwich.  What exactly I do changes day to day, but the goal always remains the same.

Whatever you did today that made you feel happier or stronger or calmer or more like yourself, that felt good in my body and your soul?

That’s HAES.  You’re doing it exactly right for you.  And good job.

Better than a thousand words.

Yesterday I cleaned out my closet and dresser of everything that is, by my own definition, “too tight.”  Goodbye, size 10s!  Granted, my husband is bereft because he likes me in too-tight pants, but as they made me feel badly about my body, he’ll just have to get his kicks in some other way.

I loaded up a huge bag of clothes and another huge bag of shoes (including a few pairs I’d never even worn, so that’ll be fun for someone else!), and donated them to a local women’s shelter.  They’ll serve a much better purpose there than in my closet, encouraging me to hate on myself.

In related news, I spent the weekend out of town with my mom, sister, and Girl Cousin, and we took lots of pictures of our adventures.  I was looking at them on Sunday afternoon after we got home, and I was struck by how pretty I looked. 

Pretty.  Me.  All 149 pounds and 31 years of me.  I looked relaxed and happy and my skin was all glowy and my body looked strong and I didn’t look tired or gaunt or terrified.  I can’t remember the last time I looked at a picture of myself and thought I was pretty.

During the dieting days, I would scan pictures for proof of my “hard work,” trying to spot bones or sinew as evidence that I was getting skinnier.  At the very worst of my behaviors, I saved pictures that showed a too-frail wrist jutting from a sleeve or a visible hipbone pressing against my pants, and I reviewed them regularly because it kept me focused on my diet.  Even then, though, I never found the pictures pretty; I’d mention how badly I photographed and I’d avert my eyes from the sad, scared face looking up from the glossy print.

But these pictures?  That girl is pretty.  So that must mean…I’m pretty.

It’s amazing what you can see when you start looking through your own eyes.

A First Time For Everything.

I ran outside today for the first time since last fall.  I twisted all through our neighborhood, breathed in warm spring air, listened to birds singing, coveted brilliant jewel-box flower beds.

But none of that is the exciting part.

The exciting part is: I ran in shorts and a sleeveless tank.

Okay, so that doesn’t sound like Big News.  But here’s the thing:  the last time I ran in shorts was almost five years ago.  I was just learning to run (that sounds…weird.  But you know what I mean), it was one heck of a hot summer, and I only wore the shorts because I was running at 5:30 in the morning before it was light out. 

I’ve never felt comfortable exposing my pasty, chubby thighs to the world;  even at my thinnest, I didn’t wear shorts out of the house.  It didn’t matter if it was 100 degrees out; I was running in track pants and a t-shirt with sleeves.

But I’ve decided that I’m not going to continue to treat my body like it’s shameful in this one area of my life.  After all, my legs deserve air and sunlight and balmy April evenings.  And for the love of baby-flavored doughnuts, running feels best when I’m comfortable and shorts are comfortable.

And you know, anyone who doesn’t like looking at my chubby thighs? 

Well, they can survive the five seconds it takes me to leave them in my dust.

Onward.

The weatherman promised me 84 degrees today, so I found myself in my closet this morning facing last summer’s clothing.

I tried on a lot of pants.

Some things were snug; they weren’t necessarily unwearable, but a few were tighter than I generally like my clothing unless I’m, you know, cat-burgling or jewel-heisting.

There was that moment.  You know the one.  When you stand there and you face slightly-too-small clothing and you think, “I could probably get back into those if I just dropped a couple of pounds.”  In that moment, it seemed entirely reasonable and somehow easier to consider restricting my food intake and exercising until I break instead of buying new pants.

I knew this was coming after the recent Shorts Incident.  I knew a reckoning of last summer’s wardrobe with this summer’s body was headed my way.

Alas, it seems I have to do some shopping and buy a lot of new pants.  And like every woman ever, I struggle with finding pants that fit my unique snowflake of an ass, so having to give up the pants in my closet that actually worked on my body?  Well, that’s kind of angry-making.

But the thing that I keep coming back to is this:  If I had left my body alone, if I had avoided wandering into Disordered Land, if I had let HAES help me find a healthy weight for my body, then most of the clothing I own would be 12s.  And they would FIT ME NOW.  Because the clothes that are too snug?  Are all 10s.  I am not a 10.  I haven’t been a 10 since a brief pass-through as my weight normalized last year. 

In that moment this morning, I had a choice to either punish my body for not fitting the clothes, or to continue to love my happy, healthy size 12 self and just buy new pants.  The decision took less than 30 seconds.

Tell me that’s not progress.

Disappearing Act.

March zoomed by in a blur of reality television and college basketball and many hours of Wii boxing (because throwing wild punches into the air soothes the savage beast that is my soul), and I’ll be damned if it’s not already April.

So, this upcoming Wednesday is the first anniversary of giving up my diet; it was on April 16, 2007, that I wrote my contract with myself to try three months without dieting, overexercising, or weighing.

One year.  And I really am beginning to feel okay.

It sounds a little crazy to me — a whole year, and I’m just to “okay” on the self-love continuum?  Not “awesome” or “completely self-accepting” or “body image rockstar.” 

Just “okay.”

But you know?  That’s good enough.  That’s Megan 1, Diet 0.  The diet is now in the past.  But me?

I’m still here.  I survived the 2o+ pound weight gain.  I survived leaving behind the 4s, 6s, 8s, and most of the 10s, and every morning, I pull on my size 12 britches and the world doesn’t end.  I’m still loved.  I’m still me.

I’m just not afraid anymore.

As for food, I ate the world for a while and then I stopped eating the world and now I just eat.  I pick what I like and what makes me feel good; my food choices are no longer little dances I do with my disordered body image.  I don’t have to go hungry now.  It remains such a tiny ecstasy, this eating-to-fullness — it still sometimes takes my breath away.

I’ve been working out consistently, intensely, thrillingly, these past several weeks, and it’s been an actual pleasure.  I run hard, I sweat, I push my limits — but I don’t have to do it.  I do it because I can.  Because I am strong. Because I am powerful. 

I stopped feeling those things when I was abusing my body, but now?  I feel like a force of nature.  I didn’t know I could be so proud of my body in a way that doesn’t even consider how it looks in shorts.

It all sounds better than “okay,” doesn’t it?  But in all honesty, there are still moments when I miss certain items of clothes that don’t fit now or when the Weight Watchers talk about that thrill of a lost pound.  In those moments, I hear echoes of my old self-loathing.

But they are just echoes.  And every day, they sound farther away.

So, one year.  I can’t really sum it up in any way that sounds profound, so I’ll just steal this quote from Winston Churchill:

“Every day you may make progress.  Every step may be fruitful.  Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path.  You know you will never get to the end of the journey.  But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and the glory of the climb.”

Yeah…happy anniversary to me!