I have something to admit...I had/have a body image problem. People who know me well enough are already quite aware of this. People who don't know me well enough can probably guess this about me. It's something I've dealt with since high school. In high school I had a brief bout with eating too little and exercising too much. I'm still not entirely sure why I started doing this, and it is something I will deal with probably for the rest of my life. I guess I started realizing that other girls had skinnier legs and a smaller stomach than me, and I was insecure in the first place. Maybe I thought I would be noticed more if I was skinnier, as I equated being skinny to being beautiful. I was also having issues with depression, and it wasn't until quite a few years later that I realized other people just didn't feel like that on a regular basis. For lack of better words, I'll call this eating disorder anorexia. I never saw anyone for it, and my mom made me see how I was being destructive to myself by threatening to make me see someone, and me, just wanting to be fairly normal, found myself terrified of being some mental freak. I look back on it now and think I wish I was more concerned with finding out who I am than trying to be what I thought society thought I should be. That, however, is in the past, and my views on many things like getting help when you need it are vastly changed.
As of now, I still have body image problems. If I let myself, I can look in the mirror and criticize every little thing about myself. The old familiars are "look at that stomach, it sticks out. It should be flatter. Your butt should be smaller. Your thighs are too thick and your hips are too wide, you stupid ugly girl. What is wrong with you? You fat ugly cow!" Would I ever say anything like this to another person? Absolutely not! Why on this God forsaken planet do I say this sort of thing to myself? I have no fucking idea. I always set the bar high for myself maybe? I do set a high bar for myself, but criticizing myself like that is awful. I am trying to get better about this, really I am.
For those of you who know, I am a bit of an exercise freak. I love exercise, and I'm happy to admit I have a healthy addiction to it. Those of you who do not exercise and are going to get critical about this, you can stop reading now because you will never understand. You will think this is me trying to reach some sort of perfection in my physical appearance that is not possible for me, and considering what I wrote about before with my body image and low self-esteem, I can understand why you would think that. I started exercising because I wanted to look better. I wanted to be a skinny waif of a girl. That is not why I exercise now. I exercise now partly, yes, to maintain a healthy body weight, but also because I feel damn good when I'm done. Endorphins are a marvelous thing. I feel good about myself when I exercise. I feel strong when I exercise. I feel like I do things most other people wouldn't ever try doing when it comes to pushing one's body to the limit. I can easily do 10 miles of exercise in one day as a normal regular work-out. I am proud of this. Many other people cannot do this. That is why I exercise.
Now, when I look in the mirror and find myself becoming critical of imperfections that seem larger to me than to other people, I tell myself what I am capable of. What my body can do that others' bodies can't. How amazing is it that I can swim more than two miles in an hour and a half? I can run marathons for God's sake. I can work out on an elliptical for an hour and then still have energy to go on the treadmill and run some miles. I can go to spin class for an hour and then get in the pool and swim for an hour when I'm done with that. I am fucking amazing! Maybe my body isn't as perfect as I think it should be, but it has done everything I have asked of it, and it will do more than this in the future because I love pushing myself to the limit, and I realize now that if I am going to push my body like this, I have to give it the fuel it needs. I eat like I need to now; no more starving myself.
I am writing this because of something I saw on television the other day. I was watching Beverly Hills Brides. It is basically rich women going in to find the perfect over priced wedding dress for their perfect over priced weddings. This one episode had some B grade movie actress ( I had never seen her in anything before) who was one of the skinniest people I have ever seen. It was very obvious she had a problem. Her arms were basically just bone. Her collar bones protruded way too much. Her face was gaunt looking. (Her friends actually told her one of the dresses she tried on made her hips look wide. She had no hips to look wide, and no wonder she was so small with people telling her shit like that.) The point of this is, I looked at her and saw she was unhealthy, whereas before, I would have looked at her and wished I could attain that level of skinny. I saw her and thought to myself, if I had that body I would not be able to do all things I do now. I would not be able to run marathons or swim long distances. My body would not be able to handle that amount of exercise. I would be a weak woman on the brink of disappearing. I came to realize I am happy with my body. I love my body and what it is capable of doing. I realized I am happy with me, and that is kind of a big deal for me, so I thought I would share. If you have negative thoughts about yourself, think about all the things you can do, and you will realize how amazing you really are!
