My Body, My Self

 I really did not want this blog to exclusively feature recipes.  I really do want to document my (insert me rolling my eyes here) journey...  We're all on a journey, that's kind of what living is all about, really.

I also really want to write about body image issues; mine and those that impact all women.  As someone who spends a great deal of her time with adolescent girls, I need to wrap my brain around being as empowered about my own body image as I possibly can be.  Because I have had it with the ideals that we are inundated with and I am done hating myself.  My rational brain tells me that not even the models and celebrities we see everyday really look like that.  Check your Facebook feed and I guarantee you can find one of those, look at the impact of Photoshop posts pretty darn quickly.

Go ahead.  I'll wait.

So, rationally, I know that this all so much buillshit; fakery, trickery, marketing.  Personally, I think if a pro makeup and hair crew showed up at almost any woman's doorstep tomorrow, they could make her look like a supermodel, even before the Photoshop.

Yet I struggle...  I do not want to judge what any other woman feels and it is not my intention to make any woman feel bad about her body or appearance, but I do want to share my own story.  And part of my own story is acknowledging that when I was at my heaviest, I did not feel good physically.

I have been chunky, overweight, obese, fat...whatever...pretty much most of my life.  I am also blessed with a ton of muscle mass that is, unfortunately, hidden under a layer of fat right now that I am not pleased about. I know that my body composition is changing, slowly but surely, but it is taking a long time.

The "thinnest" I ever got was when I was about twenty five.  Ephedra was legal and I was suffering with undiagnosed bipolar disorder.  Hello, mania!  You could buy speed at CVS...how awesome was that??

The first year, I was doing an internship and getting my master's, then I started a third program, all to get my Connecticut teaching certificate in under a year.  At one point, I was student teaching in the morning, going to classes in Bloomfield in the afternoon, and then rocketing my way down to Bridgeport for classes at night.

I was flying; eating every couple of days.  And when I did stop to eat, I was eating total crap.  So, yes, I ate very little and not surprisingly, I lost weight.  I was still heavier and would have qualified as obese on a BMI chart, but I was down into a size ten and I even wore a two piece bathing suit for a summer.  Me!  In a bikini!  What???

That winter, I met my husband to be while drunk off my ass, dancing on a chair at a New Year's Eve party.  This is how I looked:

But...all good things (bad things?) come to an end and they took ephedra off the market.  I began treatment for bipolar disorder, which included a mood stabilizer.  Mark and I moved in together and I remember a picture from moving day.  I looked good, yet I was still fixated on my arms; they were too big.  I was still too big.

Once Mark and I shacked up, I started cooking.  A lot.  But I remained in a range I thought was fairly reasonable.  I started lifting before our wedding in July of 2005 and while I wasn't in the shape I might have liked, I was pretty OK with how I looked.  Shortly thereafter, I got pregnant and even then I was still OK.  Heavier than I would have liked, but not terrible.

In 2009, I changed jobs and easily packed on another twenty to thirty pounds.  I was no longer able to buy most of my clothes in standard women's sizes.  I was at that point, deeply uncomfortable.  I couldn't easily get out of the corner of my couch.  When I went on a class field trip to Washington, D.C., I had a hard time keeping up with colleagues who were younger than me.  The truth is, at my heaviest, I didn't feel good.   It had nothing to do with my self image, but everything to do with how I felt.  I had to get up off that couch.

This was taken about a month before I took my first class at Tuff Girl.

Which brings me to the whole fat acceptance movement.  I want to believe that you can be healthy/happy/whatever regardless of your size, yet I found that just hasn't been the case for me.  Since I started training and getting my eating under control, I've never felt better.  I don't have it all together yet.  There have been setbacks.  I am nowhere near a position where moderation is a possibility.  No, I can't just have a few spoonfuls of ice cream and put the rest away.  I can't eat a handful of potato chips and walk away.  I hope I get there some day.

But, in the meantime, I'm proud of how far I've come.

About to do my first 5K Obstacle Course, April 2013

The gold sequin dress I wore to a holiday party this year.  For real.  This took some serious body confidence.

But I'm still not where I want to be.  Not yet.  I have moments where I look in the mirror and I can see my hamstrings or my calve muscles and I think, damn...you are strong!  But sadly, my first thought upon seeing a picture of me smashing my deadlift PR?  Ugh...you look gross.  

So, its a struggle...a struggle that seems to never end.  And for however far I have come, I still have so far to go.  

Sisterhood is powerful...and wouldn't we all be better off if we supported each other and ourselves, instead of tearing each other down?