Lose/Lose situation!

I wasn't planning on blurging today, if only because I was feeling some writers block. I spent last night cooking (marvelously, as usual) and working on a flyer for Metal Quest. Not a lot went on except one thing; a craving. A horrible horrible craving. Well, not really so horrible, but horrible for me because I'm very hard on myself when it comes to food. What was this terrible craving, you might ask? Frozen yogurt. Gaddamn it, I love that stuff. Covered in strawberries and mangoes, no less! I know, I know, I'm a monster... but when you're trying to control your sugar cravings, it's best not to give in to these urges. Or is it? Who the hell knows. I wound up making ratatouille, steak, and mushrooms with some caprese salada. A bit more tomato than I would have liked (stupid sugar, you hide everywhere!!) but no frozen yogurt.

Well, I came across this article during my daily reads about how Feeling Bad About Your Weight is Making You Fat. It's a pretty good article, and a few key points in there are right on the money.

Teen participants were asked to comment on how they perceived themselves on a scale of thin to "chubby" or "very fat." Fast forward to a decade and change later, and 60% of the normal sized girls in the study who thought they were fat had actually gone on to become overweight twentysomethings. 

Researchers surmise that the discrepancy between long-term health effects on girls and long-term health effects on boys is due, in part, to the fact that teenage girls who think they're fat will do terribly unhealthy shit in order to "fix" themselves. Eating disorders are an extreme example, but researchers noted that girls are more likely to do metabolism-screwing things like skip meals, deprive themselves of food, and eat unbalanced diets. 

Looking back, my ex-sister-in-law's dress is pretty great.

Ummmm yeah. Pretty much all of that is right on the money. I recently looked back at my pictures from elementary school. Guys, I've been called "fat", "ugly", ect. since the 2nd grade. I have never once seen myself as an attractive person, let alone "normal". Well, after looking at a picture of myself when I was around 10, I suddenly realized that I wasn't all that fat. At all. In fact, I was pretty normal looking, physically. Do you know what wasn't normal? The giant t-shirt I wore to cover myself from neck to knees because I thought I was so fat nobody should have to look at me. I feel bad for the kid in that picture. I remember being in the 4th grade, weighing in at 100lbs, and I remember thinking how fat and heavy that must have been. It's painful for me to look at myself like that, knowing just how miserable I felt about myself. I want to look at myself at 10 and say, "Hey, I know you'll never believe me, but stop covering yourself up like that. You're not ugly," because maybe if I could have believed that, I wouldn't have developed such bad habits.

That's me, in the hat. ...and the home-sewn flares.

Like, for example, binging and purging... binging and starving... starving... excessive dieting... the kind of things that aren't good for anyone, let alone someone with a history of bipolar disorder. It's no wonder I wound up gaining so much weight in middle school and high school! I'd starve myself one day, binge the next, ect. ect. I played sports, and I know I was in pretty good shape physically since I was able to swim and win without being too winded, but I wasn't a great athlete. I was just okay, and that's not bad, but I felt bad for not being good at absolutely everything. I felt bad because I was a good singer, a good little actress, and my grades were even alright, BUT, I wasn't good looking. That's what I thought, and I felt like it made me inferior, regardless of anything else. How sad is that?? Even though I'd starve myself in front of people I didn't know, I never thought things would change. It my mind, I always thought I'd be fat. The reason I didn't eat was because I was embarrassed to eat in front of people. So I wouldn't eat in front of boys, but I'd eat when I got home. That's a bad habit to get into, because it just made me super hungry. What happens when you're super hungry? You eat whatever the hell is near, and for me, that was carbs and sugar. High school.

What you see: Meat; What I see: ARM FAT

Well I'm not in high school, anymore. Clearly... I'm 28, and I lost a bunch of that weight ten years ago. It's been ten years and I still feel the same way I did when I was 18. And I can just imagine, twenty years from now, I will be telling myself the same thing. I'm not so shy anymore (no more giant t-shirts, unless I go to bed..), but I never wear shorts and I never wear short skirts and I never wear... well, a lot of things. Plus, I won't let myself eat frozen yogurt, for god's sake. How very sad, that I'm 28 and I still think the same way I did when I was ten years old. I'm not overweight, just like the kid in the picture, but I will always feel overweight, like the kid in high school. Do you know how hard it is to look at a recent picture of myself and not focus on that arm fat? DO YOU? It's quite hard, but I'm trying. Especially since a relative recently had to take me aside and tell me I was being silly for judging myself so harshly (people read this thing?!) and I was so embarrassed by all my whining. WHAAAAAA I WANNA BE SKINNY.

So, in conclusion, that article I mentioned way at the beginning of this blog post is pretty legit. Think bad things about yourself, do bad things to yourself. Think good, do good! Makes sense, right? RIGHT! Now, treat yourself right. Do it. ...do it.

Yeah, not so easy, is it?