In the spring of 1985, I sat in my music class with my friend Molly on one side and my friend Tiffany on the other. At one point in class, I looked down at my lap and was horrified: my thighs were touching. I shot a quick glance at Molly. No touching thighs. Then at Tiffany (who was an absolute string bean). Her thighs were miles apart. I immediately felt shame about my body.
I was eleven years old.
Truth be told, I’ve been normal-sized up until a couple of years ago, even though I have spent a disgusting amount of time obsessing over my body. Boys didn’t help–at least two that I was semi-serious about broke up with me, telling me they deserved a “hot wife” who was skinny, and I would probably never be skinny.
(Never mind that they both ended up calling me after the breakups, because the “hot wives” they snagged didn’t know how to have conversations. Ew.)
I used to not have a lot of trouble losing a few pounds, but I’m older now, and I’ve heard that it gets tougher the older we get. This summer proved that to me. All that running, all that strength training, all that calorie counting caused me to gain weight. So when school started, I thought it might be time to try something drastic.
Shakes.
My sister has had some great success with this particular brand of shakes, so I figured it was worth a try. It’s been one week, and I’ve gained a pound.
The shakes weren’t horribly tasting at all, but I missed food. I missed chewing. I missed tasting. And whoever said “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” has clearly never eaten a cheesecake. But the worst part of the shakes was that I was constantly hungry, therefore constantly thinking of food, therefore constantly NOT thinking about writing or teaching or being a better person or the meaning of life.
If my church tells me to “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly,” then I have been a big ol’ sinner this past week, as my thoughts have just been about how long I can hang on until the next tiny meal.
So I’m quitting the shakes. I gave it a week, and true, that’s probably not long enough. But the bottom line is that I’m not happy. I like cooking and baking. I like a variety of flavors in my meals. I like not flagellating myself for trying a new dessert a coworker brings to share.
I do need to get back to exercising. Even though I saw 0.0 results with it this past summer, the fact that all my vitals are quite healthy is a testament to the goodness of exercise.
And if all of this means that I’m always going to be a little chubby and a lotta single for the rest of my life, well, I think I’d rather be happy than miserable, emaciated, and married.
I follow a feed on instagram when the mom takes millions of photos of her twin baby girls. One of them has EPIC thighs-they are quite delicious, one of them has EPIC hair it is amazing. Both of them are oohhhed and ahhed over and admired for their special qualities. (The thighs are considered a wonderful asset) and this has caused me to ponder too things. When do soft curves go from being adorable to despised and HOW the HELL do we become irrational enough to expect that all of our bodies should look the same, when these twins, we are from the same genetic pool, born on the same day, fed the same things, have the same levels of activity, look so drastically different in every way? They also have very different personalities (I posted an amusing pic of them on facebook this week which I thought represented Aaron and I perfectly). Where do we so badly lose the plot and decide that we all need to follow the same pattern? It's so completely crazy and irrational. I have been on a horrible diet for 3 weeks and will be on it for another 3 weeks so I'm just as guilty as anyone else of this stupidity. I also remember looking down at my thigh and seeing a line in it when I bent my knee and looking around and not seeing the same in the other girls. 🙁 It breaks my heart that Gracie is probably doing the same and that I have been such a poor role model in this regard. 🙁 I applaud you for your courage and SANITY and I watched your recent video and think you look awesome. No matter how much weight I lose, I will never, ever have your epic hair 🙂 xox
Kirsty, I've been thinking many of the same things lately. Mostly when I'm around my nieces–I never ever want them to be aware that they are anything but gorgeous. They have such sky-high confidence right now and I want them to never lose that.
And I applaud YOU for your tenacity and willingness to sacrifice (as per your post earlier this hear about the Hunger Games…hahaha) because that is a gift I just do not have. Keep on keepin on, my friend. 😀