Happy Tuesday!
A couple of days ago I received a really encouraging email from a new bloggy friend
Sandi.
She reminded me of my lack of posts and lack of updates on this blog.
I realized that the month has gone by so fast and I've neglected my blogging!
Thanks for the push Sandi!
I've decided to make this post a bit about me and my past and part of why I am where I am now.
(For the moral of the story, scroll to the bottom.)
Remember back in the days of high school when it was all the rage to be in a club? Glee Club, Chess Club, Cheerleading Club, Drama Club. I've realized that no matter our age, we all belong to clubs. Whether it be the Mommy Club, the Wife Club or the Weight-loss Club, we tend to gather around people with shared experiences. Even when the experience is over we are still "lifetime members", we will always have our memories. No one can understand certain parts of our lives quite like our club buddies.
I've come to find that at this point in my life, I belong to many clubs. I belong to the Weight-loss Club, the Teacher Club, the College Student Club, the Grief Club, the Baby Loss Club, the Best Friend loss Club, the Emotional Eater's Club, the Boarding School Club, the Blogger Club, the Photographer Club, the Dancer Club, the Optimism Club and so many others.
I'm here to tell you about one of the clubs I belonged to, the Anorexia Club. I feel that this is important to explain because it helps to shed light into where I am today.
I am a dancer. My body is not built to dance. In fact it tries to run the opposite direction while I'm dancing (it's my heart that's kept me in it all these years.)
When I was in middle school, I was dancing thirteen hours a week. From the time I was born, I've been overweight. Neither that nor my curvy bone structure were acceptable in the dance world. They wanted people who were stick thin with no curves. They made that quite well known to me. One of the worst experiences I have engraved in my mind was when my dance teacher stood me behind one of the thinnest girls in class so I could see myself on both sides of her in the mirror. It's no wonder eating disorders are so prevalent in the dance world.
Every time I looked in the mirror, all I began to see was a girl who was fat. I stopped eating. For a month, all I would eat was rice, soy sauce and water. That mixed with dancing those thirteen hours a week allowed me to watch the pounds drop. I became thinner and thinner and still, I was told I was too fat to be a real dancer. My body image had become completely warped. In only a matter of months I'd gone from looking like
this.
I figured that this not eating thing was helping me lose weight so it must be good! I started having to sit down in classes in fear of collapsing. The grey circles under my eyes became more and more prominent.
Everyone around me told me I looked great. Looking back, I looked sick. I was sick.
Eight months later, I was uprooted and had to move to a different town in the middle of eighth grade, in the middle of a huge falling out with my best friend. I fell into a deep depression and as I'd done all my life, I turned to food.
Before I knew it, I'd gained 80 lbs by the end of the ninth grade.
I looked in the mirror for the one day and suddenly saw this.
Since then I've been in a constant struggle with my weight. Whenever I'm losing weight my body starts freaking out and trying to hold onto the weight in fear that I'm going to deprive it again.
I also now have a medical issue that requires me to eat 8 time as much salt in a day than the average person. If I don't I begin to have fainting spells. Anyone who's ever cracked open a weight loss book knows that one of the first things you're supposed to cut down on when dealing with weight loss is sodium because salt=water weight. This just makes the uphill battle that much steeper.
No, I was never diagnosed by an MD with anorexia because I was never "under weight" for me it was a mindset.
Moral:
These days I don't look in the mirror and say, "I have/had an eating disorder."
I now look in the mirror and instead of asking myself, "Do I feel fat today?" I ask, "Do I feel beautiful today?" Most days, the answer is yes. I refuse to define my life by my weight. I refuse to define my happiness by my weight. Would I like to lose weight? Absolutely. Am I going to make myself sick to accomplish that? No. Am I going to work my butt off (literally) until I can fit into those size 10 jeans?
YOU BET!
I now feel beautiful because of the choices I make in my life each and every day. Moment by moment.
It's taken a lot to come to the realization that while we can't control the cards we're dealt, we can control how we choose to react.
Stay tuned for the first official Weigh-In Wednesday tomorrow!
And as a quick picture update before I go, here's a self portrait I took today.
Peace, Love and Skinny Jeans,
Krissy
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