Scaling Back

I have woken up to a gorgeous day. The sun is shining. The air smells of spring. The coffee I made this morning turned out fantastic. I've got my favorite cozy blanket to snuggle under. Seriously, what could be better? So then why is it that the number one thing on my mind is, "I wonder how much I weigh?" ugh

In all honesty I don't want to know what I weigh. I will be completely happy if I never ever know what I weigh ever again. But there is a nagging inside me that continues to wonder how much I weigh. There is a part of me that wants to know what that number on the scale would say. And I know why. This time of year is the time of year of diets, losing weight and getting in shape for swimsuit season. Without knowing what I weigh I have absolutely no idea how many pounds I need to lose before I'm good enough to be seen in shorts or let alone a swimsuit. Without knowing this number I have to no focus on what I need to weigh to be "healthy".

I reread that last sentence and I'm shaking my head at the insanity of it. Where in the world does it say that there is a specific number that lets a person know when they are healthy?

Well I'll tell you a secret, there is no magic number.

Sure a person can pick a number out of thin air, push themselves to over-workout, eat less and less and eventually achieve this magical number but will they be happier, better and more content with themselves if they reach this number? I tell you from experience, absolutely not.

If you can't be happy with yourself as you are then you won't be happy with yourself 5, 10, 20 pounds from now either.

Contentment for yourself comes from inside. It comes from focusing on what really matters in life. Spending time with family, enjoying the little moments in life that many people take for granted, traveling and so many other experiences that are out there for the taking. These are the things that matter in life. The number on a scale matters so very little.

And yet, I made this the number one thing in my life for so very long. I always knew what I weighed, how many pounds I had to go before I got to the goal weight I wanted to get to. Did I ever get to that goal weight? No. Every time I reached a goal weight, I would set a new and lower goal weight. I never was satisfied with what I looked like. I always had more weight to less.

And now that I don't have a scale to weigh myself I don't fall into this roller coaster of weight loss. I no longer find myself over obsessing about what I ate because it'll show up on the scale. I focus on the conversation during the meal, not the food itself.

So why do I sit here wondering what I weigh? Why am I sitting here actually contemplating buying another scale? Why would I spend money on an inanimate object that causes me so much pain? Because there is a thrill rush in knowing that I'm losing weight. There is a calming effect in knowing that I have "control" over my weight. That last sentence is laughable because I know that I'm not the one in control. ED becomes the one in control. ED so quickly senses my weaknesses and will attach itself to me so very quickly.

So, while I may feel a pull to weigh myself or buy a new scale, I won't. The mystery of what I weigh will remain just that, a mystery. I will continue to redirect my thoughts. Every time I think, "what do I weigh?" I will change the sentence to "what can I accomplish today?"

I thought that by now I wouldn't experience these obsessive thoughts anymore. But I suppose that is why this is called a disease. The symptoms take a long time to disappear. I'm just grateful I don't experience the symptoms as often as I did before entering treatment.

I can't go back to that insanity. I won't go back to that insanity. I won't.

Now, what can I accomplish today?

A Look Inside the Mind of an Anorexic

The alarm goes off. I hear the ever so lovely sound of the bleeeeeep, bleeeeeeep, bleeeeeeep repeating over and over telling me that it is time to get up. I get up out of bed and head straight to the bathroom and step right onto the scale. It tells me I weigh 142 lbs. Quick! I think to myself, "go pee!" Now that I've taken care of that business time to weigh again. I step onto the scale. It now tells me that I weigh 141.6 lbs. I am not at all pleased with this number (and yet it is the least I have weighed ever in my adult life). I run to the dresser and pull out the measuring tape. I get out my journal to log my weight and my measurements. I measure my chest, my waist, my hips, the right thigh, the left thigh, the right bicep, the left bicep, the right calf, the left calf. I write this all down in my journal proud that I have lost an 1/8" on my right thigh. That bugger won't bug! Time to take a shower. But first I'll weigh myself again. I step on the scale and this time it reads 141.6 lbs. Dang it! I was hoping it would be lower. When I'm in the shower I spend most of the time checking different parts of my body to see how much "fat" I still have on me to lose. Convinced I'm not thin enough just yet I commit myself to an hour long run after work. I get out of the shower and dry off. I'll weigh myself again just one more time. Still the same.

I head to work, concious all day long of everyone judging me for how "fat" I am. I do not eat much at all, big surprise right?! I come home after an 8 hour day at work. Jump into work out clothes and head out on a run. Disgusted with myself the whole time because today I ate croutons on my salad.

I'm done with my run and decide it's time to weigh myself yet again. 144 lbs. SHIT! I just went running. What the crap!?? It is decided. Tonight I will have half a grilled chicken breast with vegetables. Nothing else. When it's time to eat I end up giving half of my half of a chicken breast to my fiance along with half my veggies.

I'm angry. I'm full of self hate. I am pissed at myself for eating today. I can't believe that I had that soda at lunch. That's it. Tomorrow I'm eating egg whites for breakfast. Salad with no dressing and only vegetables for lunch and fat free cottage cheese for dinner. Once I have made this pact with myself I head for bed. Too tired to do anything else nor do I have any enthusiasm to do anything other than go to bed.

I lay in bed not able to sleep. Thinking about food, fat, calories, cellulite, working out and weight.

The next morning I wake up to the alarm clock blaring at me yet again. bleeeeep, bleeeeep, bleeeeep. I get up out of bed and head straight to the bathroom and step right onto the scale. etc, etc, etc.

Repeat as needed to become completely insane and totally anorexic.

Exercise?? Are you sure?

Recently I've been feeling the urge to exercise again. I stopped exercising when I entered treatment for my eating disorder. Exercise for someone who has an eating disorder tends to not be such a healthy thing. That person either exercises to an extreme or when they do exercise it's "never enough". I feel into the latter. I always felt like I had to do more than what I did. Even if I had just completed a 45 minute run I never felt like I had done enough to get rid of enough calories to justify what I had eaten that day.

But recently I have felt the urge to start incorporating exercise and/or activity back into my life. Before this I haven't wanted to go near exercise. I was too afraid that it would trigger me back into a relapse of restricting. So I've done a lot of thinking about who really wants me to start getting exercise again. (Ed can be tricky, ya know, he works in very clever ways.) I wanted to be sure that it was I who wanted to get the activity and not one of Ed's ways to get me to go back to him.

I've had to do some soul searching to figure this out. I asked myself, "Why is it that I'm starting to feel this need to exercise? Is it because I want to lose weight?" If the answer turned out to be yes, then I knew I wouldn't be ready to start exercising again. Funny thing though, after giving this question a lot of thought I realized that my answer to the question was no. I don't want to lose weight. I don't even know what I weigh anymore. Which is a huge change for me, as I used to weigh myself 2-5 times a day. It's refreshing though, not weighing myself. I'm not tied down to an inanimate object "telling" me I'm not good enough. Instead I rely on knowing I am good enough just as I am and treating myself with respect.

Which brings me back to the issue that started this post in the first place. Exercise. I knew that this urge to exercise wasn't coming from Ed telling me I "needed to lose weight" but where was it coming from? It dawned on me one day when I was watching my dogs play in the back yard. We were very involved in a game of fetch. My dogs adore fetch. If possible they would play fetch until they dropped from exhaustion. As I played with them I saw the unbridled joy they were having. They were running around crazy happy, after a ball, getting lots of great activity and do you think for one second they were thinking about how they looked? Hell no! All they were thinking about was "ball!"

I had a realization that afternoon. I want to exercise and get activity because it's fun. I want to exercise because I want to be able to use this healthy body I have as a vessel to help me enjoy the activities that I love to do, such as walking, dancing, hiking, kayaking and so on. I have fun when I do all those things and with those things comes activity and exercise. Right then and there I "got it". I don't have to stress about going to the gym and run on a treadmill like a hamster. I don't have to embark on some 3 mile run to get activity. (I absolutely hate running, by the way, and yet forced myself, in secret, to do this for years because I could burn so much more of the food I'd just eaten.) Instead, I can think of a fun activity that I want to do and that is the exercise that will fill the urge I've been feeling.

I'm looking forward to this spring and summer. I'm so excited to have more energy this year so that Casey and I can get out there and do more of the things we love doing. We'll be taking the pups for more walks. We'll be taking more bike rides downtown. We'll be taking the kayaks out more on the river. We'll be doing more yard work together. I know this, as long as I'm enjoying what ever exercise I'm participating in at that moment I think this exercise thing and I are going to get along just fine.

Dance

Dance. It's been a part of my life back to since I can remember. I have always loved everything about it. The way I would take a breathe and dance would flow out of me. The beauty of emoting music through dance moves, the challenge of perfecting a new skill, the thrill of finally completing a graceful quadruple pirouette or finding the perfect balance for a soulful panche. I was elated anytime I was fortunate enough to be able to dance in front of an audience. I both adored and loathed my dance classes. Performing was where I got to fly, so to speak, classes were for learning new tricks to take to flight.

I adored myself when I danced. The feeling I got when my muscles had been worked to their limit to achieve beautiful grace was exhilarating. I miss the daily challenge to see how far my body can take me. I miss the rush of dancing an adagio or an allegro to the best of my ability. I miss the thrill of completing a jump sequence knowing that I gave all the power I had to that one time through and knowing that I would need to muster the same amount of power to complete the jump sequence at least 3 more times.

I started dancing at the age of 3. By the time I was 11 I was taking 5 dance classes a week. Dancing was my life. I knew that dance would be a way of life for me for the rest of my life. As all dancers know, you don't leave the dance world when you walk out of the studio, you embody dance when even not in the studio. Perfecting dance techniques at home, practicing the new routine while waiting for the bus to take you to school and working on ankle strength while doing the dishes at home.

One would think, from reading this, that I was a serious ballet dancer my entire life, yet that is not the case. I have embodied dance for my entire life but much to my dismay and confusion I was pulled out of my beloved dance studio when I was 12 years old. The exact year that I was to finally get my pointe shoes. I was devastated by this. I have never really expressed to anyone how empty I felt when I no longer attending classes regularly. Yes, I still danced, but I was never allowed to have that full on life immersion that I did before.

I realize now that I have never allowed my self to grieve for this loss in my life.

In college I found dance again. I was addicted once more. Yet, something had changed, their was a difference in me. I was filled with resentment to those who had been able to dance seriously their entire lives. I was jealous of the their skill and technique. I was angry of the fact that I never got to excel the way I knew I could have.

It's time to let the resentment of this issue fall away. It does me know good to submerge myself in these memories and feelings of the past. The past is in the past. It is what it is. I can do nothing to change what has made me into who I am. What I can do is look toward where I am headed today and embody who I am becoming.

More and more I feel the urge to begin dancing again. When I think of this I hear a voice inside me telling me I'm insane. I'm 33 years old, I can't dance at this age. Then another side of me steps up to the plate and wonders, "why not?" Where is it written that only those who are adolescents or in their 20's are allowed to dance? It's not. If I want to begin dancing again there is one simple and easy solution. I will dance.

I won't be dancing as I once did where all I did and breathed was for dance but that is not necessary for me to find fulfillment and joy from this art form. All I need to do is let go and allow my body to test itself and reach new heights, as it once did.

All I need to do is allow myself to breathe and the dancing will follow.

A Peacefully Confused Post

Today is a day where I felt the need to write. Yet now that I am sitting down ready to capture all that I have to say I'm struggling with what it is I want to write about. Words are flowing through my head; (peace, recovery, strength, living, the present); but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to piece all of these words together.

These words are not new words in my vocabulary but they are certainly not the words I used to use to describe my life. They are now the words that I can and do use to relate to others about how my life is going.

I often get the question, "How are you doing?". Even though the topic of my eating disorder is not mentioned, it is definitely apparent what the secret message is behind that question. And I'm happy to answer it. I am in recovery, some days are easy, some are hard, but all in all I know that I have the strength now to be at peace while living life in the present. I used to live in the future constantly and there fore never truly was living. My thoughts always went towards what I would look like if I put what ever piece of food was sitting in front of me into my mouth. I am now able to sit down at a meal or look at a piece of food and know it for what it is. Just food.

I am also proud to exclaim that I actually enjoyed eating a meal this last week. Did I have eating disordered thoughts during this meal? Yes, of course I did, it will be a long time before my eating disorder is fully silenced BUT I did not let those thoughts over come my enjoyment of the meal and conversation that I was blessed enough to be a part of.

I still don't really know what it is I'm trying to say and I'm okay with that. Maybe I'm trying to proclaim the fact that I'm now happy living life, maybe I'm trying to let everyone know that I'm still in recovery and will be for a long time or maybe I'm just trying to live in the moment. Maybe I'm trying to express all of the above. Who knows! What I do know is that life is for living and not obsessing about food. Life is about enjoying moments not stressing about what my thighs look like. Life is about time I get to spend with my family not about constantly counting calories and fat grams in my head. It's amazing how much more space I have in my head to enjoy life now that I'm not fully engaged in an eating disorder.

Many people have told me I seem to be at peace now. Well...I certainly am not at total and complete peace but the small amount of peace that I have found is far and above more enjoyable then the insanity that I used to be immersed in.

Eating disorders suck.

Living life is pretty fantastic.

It's No Wonder

People have been asking me recently why it is I believe I developed an eating disorder. This question has caused me to pause and reflect over the years as to what might have influenced me into this disorder. I was highly involved in ballet during my entire childhood. I have always loved acting/theatre/drama and basically all of the performing arts. When I was in my teen years I loved doing pageants and took classes on how to be a model. Most of what I loved doing was inherently based on esthetics. Now that I think about it, it is no wonder I developed an eating disorder.

During my life as a dancer I constantly wanted to be leaner, thinner, smaller. At times I wished I could even be shorter. I never understood why it was that I was so much "bigger" than all the other girls. Now mind you, I was taking up to 6 classes a week, that equates to at least 10 hours of dancing a week. I was very physically fit but in my mind I still was not small enough. I thought that, probably because my instructor constantly barked to "suck in that gut" and "pull in that tush" so that we could have better lines and posture. These statements really cut close to home especially when paired with the instructor's cane swatting you in "that" area and the informing you that you do not have a dancers body. It now makes perfect sense to me as to why I was inflicted with this disease at the tender age of 7. At 7 years old I had already been in the dance world for 4 years, over half my life. It was ingrained in me that one must appear to be lithe, lean and slender to be a dancer. Unfortunately for me I began to think that there was something dreadfully wrong with my body because it wasn't built to conform to the "dancer" guidelines.

When I was in middle school I developed a love for acting. I have been in productions ever since I was 13 years old. Yet it wasn't until I was 19 did I get my first leading role in a one act. It wasn't until I was 30 until I got my first leading role in a full length main stage play. I started to wonder if I wasn't cast as a lead simply because my body didn't conform to societal standards. When I did get my first leading role I thought it was based on the fact that I had lost 40 pounds that prior year. I had this disease before but this is when my obsession with this disease began. I then got my next main stage role over 10 years later when I was a die hard anorexic. I ate almost nothing all day. Then after rehearsal, when I got home, I was so exhausted and tired that I ate 2-4 servings of dry cereal. Then the next day I would restrict all day yet again because I had over eaten the night before. Such a vicious cycle and one that would take 2 months in rehab to break.

As a teenager, the hardest years on all of us when it comes to esthetics, I became involved in pageants. As much as I denied other peoples claims that pageants were only about how pretty a girl was, deep down inside I never ever thought that my body was good enough to be in pageants. I have no idea how I was able to walk around on a stage in 3 inch heels while wearing a bathing suit in front of an entire audience while a spot light was directed at me. I felt like I might as well have circled my "flawed" areas with a red marker as a way to let the audience know that I knew that I wasn't perfect and that I really "didn't fit in" in the whole pageant scene. When one is born into a family of women who actually built like women, with hips, butt and boobs, it's amazing how easily this woman can feel so unwomanly when around those who are boyish or thin.

So now at the lovely age of 33 I battle daily to reaffirm my positive traits. I have to constantly remind myself that I don't need to "look 10 pounds lighter", that I don't need to "reduce wrinkles and puffiness", that I don't need to be ashamed of what the tabloids may call a "baby bump". (Not that I've ever been in a tabloid but you get my drift.) If all women were suppose to have flat bellies, slender hips, long legs and no wrinkles then God would have created us all the same. And if that were the case what an absolutely boring world this would be.

Beauty does not define us. The number on a scale, the size one wears, the latest lipstick, anti-wrinkle treatment, anti cellulite cream and the latest kind of spandex gym wear does not define us. What truly defines us is who we are and what we contribute to society. I am reminded of a Bhuddist quote that I love; "Happiness is not measured by success. If one loves what they are doing then one can truly be happy." I'm still working on figuring out what it is that I love doing but I'll tell ya one thing, I'm no longer striving for unattainable "perfection". I no longer strive to look like the model on the cover of a magazine, or the current Miss America or the latest "it" actress. I'm striving to be me and the best version of me that I can be.

Black Cloudy Day

These are the worst kind of days. These days bring about a feeling of walking through peanut butter. Everything, no matter how small, is a struggle to get through. It's not that I don't want to accomplish anything on these days but due to the enormous strength it takes just to get out of bed on days like these I seldom have much more strength than to do the absolute minimum to just get by.

At the end of one of my Black Cloud Days I feel a heavy burden of guilt surrounding me for all the tasks that were left undone or unaccomplished. How can just emptying the dishwasher feel like too much? The guilt is compounded when Casey comes home and completes a task I didn't have the energy to do.

I know these kind of days will lessen over time. I realize that compared to where I was three months ago I am doing phenomenally well. Yet there is still that nagging inside my head (stupid eating disorder knows my weaknesses) telling me that I'm not doing enough, that I'm not good enough and that I never will amount to anything. On my Black Cloud Days this voice wins over and I give into the feeling of melancholy that only it can induce.

Here's the bright side of this whole sh-bang; I at least now can recognize days like these. I can at least now work on climbing out of the mound of peanut butter. No, it won't be easy. Most likely I will be struggling to get this goo off of me for quite sometime. However, I am fortunate enough to be able to have some self-reflection. It is this self-reflection that will enable to me move forward and leave these Black Cloud Days behind me. As my sister once said, tomorrow is another day and I hope it can be a Rainbow Cloud kind of day.