Diaries of a Worry Wart: February 2014

I love food. I always have. I love tasting it, I love enjoying it with my friends and family, I love trying different things, I love watching a movie and eating it. I will never not love it. However, loving food also comes with a price. Ever since I was around twelve years old, I have had this jaded perception of my body weight.
I was never the most skinny girl, but I wasn't really considered obese either. I've always been a little curvy and round. In high school I felt very average in everything. My grades, my weight, my height, my popularity status, everything. And in high school, you want to fit in but you don't want to blend into the wall either. I was very insecure about myself and my body. Basically always have been. I never dated in high school because I was so insecure and shy. I thought no one thought I was attractive. After high school I started dating a little bit. I dated guy after guy and got dumped every time. Ouch! Hurt a little each time. I couldn't understand why these guys did not want to be with me. And I began to wonder, why do they always dump me? What am I doing wrong? Is it the way I look? Is it the way I smell? Is it my personality? Am I too needy? Am I not a good kisser? Am I not religious enough? At the time I did not think that many girls my age were probably going through similar things. Then I started dating a guy whose name I will not reveal but will be known simply as Giant Dick Face in my story.
Giant Dick Face said something to me that changed my body image forever and the way I thought about myself in general. He told me and I quote, "I really like you alot, I am just not into your weight. Maybe we can work on that together." He also told his friends that was the reason he would not commit to me because he was worried my unhealthy eating habits would be passed on to our children if we were to have any." End Quote. If you think that about someone you are dating, you don't say that kind of shit to their face, you simply let your fake in considerate self make up some other reason like it's just not working out escape your lips. As a twenty year old young girl it began to dawn on me, this is the reason all of my boyfriends were not into me. I was not skinny. I was a giant blob that ate too much and was not worth dating. They were embarassed to show their friends to me because I wasn't skinny enough. They dated me because I had an okay personality and an okay boob size. I actually continued to date Giant Dick Face for a while after that comment. And,get this, he was the one that broke up with me. Side note:(Yeah if there was ever some sort of time machine I would definately go back and kick him in the balls. I know people stay with people who call there significant other fat and other names like that or in nice ways to try and "help", but I can't handle the thought of my significant other saying something so harsh to me. I don't need to hear it, I already know. And I think everyone else does too. The world is harsh enough on us. I don't need someone else telling me I need to lose weight. I watch TV shows all the time where it's a joke that a man tells a woman she could lose a few pounds or vice versa, I don't find it funny. It is completely a mental thing. Your partner is supposed to love you no matter what. Even if you are worried about your partners health, you do not comment on there flaws. We already know. Fuck You Dick Face! Did your mother teach you anything? (By the way this isn't a man hating story, I'll get to my point)
Sorry, tangent. Back to my story. So after Giant Dick Face called me fat and made me aware that I was not worth dating because of my size, of course like any other normal girl would, I tried to fix the problem. I began to research how to lose weight. Diet and exercise of course. Isn't that always the answer? I began to count my calories and work out. As the story goes, I began to lose weight and for the first time in my life, I started to feel a little more beautiful then average. The more I lost weight, the more attention I would get and the prettier I felt. So I started cutting more calories and exercising on a daily basis. Sometimes twice a day. I began to acquire many boyfriends/friends/past people who didn't give a shit about me before. I have always wanted to be cheerleader size. YOu know, the size where everyone can throw you up in the air and you look great in a bakini and you are considered very hot? That size. I felt so good, hungry, but good. For the first time in my life I felt like I was pretty enough to be considered okay looking and not frumpy, round and stout. I got down to about 110 and I lost my menstrual cycle. I didn't care. About 106 pounds I started noticing my hair was thinning and my skin was starting to look gray/green. Did not phase me for a second. If I missed a workout, I would have a (freak out/break down session) If I went 100 calories over my limit I would again breakdown and have a crying fit. I had finally found my nich. I would run everyday on the treadmill for eight miles. (Which by the way, boring! Staring at a wall for an hour) Which normally seems like an incredible thing to do for your body but not when you are only eating 900 calories a day. Keep in mind I lost 50 pounds in three months which is incredibly dangerous. I never did get into the throwing up thing though. I was worried about my teeth ironically enough. My mom took me to a doctor who told me I was doing great with losing weight and to keep up the great work. I was so fixated on looking good and being skinny that I started to dodge my friends and family to work out. I didn't want to go out with friends because they would be around food, and I didn't want to hang out with my family because all they would do is question and worry about me. At night I would have nightmares of becoming fat again and I would literally wake up sobbing because of all the hard work I had done. Being skinny was everything. I could not even eat a peice of gum without worrying about the calories. I got down to about 100 pounds before I was really noticing how weak I was starting to become. All the popularity and attention, everything I had ever wanted and I felt like it could never last. I would scream at my mom and tell her you are just jealous. I couldn't fathom why they would be worried because I was finally skinny and healthy. Every single thought I had was about food and when my next meal was going to be. I even ate a package of carrots for breakfast, lunch and dinner and noticed my skin turning orange the next day (umpa lumpa status). I would do anything to lose another pound. Food consumed me. What I did not realize until later was that I was not really living life, because I became obsessed with food and looking perfect. I did not have time for people because my obsession became my life. I wanted this skinny life so much and I had finally achieved it. Every time I ate a carrot I would go strip my clothes off and weigh myself.
I don't remember exactly how I got better, a part of it was moving away and change of scenery, a part of it was starting to date my husband who liked me before I was stick thin, and a part of it was my roommate constantly telling me I looked disgustingly thin that made me realize what I was doing to myself. Either way, I thankfully climbed out of the dangerous hole I was beginning to fall into.
Well, after that my life began to change. I got married in 2006, had a baby in 2008, and another baby in 2011. Life was complicated, wonderful, and a whole lot of crazy. For a while I did not have time to stop and think. Gaining weight during pregnancy is a good thing, taking off baby weight after, not so easy. In 2012, I was the heaviest I'd ever been in my life. I went for an annual check up with my doctor, and the nurse weighed me. I was so devistated I had let myself get that big. (Why it mattered so much to me back then I don't know, I admit, it still does.)The results of my check up kicked me into lifestyle change mode. I asked for a treadmill for Christmas, bought some new running gear, and started watching what I ate and worked out. It wasn't too long after that I started becoming obsessed once again. I freaked out if I gained a pound or ate over my caloric intake. I had again worked so hard and didn't want to lose all of it. This time, I did not have a shitty boyfriend to blame it on. This time around, I also knew that I needed to get help fast when I was consumed with the food thoughts again. I had lost my period and was beginning to shut the world out again. My sweet and thoughtful husband that he is suggested I go see his childhood therapist. So I thought, what the hell, I am so sick of feeling this way, what could it hurt? So I agreed to go, but only if my husband came with me. Through therapy sessions, the therapist told me something that stuck with me. He said, "You are an unratable human being. Everyone is unratable. So often we compair ourselves to scales and numbers which is not the right way to think. We live in a fake materialistic world and 90% of people think we are ratable. Think of how great it would be if you could be in the ten percent. The percent that didnt care. The percent that chose to be happy and not worry about appearance. You are unratable. So you gain some pounds? Run for enjoyment, eat healthy because you want too. Not because you have to. Not because you are less of a human being if you are not a certain size. Life is too short to worry about your ratability. We are growing,and ever changing. We all have a body and we all have a right to be viewed as equal. No matter our status or appearance. We are not numbers."
He also told me about a story of how he and his family were in Hawaii and next to them on the beach sat this group of women in their fiftees whom clearly had had many plastic surgeries and still looked good in swim suits, but all they did was bitch about there exes to each other and talk about how many problems their children now had. "Who wants that life?" He said to me. "That is not living just caring about where you are going to get your money next. These women had been through many husbands and clearly were still people who thought everyone including themselves were ratable. When it's clearly not so." He saif " Ashley, I want you to look in the mirror everyday and I want you to say outloud, Good morning self, you are an un ratable human being, what kind of day are you going to have today?" I know that sounds so silly but as I began to say it to myself, I started to believe it. Stupid mind trick. But really though, regaurdless of your religion, your ethnicity, your background, where you've been, your sexuality, your size, your sex, we are all unratable.
I battle with acceptance of my self every day, but I have gotten better. I am so lucky to have a husband that tells me I am beautiful every day. I have two kids to raise and teach about unratability. I deserve a happy life. I now exercise for my health and try to watch what I eat. I may not be a size two, but that doesn't make me any less of a person. I don't ever want to be the ladies on the beach that still only care about what I look like and could care less about anyone else. How sad of a life that is. Almost every girl I know has some sort of eating disorder and jaded perspective of themselves. It is this expectation that we have to be super thin to be considered beautiful and it is just not true. Surround yourself with people who agree with that answer and I know this is cliche, but get help. I can even give you my therapists number if you are struggling. I am at a point in my life where I don't weigh myself anymore. It is not worth the thoughts that follow. I have to keep reminding myself every day that I want to be that ten percent who believes we are unratable. In those breif moments when I truely deep down feel this way and let go of ratability,it is complete bliss.

Diaries of a Worry Wart

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

The Ten Percent

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Since It's Almost Valentine's Day

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