You'd Be So Pretty If...

You're totally right, Dara. The key to changing our relationship with our bodies and getting out of the cycle of guilt is to choose a different perspective. Once we quit fighting against what we've got and make a decision to love ourselves regardless of how our culture tells us we could/should be better, we find a freedom to be who we really are. I think that's when we truly find our identities and cultivate our strengths instead of trying to manipulate our weaknesses.

I've struggled for years with eating disorders, and while I'm still not completely "recovered" (but who is?) I've found the best solution to ignore image demons is doing exactly what you said above. While this may not be the best solution for everyone, I completely stopped watching TV or reading gossip magazines. Not only did I find that I don't actually care about celeb lives, but I actually feel much better about myself and have more energy to focus on my whole health. True, it is hard to feel bad about yourself when you can be proud of accomplishing nutrition goals and regular exercise!

Thanks for the great article!

Fit Bitch

“I’m not a fat bitch. I’m a fit bitch. And there’s a world of difference.”
-Jen Lancaster, “Such a Pretty Fat”

Make this note viral.

Even if you feel the writing isn’t that great, send it out on Facebook, MySpace, e-mails. The ridiculousness I experienced tonight shouldn’t ever have to be experienced by anybody out there, and so I want this message to sink into the consciousness of everyone I know so we can start making some serious changes in our society.

Here we go.

Tonight, I went for a walk. This was my second walk of the day (Sundays are double workout days in the Amanda household). As I turned the corner and prepared to walk across the street from one of our residence halls, I heard two women talking. Thinking they were on the street, I started looking around, and then I realized they were sitting and looking out the window of a res hall room. Their voices were amplified by the empty street and brick buildings around them.
Ironic note: In my head, I thought “turn around and walk the other way” because, in general, I don’t love an audience when I am working out, unless I am with at least one other person. It is because I am afraid of people saying mean things to me. You’re about to learn why this is ironic.

Girl 1 (to her friend): That’ll be me in 10 years.
Girl 2: Who? What?
Girl 1: That chick walking.
(I immediately tense, but try not to let them see I can hear them.)
Girl 2: Why?
Girl 1: Because I’m already a fat ass. My belly is bigger than my boobs, like hers. I’m halfway to being that fat already.

At this point, my whole body is shaking (like jelly, Girl 1 might say). My first response is to burst into tears. I can feel them coming. Suddenly, I am back in high school gym and the gym teacher is insinuating that I am a lesbian because I won’t wear the short-shorts of the school gym uniform. Suddenly, it’s every clothing store I’ve been in where all I can try on are the socks. It’s everything I’ve ever said to myself after I’ve stepped off a scale or looked in the mirror.
My second thought is “Maybe I should tell her—I also have big hair, a big nose, and big hips, but my mom converted to Judaism AFTER puberty, so I didn’t get the boobs my heritage promised?”
I also considered yelling—“I can hear you!!” In fact, at one point, I thought “Surely, she knows I can hear her. Maybe it’s someone I know, playing a joke.” Then I realize—no one I know is that cruel. Not even as a joke.

My actual response?
I walked hard for another mile.

But here’s what I thought about. And here’s what I need to share:

Lately, I’ve been reflecting a lot on some of the choices I’ve made in my life, as well as some of the experiences I’ve had that were not so much my choice. Some of the folks tagged know anywhere from 1% about what I have survived or they know—God bless them—100%. But basically? I’ve survived a lot. Not the least of which being the very reason I was out there tonight.

In the last three months, I have had four surgeries. One of these surgeries was so painful that I couldn’t comfortably walk or stand for nearly two weeks. When I was going to a follow-up appointment after that surgery, I stepped on a PEBBLE—a pebble—and it caused a bolt of pain so huge that I began sobbing and didn’t really stop until an hour after the appointment. My friend who was with me—Autumn—was very patient that day, and I am grateful to her.

I also learned that day that I had developed a blood clot post-surgery.

On that day, I quit smoking. Cold turkey. Smoke-o a-no-no. I also continued a healthy eating regimen I had begun and started an exercise regimen as soon as I was able. I am forever indebted to my friend Ashleigh, who walked right beside me even when I could only go about 40 feet in 40 minutes.

In three months, I’ve lost thirty pounds, not had one cigarette, and normalized my blood pressure and blood glucose levels. All while working a more-than full-time job, going through the surgeries, and yes—the occasional trip to the sushi bar.

The blood clot has gone away—thank God—but I am still needing to walk/rest/eat right every single day. I am on medication to prevent another blood clot and to help with yet another complication that arose after my third surgery. I still have one more surgery in July, and possibly may have to go through more if these ones did not work. I am going swimming tomorrow, despite the fact that I still have scars, incision marks, bruises, and burns (yes, burns) from the surgeries, and a swim suit won't cover them up.

I wish I could have yelled all of that through that girl’s window.

I wish she knew how HARD it is for me to even go for a walk, or exercise, or choose chicken over bacon. I wish she knew that no matter what she might yell out her window, I have yelled PLENTY worse to myself in my head.

And that, my friends? THAT is what needs to stop.

Actually, several things need to stop:

1) When you see an overweight person working out, do you think “Yeah, run a little faster, fatty!” (also screamed at me from car windows) or do you think “You can do it! Go!!” Do you make snotty comments to your friends when the bigger guy in line at Burger King orders a Whopper? Or do you keep quiet and eat YOUR large order of fries? When you see a skinny woman eating at Coldstone, do you mention to your friends that “digestion must be optional for her”?

I love judging. Making snarky comments is one of my specialties. But it has to stop, y’all. We never know who is listening—our students, our children, our friends, our SELVES. Which brings me to what else has to stop:

2) What that young woman said hurt my feelings, yeah. But really? I felt sorry for her. She thinks she’s fat? She was actually really slender. And this is what is sad about our society. We let people make comments about other people, and we let them make comments about themselves.

How many of you have a slender, fit friend who says “I have to wear my fat pants if we’re eating at McDonald’s?” (Nevermind that their fat pants are 14 sizes below my “skinny jeans.”) Or the active, healthy friend who won’t be seen in a swimsuit? What about the latest craze—pregnant women who hate their growing tummies? Who post pictures of their six-month-pregnant selves on Facebook with the caption: “I hope my baby is really fat; otherwise, it means I am!”

Maybe if so many movies weren’t about the heroine-who-straightens-her-hair-loses-the-glasses-and-ten-pounds-and-gets-her-man-and-eternal-happiness, we’d have women (and men!) with healthier self-images. Maybe if more movies were based on books like Jen Lancaster’s “Such a Pretty Fat” rather than “The Princess Diaries,” we’d be doing so much better. If we read more Meg Cabot, more Harlan Cohen, more "Moose," more "I'm Not the New Me,"--we'd be doing better.

I thought about calling that girl from tonight other names besides “Girl 1”—and if you have any ideas on just which ones, let me know—but I just couldn’t. I feel sorry for her that she thinks she’s fat, and that she thinks fat is a problem. And I am sorry she doesn’t have a better friend to disagree with her.

Lastly, I learned this:

3)
On Facebook and in life lately, many of my friends are working on getting healthier. It’s something that’s quite good about society right now, actually….we learned we screwed up the budget AND our belt size, so we’re tightening both. The focus of my friends is great—it’s on being healthy, not on being “skinny.” I also LOVE that people are finally opening up about this--besides Kirstie Alley and Valerie Bertenelli, I mean. Posting your weight-loss journey will be so much more helpful than posting the latest keg party pic.

What I want, though, is for EVERYONE to feel like they can start talking about this. No more silence, people. You know what thrives in silence? Binge eating, starvation, negative self-talk, obesity, self-hate, etc. You know what happens when you start using your voice?

You start talking to yourself—and your friends—a lot differently.

You stop letting friends say things like “I look so fat in that picture.” You start posting pictures because they show a GOOD TIME, not because they show you at your best angle.

You start saying “You look great!” “You are beautiful!” “What a good idea you had in our meeting today!”—You start complimenting people before/after weight loss, INSTEAD of weight loss, etc.

You stop letting things like stupid girls in windows—or stupid models on runways—decide how you feel about yourself. You walk an extra mile and turn down the extra cookie because it feels good, not because someone has shamed you into it.

You start hearing “keep up the good work!” from your doctor instead of “please try not to die before your next physical.”

You start looking back on ten years ago and realizing:

I have survived so much. And I can survive more. Including bitchy comments.

So…what I want to yell to that girl in the window:

“It could be worse, honey. I hope you are like me in 10 years. I hope you have a career you love, amazing friends, and a mom who kicked cancer AND diabetes’ ass. I hope you have a grandmother who, before she died, told you that you are a ‘different kind of fairy princess’ and told you that you are a woman—who knows what she wants and goes out to get it.

I hope you have all those things NOW. Because, even if takes me that long to get as skinny as you? I’m just glad I WON’T EVER be like you.”

“Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.”
-Maggie Kuhn
“Your silence will not protect you.”
-Audre Lorde

Spread the word: People are always worth more, even if they don’t weigh less.

The key to changing our relationship with our bodies and getting out of the cycle of guilt is to choose a different perspective. Once we quit fighting against what we've got and make a decision to love ourselves regardless of how our culture tells us we could/should be better, we find a freedom to be who we really are.

I think a lot of it has to do with core beliefs. Critical mothers make daughters believe they are overweight. "I am fat" becomes a core belief i.e. self-fulfilling prophecy, mainly through an obsessive attitude & compulsive behavior towards food (like Last Meal Syndrome). If you look up the Enlightened Living blog here on PT, by Michael Formica, there are two great posts of core beliefs.

I speak from experience: I have a Borderline mother with a severe eating disorder. I was 8 years old and an underweight gymnast the first time she taught me to purge (after eating too many s'mores at a campfire with my Girl Scouts troop). I have a very vivid memory of her clipping the fingernail on my right index finger so I could get my finger back into my throat without scratching myself, and get it far back enough to make myself vomit. Now, I knew this was abnormal behavior, but I still felt bad. Like most kids from dysfunctional households, I knew there was something wrong with them, but I thought there was something also very wrong with ME.

Over time, I lost confidence and quit sports because I was terrified of any kind of attention. I still had an athlete's appetite though and also mealtime was fraught with such anxiety because of watching her obsess, so I ate faster just to get the experience of being at the table with her over with. It set up a pattern of mindless eating, and eventually, I did gain weight, and fulfilled her prophecy.

I looked a great deal like my mother (in the face anyways), and of course that caused a lot of projection (especially since she is Borderline and that's what Borderline personalities do), and so I got a lot of criticism. "You'd be so pretty if..." That's how I found this blog! I Googled that phrase because I wanted to find some online support from other daughters of narcissistic and borderline mothers.

Only now, in my 30s, when I am permanently estranged from her and her mental illness, can I get back to myself. I can shut off her words which ring in my head, and believe that I know myself better than she or anyone else does. The truth about me is that I am athletic and love healthy food. I can't start a day without a workout, because of the mental and emotional benefits. As a side effect, I am in the best shape of my life.

The moral of the story, though, is that a change was born of a change in core belief. I don't think "I am fat." or "I am disgusting" or "I am unacceptable". I just remember that, before the programming (Last Meal Syndrome - to jam that Twinkie down my throat before the diet starts tomorrow), I loved healthy food and being outside.

The human body is meant to be lean and fit and strong. Most kids intuitively know how to eat, and enjoy exercise before they're programmed. Just remember yourself, ladies!

Every time you hear something critical, replace it. My mother's cruel nickname for both my sister (a size 2) AND myself is "Pudge". Now, I just hear her saying "Athlete" or "I'm a deeply insecure person, and you should ignore me."