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**Note: I wrote this post several weeks ago and have been too afraid to share it. I’ve been struggling with this a lot over the past month or two, and didn’t have the courage to open up. But the other day, I saw a segment about this book and I almost started to cry. It was fitting that I was at the gym at the time, telling myself to work harder because of what I ate the night before. I immediately went home and bought the book and as I’m reading it it’s really hitting home for me. So that is what gave me the courage to finally share this.**
No recipe, today…no, this is another type of post. It’s a story that I’ve been wanting to tell, but I just didn’t know how, or when, and I didn’t have the courage. I’m not sure what my goal is here, except to be therapeutic maybe? It’s a little long, so I understand if you want to come back another day, when there’s sugar. But if you stick with me, thanks. 🙂
A few weeks ago I bought Jordan a dance uniform that the local HS cheer dancers wear. They had a clearance sale, so I got a shell and a skirt for $10. She was brimming with excitement to try it on. They’re size small, but meant to be small – tight – and are stretchy to accommodate. It’s a dance uniform, after all.
Her eyes were shining as she tried it on. She was so excited! And then I noticed her sucking in her stomach in the mirror. I asked her what she was doing. And she told me she was fat, so she needed to suck it in.
In that moment, my world and my heart shattered into a million little pieces.
Because she was only doing something that I do, every. single. day. I have sucking in my stomach down to an art form. Don’t we all?
Sure, society has given her influence. She watches TV, sees magazines. She is most certainly not fat, but she is a different body type than most of her friends. She’s cursed with my genes and my husband’s: stocky and built. Not fat – solid. Big boned. Prone to weight in the tummy. Her friends are all…not that way. She’s bigger than most of her friends – by design, not by fat.
As hard as I have tried to shield Jordan from my body image issues, I’ve failed. F-A-T. It’s a dirty word and I’ve said it, a million times.
I do not have a good relationship with body image. I always say I don’t have a good relationship with food, but that’s not the case. It’s body image, the way I feel that I look and the way I feel about myself. Body image and self-esteem are BFFs, in a way. Without a good body image, your self-esteem takes a pretty good hit. I’ve always had problems with both: I’m too fat, I’m not good enough, not pretty enough, not a good enough wife/mom/friend/blogger. This has roots that go way back, to where, I have no idea.
I first realized I was overweight when I was 10 years old. I had been blissfully going along, not noticing that the pre-puberty weight was actually chunk, until one day in the fifth grade. Someone was videotaping PE class. I was wearing a turquoise sweatsuit, one that was so popular in the 80s: pullover sweater and sweat pants in a bright solid color.
My world changed when we watched the video. All of a sudden I realized what everyone else could probably see. I was fat. Big. Blubber, as I was always called. The mean boys (and girls) were right!
After a few awkward years and a puberty growth spurt where weight distributed itself (ahem), I was down to a regular, normal non-chunky me. But I was still bigger than all my friends. I had passed the 100 mark. (I still remember that day too, like it was yesterday.)
In high school, teen angst, depression, and friend drama made my body image even worse. It was at that point that FAT became a regular member of my vocabulary. It’s also when I started hearing the voice in my head, the one that told me I was fat. Ugly. Not good enough. I wanted to stop eating. I wanted to be thin. I wanted to be in control of what I ate. But I didn’t stop eating. I watched the Tracey Gold saga play out in the headlines. I was obsessed with For the Love of Nancy. I wished I could be Kelly in the Peach Pit bathroom. But those people had to stop eating to do that. Who would want to stop eating?
{A future food blogger, I was.}
The voice in my head just told me that I wasn’t good enough, not controlled enough. I was a failure because I couldn’t become anorexic. I was a failure because I couldn’t purge that meal in the TGIFridays bathroom. The voice was good at telling me I was a failure at things, be it life, school, or food.
In college I was lonely. My boyfriend lived away. I didn’t make many friends. I lived at home, and my HS friends all went to the same junior college together, so they were having a HS part two. I gained a lot of weight.
The perfect storm happened one night my senior year. I had been broken up for awhile with no boyfriend prospects in sight. Then the pivotal thing in my relationship with control and food happened: I failed a test. Not just any test, one that I needed to get into a teaching program. It was a really difficult math exam, for future math teachers. I missed the cutoff by 3 points. I had never failed something so epic in my life. I had let everyone down: my parents, my teachers, myself.
That night, I stopped eating…mostly.
For a few months I lived on coffee and Excedrin. I ate dinner because I lived at home and had no choice but to eat with my parents. There would have been too many questions if I skipped dinner, so I ate it. It felt good, not just to lose the weight, but to be able to say no to something. No, I don’t want that cereal. No, I don’t want lunch. It felt good to be in control of what I wanted. Finally, I was strong enough. I dropped over 30 pounds in a month.
People noticed. I got compliments. I also finally, after so many years of coveting it, could see the triangle. You know the one: when skinny people stand upright with their legs together you can see a triangle of light through the thighs. I had one! Finally!
I remember being hungry. All. The. Time. My friends were worried about me, they urged me to eat. But I was too happy about needing a belt to wear my jeans to listen to them. I wasn’t anorexic, I didn’t have an eating disorder. I was just losing the weight I needed to lose.
I’ll never forget the day I started eating again. I went to breakfast with a couple friends, which turned out to be an intervention of sorts. They ordered me pancakes and stared at me so I’d eat. I still remember my inner conflict: eat the pancakes? Or not? I ate a bite of the pancakes. I made a decision that day, to not go all the way down the road I was headed.
That’s also the day I discovered laxatives. We don’t really need to go into that…you get the point. That went on for awhile, even into my relationship with Mel.
I made a choice to start eating again, but that certainly didn’t solve any problems. The voice in my head was still there – and strong. It’s still there today – I have never dealt with any of the issues that drove me to that point, and even though I wouldn’t ever stop eating again, I still wish I could. Every. Single. Day.
I was 5′ 4″ and 120 pounds when Mel and I started dating. I still remember pinching my tummy and calling myself fat. Now, I want to go back and slap that girl. Dude. 120 pounds? Be thankful!
Marital bliss changed my thinking. I stopped fixating, and got to a healthier me, but Mel would argue with that. F-A-T was always part of my vocabulary. I had Jordan. I gained an obscene amount of weight, but lost 50 pounds in 6 weeks because of water weight. But the 10 pounds left eluded me, and everything moved. Since I began blogging, I’ve gained a lot of weight. It’s very hard to be in this job and not, especially when you love sugar and have no willpower like I do.
I often feel like a hypocrite: I show you lots of sugar, and tell you how good it is. It is good, and I should know, because I eat it every day. But I beat myself up for every single bite. I pinch my fat and tell myself I’ll never be good. I’ll always be overweight. I refuse to weigh myself, because every number is like a stab to my heart. And when you roll your eyes at me because I say I’m fat, know that I’m not just saying it. I actually, 100%, feel it. I feel it on my stomach, in my thighs. I see it in my head. I feel it in my heart. I don’t say it for a “no, you’re not” answer. I say it because it’s my coping mechanism for how I feel about myself.
I’m not happy with the way I look, but I never have been. No matter what weight I am, I look in the mirror and I see that chubby 10 year old in her turquoise sweatsuit. And now, I’m passing down these wonderful traits to my daughter.
#momfail
I get comments all the time like, “how do you stay so thin?” and I laugh. I joke, and say “spanx” or “photoshop” but inside I’m saying, “those people are cray-cray” because they’ve never seen me naked and boy, a good black shirt can cover up anything. But I certainly don’t feel thin, not at all. I never have, and I’m not sure if I ever would – even if I lost another 30 pounds.
That episode with Jordan made me realize how unhappy I am with how feel about how I look. I mean, I always feel unhappy with how I look, but I’m realizing I need to change that. I’m not quite sure how. I don’t necessarily mean weight loss – I mean I need an attitude adjustment. I could lose 10 or 20 pounds, sure (and I should) but that’s not going to change how I feel about myself. Will losing weight change how my clothes fit? Yes. Will it make me happier? Yes, to a point. But I’m still going to feel fat. That’s what I need to change…somehow.
Here’s the thing: reading the book Almost Anorexic has made me realize something. For 15 years I told myself I didn’t have an eating disorder. That I don’t have one. I had “failed” at anorexia. I felt that if I told someone I had an eating disorder in college, or that I still suffer from symptoms, I felt that they would either (1) look at me and laugh or (2) get angry because my saying that was an insult to anorexics everywhere. But in reality? Eating disorders are a spectrum. Back in college I most definitely did suffer from an eating disorder. And guess what? I still do. Sure, I don’t starve myself. I don’t purge. But the self-belittlment I force on myself, the anger I feel when I eat, the hatred I feel for myself when I don’t work out hard enough, those are all symptoms that can fall on the eating disorder spectrum.
These feelings have been hitting me so much harder lately. Life is busy, I’m more stressed. My husband is being so successful at his weight loss. Bloggers around the internet are talking about the Food Blogger 15. Gaining weight seems to be the mark of a food blogger; it comes with the territory. I think all of this combined is making the voice in my head get louder.
Here is another thing I’m learning about myself: I’m scared. I’m scared to diet. I’m scared to cleanse, to change the way I eat. I’m scared to work with a trainer, I’m scared to try all those so-called natural gym booster supplements everyone uses. I’m scared of my scale. All of those things are triggers for me. I think I’m past the point of starving myself. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. All of those things are scary for me because they trigger the voice in my head. If I start a diet and cheat, I’ve failed. If I don’t work out as hard as I should, I’ve failed. I think what reading the book has me realizing is that losing weight is not the answer. Before I can lose weight, I need to silence the voice in my head.
I think I need to start realizing that I am me. I’m not a number. I’m not a pound or a dress size. My self worth should not be tied to weight. My body is my body and at 155 pounds or at 130, I need to be appreciative of it. I need to learn to accept me. Now, if I can learn to do that, I can probably bottle it and sell it for a million dollars. Because it’s something all women want, right? To be happy in their own skin?
The difference is I want Jordan to be happy in hers. I want her to put on her sparkly skirts and wacky leggings and be herself. I don’t want F-A-T to define her. When she’s called that in school, and she already has and will again, I’m sure, I want her to be able to shrug it off and say whatever, dude, I’m wearing a sparkly t-shirt and I’m happy about it. I’m not quite sure how to get her to that point, but I’m going to give it a concerted effort.
I’m going to try and cut myself some slack. If I eat a cookie, I’m going to try not to tell myself I’m ugly.
If I have a second (or third) bite after a photo shoot, I’m going to try not to hurl hurtful words at myself because I’m a disgusting piece of fat that cannot stop at one bite.
If I skip a day at the gym, I’m going to try not to tell myself I’m worthless and a piece of lard, which usually results in eating a tray of brownies.
I’m going to try not to pinch my stomach fat. That’ll be a hard one, because I do it so often, it’s a reflex.
I’m not sure if I’m going to be successful at any of those, because right now I’m certainly not. But I’m going to try.
I’m also going to tell the 10 year old fat girl in the mirror to get the f$*! out of my head. It’s about time she found something better to do.
Instead of saying “I’m fat” I am going to try saying “I’m me.”
{Now…if only I knew how to do that, I’d be golden…}
Thank you for reading. I just feel like I had to get that off my chest, and I feel better knowing I’ve finally said everything that’s been stuck inside me for a really, really long time. I appreciate it if you made it all the way through. 🙂
I’ll be back with sugar on Sunday. And, hopefully, less guilt.
Last Updated on August 18, 2022
Dorothy, thank you for sharing this with us. So many of us struggle with our weight. Figuring out why we feel the way that we do is important. Loving ourselves no matter what size is important. Showing out daughters and sons how to eat healthier is important. The number on the scale? Not so important. The amount of skin/fat we can pinch on any given place on our bodies? Not important. Have you ever read Brittany.herself ? It’s a blog where a “chubby girl” shows the world how she has learned to just accept her size, dress her body, love herself, and she also posts great mom stuff and sometimes recipes….Check it out. She is really inspiring. Also, kinda blunt about things most people whisper about (sex). Anyway, I do enjoy your blog – recipes, not recipes. It so doesn’t matter. Glimpses of bloggers’ real lives help us to see that you are not just a person who bakes and takes pictures of baked goods and posts recipes. You are a real person, with real live issues. Not a picture perfect piece of pie or cake. Thank you again for sharing so much with us.
Thank you Larissa for reading and your comment. And for sharing that blog, I’ll have to check it out! Thanks for being here!
Thanks for writing this. I have struggled with my weight for many years and have said and done many of the same things you have done. I do not have any answers at all about how to accept your body, but I’m learning how to try to come to terms with it.
Thanks for your comment and for reading Melanie. It’s a hard process, that’s for sure. ((hugs))
Dorothy,
This is a wonderfully honest post. So many women struggle with their body image…whether or not they need to lose weight. We are bombarded every day with images of what women “should” look like that it’s hard to accept our bodies as they are. Ultimately, we should all be striving to be healthy. The number on the scale, the size that we wear isn’t important. Being HEALTHY is the ultimate goal. That dessert every now and then (OR even every day in moderation) shouldn’t make us feel so miserable. Sadly, it is hard to overcome those thoughts. Thank you for sharing your struggle. I wish you the best in working on changing the voice in your head, and getting rid of that 10-year-old girl inside you. She totally needs to find something better to do! 🙂
Becky
Thank you Becky! I’m going to work hard towards that, and hopefully the eating will go along with it. 🙂
Ok. Some tough love is needed here. I do feel very bad for your child. That breaks my heart. BUT you have a dessert blog where you are constantly making food that is making our kids today obese. What is that saying. You are what you eat. Is doing your blog worth the way your daughter feels? People today just need to STOP eating the crap! And the cheesecake and stuff that is causing weight issues. This is such a frustrating subject for me because if you teach yourself and your daughter how to live a healthy lifestyle this wouldn’t be an issue and make you feel like crap. Do you want your daughter to grow up feeling this way? I blame the parents. And yes in society we shouldn’t compare ourselves to the fake supermodels, BUT we should be living a healthy weight and lifestyle. I hope that you aren’t offended by this comment but I am not going to be the fake people that lie to your face.
Bruce, I posted my story in the comments sometime yesterday. Your reply really disturbs me. My overeating came from being abused as a child and being sexually abused as a child. Food became a source of comfort. Not until years later did I go into therapy (in my 50’s) and finally worked thru all of the crap that was my life. I had a mother who left me with my father at the age of 3 months old and never looked back. I had step-brothers that tortured me in oh so many ways. I felt like food was my only friend. Two years ago, I weighed 290 pounds. Today I weigh 146 and am still losing. But only thru therapy was I able to accomplish this. Please don’t jump to judge people so hastily. Everyone has a story that formed their lives and whatever the resulting factors are, they come out in different ways for different people.
This is a food blog and I subscribe to it be email. It doesn’t mean I fix and eat everything that is posted. I do make a lot of them to take for get-togethers and such. I have learned all about portion control now and learned that I can still have a small piece of something and work it into my daily calorie allotment.
It is sometimes too easy to blame parents for everything. I have three children raised in the same house with the same food and same parents. Yet one of them is overweight and the other one is at her ideal weight and the other one is underweight. Go figure. I was not a parent that forced my children to clean their plates like I had to do as a child. I also did not fix special meals. Everyone ate the same thing.
I’m not trying to start a war of words, just want you to know that everyone is not the same. Everyone has walked a path in life that for some people have been harsh and continues to follow them into adulthood. I have finally been one of the lucky ones before it was too late.
And to echo your sentiment, I hope you aren’t offended by my comments. And if you go back and read my previous comment, I was anything but fake.
Thank you Pam, for this comment. 🙂
While I appreciate your comment Bruce, I wholeheartedly disagree. I do not feel that “healthy lifestyle” means no sugar, no sweets. While my relationship with food is skewed right now, I do know that purposefully denying something to yourself is not healthy. Do I recommend that you eat an entire pan of cheesecake bars? No. Do I think that having one after dinner is okay, for myself or for my daughter? Yes. You “blame the parents”. My problem is not with what I eat – it’s HOW I feel about food and how I feel about myself. Eating a “healthier lifestyle” is not going to change how I feel about myself. That’s the thing with eating disorders – it’s really not about the food. It’s about the behavior, the mentality behind it. The food is a manifestation of the emotions. A healthy lifestyle does NOT mean denying oneself food or sweets. Making sweets makes me happy – it actually fulfills a very large part of my life. It’s how I feel about eating them that I need to change.
This was such a great read, Dorothy. I think you have probably touched every person in some way with this post.
I’ve never been over weight. In fact, I’ve been quite the opposite. I was made fun of all throughout school, up until I graduated high school, because I was skinny. I remember in 5th grade this boy said to me “you have really skinny legs – are you anorexic?” I was in fifth grade!
With being so small all of my life I’ve always actually had a fear of becoming fat. I have gained weight a few times throughout my life, the first time while I was in my early 20’s. I jumped from about 110 to 130. I had a boyfriend. I got comfortable. I went out to eat a lot. but I wasn’t happy with that. I had to buy new clothes. My mom (who is super fit at 61 now) said to me: you’ve gotten a little chunky.” That was real fun. So I started exercising (something I never EVER did) and lost the weight. But then a few years later I had some skin allergy problems and had to take steroids for about a month. Boom. Major weight gain again. I couldn’t stop eating food because the steroids made me hungry. And I started walking 3+ miles per day so I could control the weight. I finally dropped to below 120 but if I stopped exercising, I gained it. Fast forward to 31 (32 will be here next month.) My weight teases with 130. Sometimes I go above, sometimes I drop below. Since I started food blogging, it has seen an increase. I have to exercise to keep it below 130. When I go above 130 I get a little depressed. I know, a lot of people say “well you are skinny so why do you worry?” I just say “you don’t see me naked.” Most of my weight goes to my thighs. It looks bad, IMO. And I hate that my thighs are always touching. Bleh. So right now, I’m back in my “I have to exercise every day” mode.
Thanks for sharing this and apologies for rambling. I felt this was a good place to speak out my mind on my issues since usually when I do with people, I get the whole “you don’t even need to exercise” remarks. :/ Stay strong. 🙂
I think we have to get to the point that we’re comfortable in our own skin, no matter what. It’s so hard! Thank you for sharing Julie, and for reading! ((hugs))
Amen. Thank you for being brave and sharing this post with your readers.
Thank you so much! 🙂
Dorothy,
You made me cry….what a powerful story. You did an amazing job putting so many of our experiences and feelings into words. I think most of the women I know feel similarly. I’m sorry that Jordan has been the target of teasing….I know how painful that is, as we are experiencing some of that as well. I think having a very open discussion about this with Jordan would start her in the right direction with body image. None of us can assume that slim people have a good body image… like you said when you were thin you still felt overweight….I think that is a common struggle. I have a friend that is underweight and she struggles with body image as well. I know since the day I met you, I’ve never ever seen you as overweight. Thank you for sharing your story, in such an impactful way. Hugs…
Thank you Jackie, and thanks for being such a good friend! xoxo
You are very brave and courageous to write this and put it out there for the world. The sad thing is you speak for many of us. My brother-in-law brought over some old pictures of me and Mark when we dating and looking at those pictures I remember how “fat” I felt. At that moment it dawned on me that I have felt fat for more than half my life. And yes, I was thin in those pictures. But the great thing about you and I is we have realized that the battle is not about the food and exercise but about being more kind to ourselves. And making sure our daughters love who they are, no matter what shape, size or color. Sending you a big hug!
Thank you for the brutally honest post. The raw truth of it made me cry. When I am honest with myself I know that I am not overweight, but I do battle with my body image. In college after gaining the freshman 15 I decided to stop eating most food groups in an effort to lose weight. It worked, and I did feel powerful that I could control my eating like that. However, I also felt nauseous most of the time and cranky, and would get near to lightheaded very easily. Sadly it took me a long time to let go. I now try to eat healthy, but remind myself that I am not a bad person if I eat dessert, or if I have more than one cookie, or too much bread! I am at a healthy weight and try to work out (which doesn’t happen as often as it should). The voice in my head still tells me that I am too soft. I squeeze my stomach and tell my husband to look at my fat! (Who does that!). It infuriates him, and should infuriate me – why should I bully myself! I don’t remember anyone else ever making me feel fat…just me. I want you to know that you are not alone, and that I think you are beautiful. And it is never too late to change the way you think, retrain yourself to love yourself. Don’t say things to yourself that you would never say towards someone else. Be kind to yourself.
Thank you Kelly, that’s such a great reminder: don’t say things to myself that I wouldn’t say to someone else. And the bully line – so try. Why do we bully ourselves so? I can’t believe that there are people out there who don’t squeeze their tummy fat reflexively. I can’t imagine a life without that, but I hope I can have it. And you too! Thank you for sharing your story!
Ok, I’ve been gone for a few days (i was eating my way through Monterey) and I’m just now catching up on my emails and blogs.
Isn’t it funny how we can just simply look at people that seem to be so well put together and perfect looking and until they open a door into their soul they suddenly become a real person? I do this in church all the time. If I’m sitting in the back, I look at everyone’s head and see how nicely dressed and put together each family is and think, “boy I wish I could be like that…..that sure is a good mom to make sure all the kids clothes are ironed and matching……I SUCK.”
Thank you for becoming a real person to me this morning. I will be praying for you on this journey of healing and to be able to conquer the evil fat lies that all of us woman deal with on a daily basis.
This post is a proven fact that you are stronger than you think….
Thank you so much. I know – we don’t see what really goes on in peoples’ lives very often. That’s why I think it’s so important to share these sorts of things. Thanks for being here and helping me on my journey!
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