Title: Just Lose It, go crazy, oh baby.
Featured Image: A comic from a 1956 American Beauty magazine I own. See also bonus content for a crazy page.
Struggling with body image is one of the most prevalent demons given to us by society; too fat, too thin, too curvy in the wrong places or not curvy enough. Staring at the mirror looking at all the imperfections that people like the Kardashians make money off making us think not only exist but need fixing. Even TikTokers now are constantly talking about Botox and fillers etc., etc. There’s a goddamn billboard near Gillette Stadium that made me google what “11s” are. We’ve only just healed from the BBL movement and now we’re back to our early 00’s heroin skinny chic with the skin and bodies of prepubescent girls (because that’s what they’re into).
I’ve struggled with body dysmorphia since I was 14. I know this because I have MyFitnessPal data going back to my iPod touch days. I was 108 pounds– and yes, at 5’2 and 14 years old that wasn’t exceptionally abnormal– but that’s exactly why it was so abnormal for me to be so fixated on it that I was tracking it. My post-pubescent body was struggling with the idea that it was forever changed. And Tumblr probably didn’t help (remember thigh gaps?).
My tracking goes back to age 14 but has more-than-yearly updates for the past 10+ years. I can see the fluctuations (see Bonus Content) from doing swim team (my mom used to say it was all the “pasta dinners”), to the tons of prescription anti-depressants that ruined my appetite, back up to the highs of autoimmune inflammation. I’ve been up and down my whole life.
I was tracking my food at varying times and, not to blame my mother, but most of the snacks she bought were those 100-calorie packs that didn’t put a dent in hunger. And every time I start up again, it immediately rages into disordered eating; starving myself instead of just listening to my body. It becomes an obsession to make the numbers work, to track the macros and count fucking peanuts (which you literally can only eat 39 of). It’s all-consuming, the food noise screams. Thankfully it never got so far as to buy a food scale, like we make fun of one of my friends for (who does not believe that is considered disordered eating. But god, you’re not on My 600-Pound Life).
Speaking of blaming my mother; she constantly talked about her own body — and what’s worse, we’ve always compared weights (we are, of course, of similar build and size). But god why do all know how much our mothers weighed when they got married? Even worse yet, even when she isn’t comparing our bodies, she talks badly about her own body (the body modification movement affects her too). I want to shake her and say “That’s my body you’re talking about too!”. I don’t blame her though. It’s her first time living too, and seeing your body in your daughter — but the better, younger version of it — must be hard if you’re already struggling.
I’ve recently lost a significant amount of weight. Nearly 20 pounds. Which, on my small frame, is noticeable and worrisome.
I had gained some weight being sick; not only was it hard to move my body but my body held on to everything. When I started my medication (a biologic), it worked, and I lost nearly 10 pounds, mostly from water weight. Then I added another prescription to help with the leftover nerve pain and lost my appetite. It got rid of the “food noise” but to extinction. I rarely feel hunger until my blood sugar is so low I nearly pass out.
So I lost another 10 pounds, except in a much shorter span of time.
I am now back to the weight I was in college before I started drinking beer and was on like 4 anti-depressants.
And yet…
I am still unhappy.
I am happy that I can eat honey-roasted peanuts without having to count them out. I’m happy to eat as much junk food as I want because “fed is best” as I’ve been telling people. I’m so sick of counting and being too conscious of what the macros are. I am so fucking sick of trying to make something “healthy” by adding some vegetable or protein powder or chia seeds or whatever the fuck it is. I wish I wasn’t so goddamn aware.
And now I look in the mirror, and I still tug at my love handles and jiggle my arm fat. I still cringe at the dark line on my belly from where my fat folds over when I sit down. I still turn to get different angles, sucking in my stomach when I turn to the side.
I am skinnier than I thought I ever would be again. While I’m not yet rail thin, I am concerned at the speed at which I am losing and even more concerned with how much glee I get from seeing the number on the scale continue to go down.
I don’t know how to fix this. There is no amount of compliments my boyfriend gives me that can make me love my body in its entirety. I think I am attractive, that I have a “good” body, and yet my doublethink believes that there is always room for improvement — I need to do more squats, more reps to get my arms toned, use better posture so my neck looks less sloped. I don’t even look at other women the way I look at myself. I think all my friends are so gorgeous and all I see is them, the person. Why can’t I see myself that way?
When will I be satisfied? What is even the goal? I have a boyfriend who loves me and I still get plenty of free drinks at the bar.
And who is to blame for this? My mother? Society? Doctors? Bad brain chemicals? My own obsession with perfection so that I am never complacent and always focused on an intangible and unreachable carrot on a string?
I have almost everything I’ve ever wanted (besides a cricut) and yet I am always looking for more. Is the pursuit of happiness a fruitless endeavor and is contentment a more reachable goal? Is endless ambition its own happiness killer?
It took me a while to find a positive ending to this post. But what I will say is that if there is one thing about my body that I like is that she is so strong. She’s been put through so much and yet I can still do yoga and volleyball and party all night and squat my boyfriend. I love her and I wish I could apologize to her for ever talking bad about her. She’s just doing her best and so am I.
Bonus Content:
MyFitnessPal Data — Note that this goes back 14 years.
I went to a “Strength and Mobility” yoga class today at noon that was only women above 50. I felt shame in my crop top and nearly flat stomach. I felt like I was encroaching on their space. I felt like my flexibility was a flex on them. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to explain that I have arthritis and that my hips are crooked.
Oh, yeah, my pelvis is CROOKED. I got that Crooked Booty. I had to crop out a certain spot because it’s a bit salacious but I will confirm it’s also crooked.
Here is another page from the American Beauty magazine. They had their own version of Ozempic I guess. Look at some of the text it’s outrageous.
Damn, That's Crazy 