november 4

November 4, 2009 - Wednesday

crossing the line
Current mood: determined
so the last few weeks have been more than a little "unusual" for this little lady. in fact, it's been downright surreal. i won't recap. read the blog. you'll catch on quickly.

however, something that i have been sweeping under the rug is my constant struggle with eating. it is an enormous issue for me and kind of a final frontier that is on my mind. i have been medicating myself with food lately and i'm tired of the nonsense and the additional lbs. that come along with it. i'm ready to tackle this sucker and peel back some of these layers, including the fat ones.

so as i was looking at something the other day, to ground myself in this disease that has taken up so very much of my life, i found something interesting. a test of sorts to see if you are someone "at risk". how you can delineate if you are at risk is still beyond me but here is a checklist for those people who think they might have an eating disorder (classified as bulimia, anorexia or compulsive overeating).

-Avoidance of social situations that emphasis physical appearance.
-Feeling shameful and guilty about your body.
-Looking at others to see how your own body size compares to others.
-Weight determines how good you feel about yourself.
-What you weigh affects your relationships.
-Pinching body parts to measure fatness.
-Checking your reflection in glass windows to see how your body looks.
-Having special clothes used to make sure your body is certain size.
-Having clothes that do not fit to entice yourself to lose weight.
-Touching underneath the chin to check for a "double chin."
-Checking the diameter of the wrist for size maintenance.
-Asking others about weight to compare your own weight to others.
-Asking others about clothing size to compare your own clothing size to others.
-Attempting to elicit comments from others about how fat you are.
-Embarrassment about body weight.
-Checking to see how close thighs are together when standing up.
-Checking for cellulite in thighs.
-Sucking in your stomach in front of a mirror to see what it looks like.
-Preferring to only wear baggy clothes.
-Pinching of cheeks to measure fatness.
-Difficulty undressing in front of spouse or other loved ones.
-Comparing own body to people on television, movies and magazines.
-Checking to see if body parts jiggle.
-Checking to see if you can feel your bones.
-Weighing yourself multiple times.
-Fear of weighing oneself.
-Making negative comments about your body to others.
-Difficulty taking compliments from others about the way you look.


granted, some of these symptoms are just downright eating disorder related. but what i thought most interesting is that the majority of women that i know have half of the mindsets listed here, if not more. seriously. we, as women in our society, are so obsessed with physical appearance, specifically in relation to weight, size, ratio. i am guilty of practically everything on this list including some of the more ridiculous such as measuring my wrist. i remember being 92lbs. and still double checking, triple checking just to make sure that i wasn't getting fat. the size of my wrist, seriously? now that is body dysmorphic disorder at it's finest.

and i'm not saying that i don't have a more severe issue with my body and with food than everyday folks. it has plagued me all of my adult life and even as far back as elementary school age. but still. there are far too many similarities in having this "disease" and just being someone concerned with their "weight". the line is very faint and an incredibly dangerous one to cross.

so instead of going on a diet just to have an equal and opposite binge (never works), or restricting myself to honey nut cheerios and coffee (never works), or starving and then binging simply to make myself vomit (never works and is super disgusting), i'm doing the best i can to be practical. easier said than done but it's a simple formula really. eat when i'm hungry. eat things that will nurture my body and give me the fuel i need. exercise regularly. stop letting my emotional well being dictate how and what i eat. listen to my body and do what it needs. just get back to basics.

i feel like i crossed that eating disorder line long, long ago. what i got when i crossed over has been nothing but pain and unhappiness with myself, disappointment, anger, hate of my own body, the very body that gives me life. so let's see if i can back that line up just a bit and get back behind it. even if it's just one toe on the other side of the line, i'll take it because it sure looks like a nice place to be.