I haven't posted in over a month.

And of course finals week is the best time to start up again.

Well, today boys and girls, we're gonna talk about advertising.

Right now I can't sleep, and so I was Stumbling through games online. During the loading process of one of the games, there was a commercial for MultiGrain Cheerios. The commercial went something like this:

Two women are doing their laundry at the laundromat.

Red-haired white woman: Hey, can I borrow a quarter?

Brunette white woman: Yeah sure. Are your clothes not dry yet?

Red haired white woman: Oh, I'm trying to shrink them. I've lost weight! None of my clothes fit me anymore!

Brunette woman, looking slyly and jealously at the other: How did you do it?

Red haired woman: Oh, ya know, just by eating right and exercising. And I switched to WHOLE GRAINS!

Brunette woman: Whole grains, huh?

Announcer's voice: Studies show that people who include more whole grains in their diets have a lower body weight than people who eat less whole grains. MORE GRAINS, LESS YOU.

Ok, first of all, people, this nasty little advertising campaign is based on twisting words. People who eat more whole grains tend to weigh less. Ok. But not BECAUSE they eat whole grains. Now, I am totally advocating whole grains, because they are delicious and nutritious. YUM. But suggesting to people that whole grains will make you lose weight? Misleading and ridiculous.

The brunette woman (or whatever hair color she has; regardless, the FATTER one. Which, hello, she just looks normal and healthy and NOT FAT. But of course, in comparison with the red head, she does look fat, if we're basing "normal" off of the woman who's lost weight, which no healthy person ever should, but which this commercial is doing.) looks at the other woman with such unbridled jealousy and almost HATRED that, I'm assuming, the advertisers wanted every woman to identify with. Who doesn't have a friend that they think is smarter, skinnier, better, funnier, prettier, more kind, more WHATEVER than themselves?

Now to the real point of my post.

MORE GRAINS, LESS YOU.

Less you? Why would you ever fucking want LESS of yourself? This statement doesn't only imply less of your physical body, but less of your fucking soul, man! And anyway, what's wrong with the amount of you that you have right now? Is there too much "you"? Who gets to decide how much of "you" you're allowed to have? How much space you're allowed to take up with "you"? Because last time I checked, there was plenty of room for all of those "you"s out there. Yeah, I get it, this commercial is (somehow) attempting to advertise a healthier lifestyle filled with rainbows and kittens and whole grains. I see that. But the intense scrutiny of the woman's weight, coupled with the advertising slogan?  This statement is so ridiculous and so leading and so fucking WRONG.

I found a link that advertises this cereal, and, while it doesn't have the video, it has the phrase, right there at the bottom. More grains, less you.

All righty people, I'm going to attempt sleep. Wish me luck.

Self and reader, I apologize

Dear Me and My Readers,

Firstly, I apologize. The reason I haven't posted in almost forever is because, well, I kept chastising myself for not having worked out in two weeks. And that led to shame, and self-deprecation, which in turn led to no posts for you or me. Of course, this little wrench in the machine began as me being too tired and on spring break, and making excuses to myself but also not beating myself up about not working out, which was what I told myself I would do. But, then it just continued with unmotivated me, saying it was ok, and then saying it was not ok, and then freaking out, and being to ashamed to post anything. So, this cycle has to stop. I really can't work out tonight, as I have to work and then get up early tomorrow. But, tomorrow night, I'm going to do it. I have to keep myself accountable.

In other news, I may be getting a tattoo soon. Last Spring Break I had just had a terrible break-up, was miserable, completely depressed, angry, and so down on myself. I had this idea for a tattoo that I of course wanted to get RIGHT THEN, but I made a deal with myself. If I wanted this tattoo in a year, I would get it. And I still want it. I want to get the word "evolve" on the inside of my left wrist. I originally wanted it in Ani DiFranco's handwriting from her album/song of the same name, but now I'm not sure. I may instead get it in a typewriter font with a period at the end.

Ok, I PROMISE I will be better about posting. And working OUT.


Love, me.

Second Guest Post!

First of all, I would like to say that this next individual has absolutely astounded me with her bravery and strength in writing this post. She is a beautiful woman, and one that I am very honored to know, because I know from experience when you are in the midst of an eating disorder or disordered eating behavior, it is so difficult to 1) Recognize that what you are doing is negative, and 2) To write about it in such a candid way. So, props to the wonderful Caitlin!


I was asked to write a guest post for my dear friend’s blog. Being the person that agrees to do things without pause, I said yes, even though I had not looked at her blog. Then I did. And I was glad I agreed.

(Just to clarify, I am in NO WAY a great writer. But, I figured if I just wrote honestly and wrote what I was feeling, it would turn out decent enough)

I am a ballet dancer, who, up until about 3 months ago, was completely dead set on being a professional ballet dancer.

Despite the fact I have quite the voluptuous ass.

Always have. Always will.

Ballerinas aren’t supposed to have an ass. Well, I guess they can, as long as the ass doesn’t go above a size x and can squeeze into an itty bitty tutu.

And that is not me. I am between a size x and x... mostly x. But 4 when I’m eating healthy and exercising.

A long time ago, I used to not have any body issues at all, even though I was still dancing. But I was so in love with ballet, that it never occurred to me I didn’t have the body.

And that all changed when my former director told me I didn’t have the ballet body. That I was too heavy below the waist.

Okay, okay. Let me go ahead and say this. For a 5’6” female, I am not overweight. I’ve never been overweight (well, freshman year, I was right on the brink…but I’ll come back to that later).

But hearing that from someone that could help you achieve your dream? (he didn’t, actually…that was another teacher I had that never said anything to me about my body).

It hurt.

But more than it hurt, it pissed me off. So much, that to spite him, and all the other ballet teachers I encountered in high school that gave me crap about my body, I did nothing to change it. I carried on as normal. Danced my heart out. Ate whatever the hell I wanted.

By senior year of high school, I was auditioning for places left and right. And getting rejections left and right. It began to occur to me that it wasn’t my skill they were rejecting…but my body. Rejections suck (there’s not really an eloquent way to put it). So, when I got this little packet from a little women’s college (that I only applied to because a) my parents made me apply to colleges and b) it was free) that had not only warmly accepted me, but was offering me scholarships to attend? Suddenly I wasn’t rejected…not in the least. In my glee, I jumped on the opportunity, went and visited the college, fell in love with it, and before I knew it I was all graduated and moving in to my new home.

“What about ballet?” you may ask. I decided to enroll in the pre-professional division of the local, nationally recognized ballet school. I know…I’m like a dog with a bone. I just couldn’t let the ballet thing go.

Of course, I hated the ballet. I hated the atmosphere. So I stopped going.

And of course, I loved school. I had a best friend, things to do, stuff to learn, and I found what really interested me academically: Psychology.

And along with school, came something that I had never really encountered outside of my ballet filled life. And that was a lack of complaining or obsessing over bodies. Eating whatever one wanted (especially when stressed, which occurred quite a bit due to the academic nature of the school).  Not looking at yourself in a mirror everyday in nothing but a leotard and tights. So I joined in on this new way of looking at food.

Some time later, my jeans stopped fitting me. It was alright, I just bought new ones, and thought nothing of it.

Then I made the mistake of going to ballet for the first time in the two months since I’d been engulfed in the college life. Believe me, seeing yourself a few pounds heavier in a leotard and tights really kills one’s confidence and self-esteem.

So, of course, to deal with this, I ate. I’m an emotional eater. If I’m having any kind of negative emotion, I eat to make myself feel better. This is bad. And something I still struggle with. A lot.

 My weight gain reinforced quitting ballet.

And thus began the Great Disordered Eating Struggle of Freshman Year. I would be anorexic one week, and a binge eater the next. I tried to keep myself from eating under x calories a day, and the next day would probably eat more than x. I started taking diet pills. Never went to ballet. Never exercised. Went into a depression. Gained that x pounds. I started, for the first time in my life, to actually hate myself.

The summer after, I went to a ballet program in New York. I lost all x pounds, started becoming muscular, and found my passion for ballet again. But I knew I’d never look the same as I did in high school. I was still a size x, and my ass, though a bit smaller and way more muscled, was still very much present.  When I went back for my sophomore year of college, I started taking the adult open classes at ballet instead of doing the school. There was a lot more freedom. A lot less judgment. It was all about dancing for the love of dancing. I continued eating healthy like I had over the summer, started making better choices in the dining hall. I was actually happy.

I moved to Alabama the next year for the opportunity to dance with a professional company. Not officially, but I enrolled in their school and got to be in their productions and take company class. I had lost even more weight over the summer, and was told how I good I looked by the director of the company.

I was so happy to actually get a compliment about the way I looked, that I stopped eating. I started restricting myself way more than I had before. With the increase in how much dance I did, I decreased how much I ate. And for the first time, I thought I looked like I was supposed to. I didn’t hate myself…I loved myself. Subconsciously, I knew I was anorexic. But to not hate myself for the first time in 2 years? It was quite the reinforcement to continue my anorexic way of eating. Or not eating. I was happy…who cared?

Then, in all my glee and happiness about what I was doing, my boyfriend of 2 years broke up with me. I loved him. He broke my heart. He broke my will to live in any kind of constructive way.
I could no longer push myself to go to ballet. I hit a depression like I never had before. And to cope, I tried eating. Only, this time, I lost all control. I could no longer control my emotional eating. Before, I had been able to stop. This was no longer the case. When I finally was so full that I had to stop, I was filled with such self-loathing and regret at what I had done, that for the first time in my life, I purged. This pattern continued for months. I gained weight. I no longer cared about anything. Not school, not ballet, not the way I looked. I obviously wasn’t loved by him…so how could I love myself?

I was so disillusioned.

I kept dancing, but due to the binging and purging, was losing energy, and thus getting out of shape. I had no friends in Alabama, was taking frequent trips to see my friends in Atlanta, and in my loneliness and self-loathing, continued developing my eating disorder.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I get therapy? As a psychology major with a desire to be a therapist, it almost feels silly to go to therapy. I mean, shouldn’t I be able to help myself?
No.
When I went home for Christmas, binging and purging was no longer an option.  I was finally around people that were watching me eat. Which meant I was forced to eat healthy, and not an exorbitant amount of food. I cried to my mom lots, but I could feel myself getting out of the habit of binging. I had friends around me. I wasn’t alone. I didn’t need to binge and purge. And I felt better.

But, a return to school meant a return to loneliness. And a return to being able to binge. Yes, I am still struggling with bulimia. Yes, I am now thinking about getting professional help.  I’m returning to Atlanta where my friends and some family are, and where there’s a school I actually love. I’m going to dance for the sheer love of dancing, and not as a career.

I’m still hating my body. I won’t lie. Just because I’ve made important decisions regarding my life doesn’t mean my body image issues have disappeared. And, it’s not even really hating the way I look. It’s hating myself for what I do to my body. Binging and purging is not healthy. I know this. I have an interest in medicine, I’m a psychology major, and it’s not like we haven’t discussed eating disorders in my class. I know what it’s doing to me. I know how I’m hurting myself. But it’s difficult to just stop.

I know I’m not the only one out there dealing with this. I’ve been actively trying to love my body, and myself, everyday. I’ve been trying to eat balanced, nutritious meals (I was once told to think of food as nothing but fuel for my body…it kind of works to improve any unhealthy eating. At least for me). Lots of veggies and fruits, not so much processed foods with sugar, more natural stuff. Not because it’ll make me thinner, but because it’s better for my body.  Also, each day I try to find one thing about myself that I like, and tell myself exactly why I like it.  I usually write it down and stick it on my bathroom mirror so I see it all the time.

Also, this time, some of the self-loathing is stemming from something a little different than how I look. It’s coming from the fact that I haven’t been active in quite some time. I haven’t worked out, haven’t danced. I hate that I haven’t been active, and my body feels like it’s falling apart. Which I guess is better than being unhappy with how I look. So now my goal is to make myself get back in shape. I hate being out of shape.

I really wish I had some sort of successful ending to my struggle with food and body image issues. One where I love myself unconditionally and have fixed my issues. I could make one up, to be inspiring, but I’m not going to do that. It would be lying.

I guess, really, the most important thing is to love yourself for who you are. I’m not talking about the way you look. I’m talking about your personality. What makes you, well, you.  I love my personality, to be honest. I think I'm generally a kind, caring, introverted individual with a penchant for sarcasm. Feeling good about oneself is difficult, especially in this society. We’re almost programmed by culture and media to not be happy with ourselves (how we look, what we do…anything about ourselves).  And no one is going to love themselves 100% of the time.  But enough of the time to where we can all be confident with everything about us?  Be strong, courageous, ass-kicking women who love themselves?  That’d be pretty damn awesome.

First Guest Post!

Nikki says: I'm fickle, confident, shy, crafty, and giving.
I know her from school. She's wonderful, whimsical, cheerful, always willing to help out or cheer up anyone who needs it, and has the most beautiful smile. She's 19, wants to be a teacher, and I read this post on her blog, Provocative and Talkative, and knew that THIS is what I wanted for my first guest post. It's so wonderful, and inspiring, and beautiful. So, here's what Nikki has to say!


This post is stemming from a comment made by Lily (that link, by the way, is to her blog we were required to make for an art class and hers has a nice humor that a lot of the others don't) on my post about being naked. She said that she was jealous of the level of comfort that I have with my body and it got me thinking about how I became so confident in my own skin.

It's definitely a process and it takes a long time. And I definitely did not hold the views I have today in high school, or even last year.

Middle school sucked. It sucks for everyone, I'm sure, and I'm most certainly not trying to out-suck anyone else's middle school experience, but I was at a different school every year, sometimes twice a year. The moving prevented me from having friends really, so I would spend most of my time at home reading (read: sitting still for hours on end while eating Oreos). Needless to say, I wasn't the skinniest kid around -- add that to the fact that it's not easy to make friends in a place where kids are ruthless about almost constant fat jokes and it's a recipe for an anti-social thirteen year old. I would sometimes read these books that, while not really above my maturity or reading level, were definitely aimed at an older audience, like twenty-five year old heterosexual women. They focused on being sexy, being thin, having a rich, handsome boyfriend -- they were basically Cosmopolitan in book form.

High school rolled around and my school situation became more stable (two schools in four years!) and, with that stability, eventually came friends. However, having a more significant presence among my peers made me more self-conscious and body-loathing than I had ever been. People were looking at me and talking to me and I felt constantly criticized. Because of this, between October and February of my sophomore year, I lost forty pounds.

These pounds that I lost weren't lost healthfully. I didn't eat breakfast or lunch and I criticized my body every time I walked past a mirror (and when I walked past a boy, and when I walked past a girl, and when I walked past a teacher...). My relationship with food was a very negative one.

So, I ate less, lost the weight, and was smaller than I could ever remember being. I stopped hanging out at home alone, made some new friends, and had a few boyfriends. I contributed it all to my new body, not at all to coming out of my shell or actually trying to meet people for once. I had confidence in the way I looked and the way I felt. I felt beautiful, sexy, and desired. I figured out how to get the boys to want me and what to do once they wanted me (which, by the way, isn't always the best thing to learn at fifteen).

Then, early in the summer after my junior year -- which I still think was one of the most amazing summers ever -- I gained half of the weight back. It was shocking and I hated it. I felt huge. None of my clothes fit anymore. My confidence plummeted. But, the boys stuck around until I kicked them to the curb, the friends stuck around, and my summer was still awesome despite half of it being spent in a bathing suit and senior pictures being taken.

My confidence stayed pretty low and it wasn't until fairly recently that I started re-evaluating what it means to be me, to be beautiful, and to be worthy of love from myself and others.

1. I had to realize that those images in magazines and descriptions in books are not real or practical and I do not have to conform to them. It's okay that I have a hips and my boobs are slightly bigger than a B cup.
2. I pushed personality to the forefront. I'm a good person. I'm caring and kind and even funny sometimes. These things overrule the fact that I have a larger-than-normal butt.
3. I took a Women's Studies course. It was life-changing.
4. I started looking at the women around me to establish a new beauty ideal. When I started sleeping with women, I discovered that I'm attracted to all types of women regardless of size. My attraction to these other body types made me realize that someone also might find my own body attractive.
5. I had to re-think my relationship with food. Eating is good for me. Food is what powers my body.
6. I made a conscious effort to see the good things about my body. At first, I focused on the things my body could do. Then, I gradually started actually seeing the beauty in my curves. Also, my skin's really soft.
7. This is kind of lame, but I have motivational backgrounds on my computer. The sometimes cheesy sayings remind me what's important and what's not. My current one says, "You (yes, you) are going to have an awesome day tomorrow. You will kick ass and take names. I promise." Others say things like, "You are enough" and "Go. Be. Love. The world needs you."

I guess what I'm trying to accomplish with this list, and this whole post, is to show that people don't just pop out of the womb feeling good about themselves. It takes time and, sometimes, a very conscious effort to acknowledge what's good about you and why those things make you worthy of love. It's bigger than liking your eyes or thinking you have nice hair. It's taking all of those things, adding that your personality rocks in addition to your body, and accepting them as true -- that's where true confidence comes from. It's a struggle and it's hard and it takes a lot of time, but it's worth it.

Body Image, Women's College, Resources

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I go to a private women's college. The curriculum is fast-paced, in-depth, and challenging. Social life is full of pettiness, disloyalty, and back-stabbing. Pressure is there to not only succeed in academics, have a full social life, work (if your parents aren't rich enough to provide you with spending money), but to look damn good while you're doing it, too. Whenever I go to the gym (and it's a tiny gym) there are tons of people in there. Of course, I don't know their individual reasons for working out, so who am I to judge? I wouldn't say that there is a huge emphasis on working out in order to look good or be skinny; the emphasis is more on being healthy. For instance, the school has started a Scottie Fit program (our mascot) in which participants can buy a pass, $5 each class, and do things like aerobics, swimming, and cultural dances in order to get fit. However, this is coming from a school that is low on healthy food options, posts the caloric content of the food in the dining hall (this is what enrages me the most), has inconsistant portion sizes, and has little in the way of awareness about eating disorders and healthy eating. Yes, this week is Love Your Body week and National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and we annually have a "Be Comfortable in Your Genes!" jeans drive for womens' shelters and a Candlelight Vigil to honor those who have passed and who are struggling with an eating disorder, but this week is, to my knowledge, when the majority of positive body talk and eating disorder awareness goes on on my campus. A campus filled with women. Women who are challenged to perform on a higher emotional, intellectual, and mental level than most of their non-private women's college attending peers. These stressors lead to higher rates of depression and anxiety, which in many cases, I'm afraid, could lead to eating disorders or the relapse of an eating disordered individual. While this hasn't been studied, I know from what I've observed that it definitely leads to the abuse of alcohol, drugs like Adderal and Rittalin, and risky behaviors. I've also had multiple people reveal to me that they are suffering from eating disorders or disordered eating behaviors, and it worries me.

What is my college doing wrong? They are hardly doing anything. Yes, you can seek personal counseling or a referral to a therapy from our Wellness Center. Yes, they have the ability to monitor the health and weight of those with eating disorders in tandem with an off-campus treatment team. But do they hold support groups? No. Do they even advertise groups held in the community? Only if those groups in the community reach out to the school, not the other way around. Is there any open dialogue surrounding eating disorders, healthy body image, and resources for help? Not really. Only during Love Your Body week are these types of problems addressed. And while I can't speak for the whole college or those in attendance here, I do not see these things being provided.

And my biggest question is: Why?

What do you think would help our college community? What have your schools done? What would you like to see implemented?

Crazy Grandma

So, I've noticed that I've gotten stronger. It's an awesome feeling. The past two days that I've worked out, I haven't been sore the day after. I've been able to actually complete the 10x5 (modified) push-ups that Allie and I do without crapping out half-way through the fourth and fifth reps. I've also begun to look forward to Allie and my 11 o'clock work-out sessions. Last night we were both really pumped up, and she told me not to do crunches that would make Crazy Grandma cry, and so I was laying there, crunching, repeating "Crazy Grandma, Crazy Grandma," over and over in my head as I did my sit-ups. See, Allie has two Grandmas; Crazy Grandma, and Nine-Fingered Grandma, and she tells us their antics all the time. All in all, hilarity was had by all last night, and hopefully Crazy Grandma didn't cry because of my poor crunch form.

I took the night off last night from going to the gym, because my arms were extremely tired. I did, however, stretch and do stomach exercises in my room. It was nice to relax last night, seeing as I was on my feet for six hours at work as well.

I worked out today with Sarah, my girlfriend, and it was great!

But enough of all this workout talk. Let me get real here for a minute.

I'm scared shitless. About this whole project. I have all these doubts that I've ingrained in myself since my eating disorder began. Like, I can't lose weight without starving myself. I'll never feel good about myself, no matter how skinny I am. I'll never be good enough to deserve X, Y, and Z. And I know intellectually that these things are completely untrue and ridiculous and just in my head and irrational. But there is that part of me that always asks, in the back of my mind, What if they're true? And if I were to ever quit this project, these would be the reasons why.

But the reason I began this project is because I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling bad about myself and crying when I see an unflattering picture or when I go try on clothes in the mall. I'm tired of feeling unmotivated and lazy. I'm tired of making excuses. I'm tired of ignoring myself. And that's why I won't quit now. I can't quit now.

Workout: Day 2

Allie and I worked out again last night. It was both harder and easier than the first night. My arms are KILLING ME today, but I know it's because I've been working my muscles, so it's great.

What's also great is the conversations I've been having with Allie. One of the things she told me that I really like is "Think of your body as a machine." So, your body is a machine, and you are trying to get that machine to function at its highest capability. It's your job to take care of this machine, but, something that I have to remember, is that you are not defined by this machine. It is you, but it is not representative of your worth.

Allie and I have also been talking about our goals for working out. I want to focus on health. Absolutely. Feeling better in my skin, being able to climb stairs without being winded. Being able to lift more with my arms. Feeling alive, healthy, energetic. And I want any changes in weight to be an effect of my health, not a motivation for it. Because, of course, I want to lose weight. But if I focus on that, back down the rabbit hole I will fall. And I'm frankly too far in my recovery for that. Too... old, is how I feel, for things like that. Because it was a crutch for me for so long, and I've grown so much since I was sick, that to go back would be to completely ignore my entire arsenal of psychological tools that I have gained over the years. And I don't want to do that.

Another comment about the weight thing: I haven't weighed myself in four years, and I am definitely not going to start now. I will monitor my progress in terms of how long I'm able to work out and what kinds of things I am able to do, and how my clothes fit, and most importantly, how I feel.

I'm really jazzed about all this! 

Workout: Day 1

So I've started on another one of my goals! Last night I went to the gym for the first time since I began this little blog, with Allie, who just started a blog as well, one shoe on, one shoe off. Here is a synopsis from her page, in her own words, because I have a feeling that I could not do the premise of her blog any justice:

"This is my intro, I suppose. I'm Allison, I ID as a genderfree lesbian, and if that doesn't make sense to you, feel free to email me about it. I'm a college sophomore, and I'm writing this blog to talk about my progress towards the future.

I plan to talk about a lot of varying things on this blog, so I apologize in advance for the probable nonsensical-ness of my writing. Possible topics include my sense of gender confusion, how my body relates to my brain in terms of what I feel like I should look like, my history of depression and attempted suicide, and how I'm doing now with the fun and exciting cocktail of psychiatric drugs to treat my bipolar-esque mentality."

Allie is a fucking amazing person. I've known her for almost a full two years now, which officially makes her my oldest college friend. She's hilarious and wonderfully straight-forward. She will tell you like it is, which is a hard quality to find in a person, and not one I always appreciate at the time, but one I always cherish in the end. She has the most awesome and interesting insights on a lot of things, especially pertaining to gender and LGBT politics, tobacco knowledge, and juggling skills She just started her blog, too, like I mentioned before, so you should check it out!

So anyway. Allie and I went up to my school's little workout room, on the third floor of the student center, and started stretching. It was just basic stuff, the kind of stretches I used to do back in the day in dance class. Then we did weights, push ups, planks, and crunches. She showed me how to use the urg, otherwise known as the rowing machine to us without crew members for mothers, which was super fun. All in all, we were up there for about 45 minutes to an hour, and I had a blast! It actually didn't seem like that long. When I attempted going to the gym in the fall, I did the treadmill and the bike, and it just felt endless. I guess when I can see a timer the minutes seem to tick by so slowly.

I felt kind of awkward, there in the gym, like everyone was looking at me, etc, but then I realized that everyone looked just as ridiculous as I did and then I just slowly forgot about it as I focused more on my workout and what wisdom Allie was imparting upon me. She's such an awesome workout buddy. "Just two more. Come on! Two more. You can do two more, no problem." "Try it like this, to get your balance." She's so encouraging. It was pretty awesome!

So, my arms are killing me and we're going back tonight! Woo hoo!

Ugh.

I have been dreadfully busy this week. Tired all the time, working non-stop on either schoolwork or at Barnes & Noble, makin' that money. Sunday night I posed for my friend Gabby's project, The Stripped Project, and it really made me nervous. First, lets have a rundown of what her project is and why it's awesome:

Gabby is taking neck down, front and back nude shots of everyone who wants to get naked for her. She then puts these photos on her website, unedited, un-airbrushed, all natural. She calls it her anti-art project; she wants to get the message out that hey! Every body is beautiful. Every body is different, and hardly any body looks like the people in magazines. Check it out and follow her on blogspot if you have one! :D

So, I had posed for her last semester in the library at my college. Yup, I was bare-ass naked in our library, at like ten o'clock at night. However, because of the fear of reprimand by school officials, she took the pictures down. So, Sunday night I posed for her again, cigarette and lighter in hand and nothing else on, this time in the basement of the art building, against an unidentifiable blank wall. And, ya know, it was cool. Then, the next day I saw the photos. And they weren't very flattering. But- that's the point. It freaked me out. I suppose I have this idea in my head of what I look like, and every time I'm confronted with my actual image, it's completely different. And shocking.

I'm not sure what the conclusion of this post is, but I am definitely still trying to be mindful. And another thing: I need to stop comparing myself to other people's bodies. I notice I do that. Not a lot, but enough. And it's very very bad.

Well, I guess that's it for now!

Short Musings

I've noticed, since I've tried to become more mindful, that the times when I feel badly about my body are when I'm tired, cranky, or feel like I've just been insulted, or someone doesn't appreciate my efforts. It's mostly when I feel like some insult has been paid to my abilities, or my personality, or my intellect, and that's when I start to feel badly about my body. I see the connection; my body is the "easiest" thing to change about myself, and the thing I have the most control over.

I've been talking up the blog to several of my friends, and the response has been very positive. I've also gotten a lot of people to agree to write a guest blog, which I'm excited about. I have people writing from all different view points, and I think they will add some interesting flavors into the mix of insights.

Being more mindful is difficult, but I'm plugging along. :)

Goals

These are some of the goals I have, both long term and short term, to help myself feel better about my body.

1. Evaluate how I'm feeling about my body throughout the day, in the morning, afternoon, and before I go to bed. If I'm feeling negatively towards it, ask myself why, and what triggered the negativity.
2. Start working out three times a week to give me more energy and to feel healthier and better about my choices. 
3. Start eating more healthily, and at regular times. Eating little snacks between meals to curb outrageous hunger. 
4. Sleep more. Go to bed earlier, and take meletonin if I can't sleep so I can get 8-10 hours a night so that I feel good and not cranky.
5. Make some pretty colored signs that give me encouragement, say positive things about me, and post them around my mirror, on my walls, and in my car. 
6. Take my medication every day.
7. Quit smoking. (This is more of a long term goal, one I will address when I feel  like I have everything else under control.)
8. Do things outside of my comfort zone. Wear more dresses, more heels, more sassy stuff that looks good on me but makes me uncomfortable. Get outside my box.
9. Take things slow. I have a tendency to be a very instant gratification type person. I can't do all of this overnight.
10. If I forget to do one of these goals that I'm working on, then I will try and forgive myself and move on, not just give up and berate myself. Try and try again.

These are the things that I want to work on. I am planning on taking these things one at a time, starting with number one, but I may not necessarily go in order for the rest of the items on my list. I'm also not going to set a time limit for them. I'm doing this for me, and at my own pace.

First Post

Hello everybody who will read this blog in the future!

This is an experimental project of mine, which I started because I began, lately, to experience an increasing discomfort with my body. I have been in recovery from an eating disorder for about four years, and after I began my recovery, I noticed myself paying less and less attention to my body and how it was changing as I moved along the road to health. I saw this as a positive thing; I was letting go of all the negative behaviors, thoughts, and feelings I associated with myself and my body. And this was wonderful, terrifying, freeing, anxiety-inducing, and exhilarating. And then, life got in the way. I was too busy doing all the things that I didn’t allow myself to do before: making friends, going out, having fun, trying to be a normal teenager at the age of 17. I went to college early, and made friends who hadn’t been to therapy for the last three years of their lives, who could talk about clothing sizes without being told it was against the rules (unlike in group therapy, where you aren’t allowed to use numbers), who could drink and eat junk food and have a blast. I “fell in love” for the first time, or thought I did. I didn’t have the time nor the patience to evaluate how I was feeling about my body and about my post-recovery-process weight gain. So I ignored it. I never thought about my body or how it looked, except to criticize it from time to time when I was feeling particularly vulnerable.

And now, here I am, three years later, still feeling bad about my body and the way I look. Because I never did the work to feel better about myself when I had more of an opportunity and a full, well-rounded treatment team. Sometimes, I feel like these feelings will haunt me for the rest of my life, sneaking up on me in the shower or in the bedroom, tearing down my precarious tower of self-confidence and bringing it crashing, spectacularly, to the ground. But then, sometimes, I almost feel ok about my body, and that gives me hope.

I want to go ahead and ask anyone reading this to think about doing a guest post on my blog about your attitude towards your body after being in recovery for a year or more, and how you’ve dealt with body acceptance. If you have never had an eating disorder, you are still welcome to submit an entry for review on the topic of body image and movement from negative body image to positive body image.

My next post will outline my plan of action to start feeling better about myself. Wish me luck, and thanks for reading!