Shake it off

In the 3rd grade my Mom took me school shopping and I bought this really cute cream cable knit sweater. I remember really enjoying it and thinking that I looked amazing in it.
I went to school wearing my beautiful cream cable knit sweater. I was 9 years old.
I sat down at my desk and looked out across all the other little girls. No one had such an excellent sweater as me. I held the crown for the best sweater in the 3rd grade.
I remember looking down at my belly. The cable knit hugged my little 3rd grade stomach in a really unflattering way, you could see the 3 belly rolls that I had had since I could remember. I consciously remember thinking, “Oh, well I guess I need to start sucking in my stomach to make myself look skinny.”
I have never, since that day in the 3rd grade let my stomach sit slack, it is always sucked in.
The next year in the 4th grade, the school was literally obsessed with scoliosis. I feel like we got screened for scoliosis constantly. We also had to have our height measured, and of course our weight. I was in line, belly tucked in tight, and every kid in front of me was 70 pounds.
My aunt had a digital scale in her bathroom that I used because I thought it was really fun to watch the red lights flash up, so I knew I was much more than that. I was 100 pounds. Why was everyone else so much lighter than me?
I didn’t want to get on the scale and have everyone see how different I was. I didn’t have scoliosis but I certainly wasn’t flashing a 70 when every other kid was and at 10 years old that was really scary for me, I didn’t want to be different.
My parents were going through a divorce in the 4th and 5th grade. My mom made the executive decision to have the school counselor call down to my classroom and have me come in for an evaluation.
I was crying at school all the time, now I had to go see the counselor AND I wasn’t the same weight as every kid in my class. I didn’t want to be any more different than I already felt. I decided I just wouldn’t eat anymore. That was a really solid solution.
In my 10 year old brain that was obvious. Don’t eat, you’ll be fine and then you’ll be the same number as everyone else.
I went to my grandmas house that weekend that I decided food just wasn’t for me.
She noticed that her normally hearty, Kid Cuisine loving Grand daughter wasn’t eating anything.
I was sick all morning and threw up.
She demanded that I eat toast.
I screamed and cried and told her I didn’t want to eat anything, I wasn’t hungry!
She tossed up the big guns, she was going to tell my mom.
I didn’t know why, but I desperately didn’t want her to tell my mom.
I cried and protested and ate the toast.
Now I knew that if I wanted to stop eating, I had to be sneaky about it because apparently it was frowned upon to stop eating.
I started getting snarky little comments at school about how “fat” and “huge” I was.
I also started my period at 11 so on top of being 30 pounds bigger than everyone I was starting to develop hips and thighs. All of my friends were these tiny little girls, I just didn’t understand why I was so much bigger than they were.
I grew up in a house with snackwells and gross, watery tofu packs in the fridge.
My mom was obsessed with fitness. Her friends were obsessed with their weight and fitness. She was constantly concerned that she was too big. Her friends were constantly concerned that they were too big. My aunt did weight watchers. My grandma did weight watchers. My mom was an aerobics instructor so I grew up in a gym. I was around all this outside influence. Every women in my life was obsessed with eating nonfat low calorie foods. This was the 90’s and the time of the nonfat, sugar free craze. My mom had these delicious chocolate snackwell cookies that we weren’t allowed to eat because they were hers. I coveted those cookies and thought that if I ate those cookies, that would make me skinny. So I would sneak these little nonfat cookies and then eat only an apple for the whole day.
During the summer I was left to my own devices and that was such a source of comfort and control for me, I was proud of the fact that I came home from running the neighborhood to eat an apple, sneak some “healthy” cookies and not have anything else for the day.
I told my mom one day that I had only eaten an apple, thinking she would be impressed with my incredible self control.
She told me she was really concerned, that wasn’t enough to be eating for the day and that I should really be eating more food.
Note taken.
Do not tell ANY adults that I don’t want to eat.
Got it.
In middle school my peers finally started to catch up to me. I thinned out and they chunked up and got their periods. My dad married this horrible woman and my brother and I lived with them. My mom had visitation on the weekends.
The lady my dad married was tiny. So was her daughter. School shopping was always horrible. Her daughter, who was a lot younger and I’m sure didn’t mean anything by it, would comment on how “giant those pants are”.
In high school things started to get really bad at my house. I wanted to control this situation that I couldn’t. I was grasping at straws to feel safe in my house. I felt better when my dad was home, sometimes he would stick up for me and sometimes he would shut her down and not let the situation escalate. Then he started working nights, so she was there after work. I wasn’t safe in my home. I was scared to go upstairs and possibly have a horrible interaction with her and maybe have to call the police and have them not believe me...again.
I took back my power in this situation in the only way that felt like I could, I started throwing up my food.
I would share a lunch with a friend at school, if I did eat at all there. I would come home and gorge with friends on bagel dogs before softball practice then I would come home eat some more and throw everything up in my stomach until my eyes watered so bad that I couldn’t see and my throat hurt.
It felt good.
I was losing this extra 30 pounds that I had carried around with me, I was getting compliments, the older boys at school were noticing me, my step mom bought me a Small tank top for the first time in my life and complimented me on how tiny I was getting, I could share clothes with my friends and I was in control. I had the power to do this. I was making my own decisions and getting results out of it. I was powerful over my own body.
Some friends of mine found out about this little hobby of mine sophomore year. They threatened to tell my mom. Again, I was thwarted. They had heard me hurling up some Mac and cheese and wanted to help me get better. As upset that I was that I had to stop, I knew that the last person I wanted to find out about this was my mom.
I met Charlie sophomore year and instead of curbing my weight and taking control with an eating disorder, we just drank like fish with alcoholism.
My dad eventually divorced the wicked step mother and I graduated from high school. I binged and purged and didn’t eat and exercised hard and tried to diet. I got pregnant at 21 and that was pretty much a free for all with food, it was marvelous. People thought I was so cute. Charlie was obsessed with my changing body and constantly complimented me on how amazing I looked.
I certainly didn’t feel cute but it was a nice change to not be thinking too much about my weight. That definitely changed once my son was born. I had postpartum anxiety so bad that I didn’t eat for 2 weeks, I was having a hard time nursing, I had never had any experience with babies and didn’t know what I was doing and this was just so foreign to me. I had a major episode and Charlie took me to the doctor where they introduced me to anti anxiety medication for the first time.
I definitely felt better mentally with the medication. I focused on healthy eating and started obsessing about my weight again.
Cue the bulimia and the anorexia and a new one I decided to throw in there, laxatives. I handled various peaks and valleys in my weight and disordered eating until I became pregnant with my daughter.
After I had my daughter I started hot yoga. I don’t know what changed, maybe it was seeing everyone, all different body shapes from various levels of fitness and knowing that I now had a little me observing everything I did and said, but yoga changed the way I viewed health.
I wanted to be strong and fit, so that I could handle a handstand. I wanted to have a strong core so that I could balance better.
I wanted to have a healthy outlook on myself and my body because I wanted my daughter to not base her whole damn life on that extra couple of pounds she had hanging on.
Progressing in yoga and probably life I became more confident in the body that I had, I decided that yes I was going to wear a tiny bikini because why the fuck not? I decided that my stretch marks were a sign that, oh my god, I have 2 kids and not something to be ashamed of. I decided that hell yes I’m going go eat the food because I enjoy it. Im going to show my students and children that a number on the scale means absolutely nothing. I am beautiful and so are you.
I try and keep that mentality every day. I am beautiful and there is so much more to me than the way I look. I have much more to offer the world than my outward appearance.
However, in the last year I’ve gained 20 pounds. The old way of thinking is steadily creeping up. I got a scale and am obsessed with weighing myself. I try and keep it in check but I can feel myself thinking back to my roots, if I just don’t eat thats fine. That’s logical. Totally ok.
But its not.
Ive had this monkey on my back since I was 9 years old. Ive been thinking about my appearance and my weight and attaching this negative nagging anxiety to it for 25 years.
That’s a long time to be have something nipping at you. That’s a long time to be obsessing about something that is so shallow. Why does it mean so much to me? I know that I have value. I know that I am a great mother, I know that I am leading by example and never talking about my weight, size, shape in a negative way to my children.
However I still do have thoughts that I’m not thin enough, that if I were just 30 pounds lighter, my life would be so much better. If I were 30 pounds lighter I’d be able to do this or that or wear this or that.
What if I just took a leap and threw this nagging monkey off?
What if I made the conscious decision to stop?
What if I ran only because I love it and it brings me joy and not running until I hit 300 calories to clear that bagel I ate this morning?
What if I threw off 25 years of negative thinking surrounding this one minuscule unimportant thing in my life?
In yoga, we say let go of things that are no longer serving you.
This negative thought process has never served me. It never will. I am not gaining anything by thinking obsessively about what if I lost 30 pounds? Because in reality, nothing will change.
I will still be the same person.
So, today, after a lifetime, I’m dropping this.
I’m dropping this negative ingrained thought process that I am not good enough until I take this weight off. I’m dropping the thought that I have to look a certain way to be considered beautiful. I am dropping this 30 pound baggage and I will never think that I am less than again.
Goodbye baggage, you are no longer worth my time.