Yoga: 1.5 hour class (with the uber cute instructor who is gonna one day father my children)
Cramping: 5 (after dinner)
Bloating: 4
BM Satisfaction: 7
I had a pretty great morning and early afternoon - my usual ritual of yoga, shower, eat lunch while watching Come Dine with Me (brilliant show, if you like British humour and dinner parties), then to the grocery store for my week's haul. Yoga was with this gorgeous god of a teacher whom I want so much to impress with my perfect asanas. It's actually funny, sometimes when he is describing a pose, I get so distracted looking at his body that I don't listen to what he's saying, and then he gently chastises me for not following his instructions. If only he knew what was going on my little mind!
In late afternoon, I turned my mind to the question of what I'm going to wear tomorrow to a barbeque at my aunt and uncle's. I have debated all week whether I should even go. Frankly, I don't want them seeing me the way I look right now. I mean, these are my relatives, they've seen me in diapers. I am being ridiculous. But that's the ED, I guess. Anyway, I tried on a few of my things and just felt nothing is working on my body right now. It's easy to conceal thighs with a skirt, or arms with a t-shirt, but I find it impossible to hide the fact that I have almost no waist, a huge stomach and a muffin top.
Finally I settled on some yoga-type capri pants and wedge sandals but was still stumped in the shirt department. So I decide I'm just gonna pop into the stores to buy a looser style of tank top. Mistake. I wander the stores and all I see are clothes that I don't feel I can wear. Maybe I need to stop thinking I need to conceal my fat, maybe that's the problem. But I'm not there yet. All I saw were cute clothes that would have looked amazing on me 10 pounds ago. Fashion really is for the thin.
After about an hour of wandering through the racks, punctured by a few meltdowns as I stared down my bra-and-pantied reflection in the changing room mirros, I noticed my stomach felt tense. I was feeling fine before shopping. And it saddened me to know that I am letting my poor body image affect my gut, my digestion. Not only am I suffering mentally, but I am adding to my physical pain. It's horrible. It is a beautiful summer's day and I am walking down the street fighting back tears. And the only thing that calms me is telling myself that in a year's time, I won't look like this. That a year's worth of yoga and weight training....and yes, maybe even dieting.. I'll have a different, better shape. I'm be skipping down this same street with definition in my arms, an actual WAIST, a shitload of shopping bags, and a spring in my step.
But that thought, that image -that's not recovery. Recovery is accepting that this IS my body and appreciating it the way it is. I look at other girls on the street, and yeah, there are some teeny-weeny ones, but there a lot of girls who are bigger than me. And somehow they look fine in their clothes. Whereas I look atrocious. How can this be? I actually find myself thinking, "Well, that's okay for them, but not for me. I need to be thinner to be attractive." But why should the rules be different for me? I think that's always been at the core of my ED, the thought that I can't "get away" with just having a normal, average body. That because I am not the world's greatest beauty in terms of my face and hair, that I needed an astounding body to make up for it. And I still feel that way. That, as is, I am not good enough as I am. Guys aren't looking my way on the street these days. I am totally, absymally, ordinary.
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