Getting ready for summer

So, I have become infuriated by the number of 'how to get a bikini/summer body' adverts that keep popping up everywhere. This happens every year. Along with the 'how to lose X weight in X weeks' adverts I find them kind of triggering. It's taken me years to be able to gain weight in the first place without having some kind of horrific melt down. Now that I have gained weight, it takes a lot of will power not to turn to unhealthy habits to get rid of it all again.

Learning to love your body shouldn't be a difficult thing, but it is for me and many other people out there. We are constantly bombarded with the message that our bodies should look a certain way. Hey, for that matter we're also sent the message that our bodies should be able to do certain things, yay for disablism. That's a whole separate post though. It's not exactly news that I don't like my body, but that's something I really want to change.

Lately, I've come across this awesome blog. It's pretty inspirational. I want to feel that confident and happy in my self and my body, I want to be able to wear the clothes I like and go outside without living in constant fear of what other people think. Without worrying if I'm pretty enough or slim enough to look 'right' in them. I'm not there yet, but I'm pleased to report that I'm making progress.

Guilty confession time, I used to visit pro-ana websites and chat rooms when I was really ill. Until recently, I still had a folder of 'thinspiration' pictures to remind me what I thought I should look like. Part of my progress has been in deleting that folder and looking around the web for more positive ideals and role models. Given that I fully support the idea of health at every size, and given that I have found any number of women of all different shapes and sizes attractive it's time to start applying those beliefs to me.

So, here's my plan for summer preparation. I am going to formulate a new exercise regime. Which is a tricky one for me as in the past I've tended to over do it. However this time my focus is going to be different. I won't be exercising to make myself lose weight. No, instead I am going to be concentrating on making my body more able to do the stuff I want it to. Regular exercise, coupled with food will mean I can do more awesome stuff without become exhausted. Like dancing for longer when I go out, spending the whole day outside in the sun with my friends. That's the goal here.

Next, I am going to dare myself to do a few things. I want to leave the house without covering up my upper arms. Sounds simple but it won't be. Given how anxious I get leaving the house at the best of times leaving it with one of my 'problem' areas exposed is not going to be fun. But, if I can do it once and realise that I'm more comfortable physically, maybe I can do it again. And maybe by doing it over and over I can learn to stop worrying about doing it. That's the plan anyway.

Finally, I am going to enjoy the sun. I love the sun and here in the UK we just don't see enough of it. Sunshine makes me happy, which is a huge incentive to get out into it. A really sunny day is often enough to make me brave the outside world. So, I'm going to use that to my advantage and get myself outside, in summery clothes despite the anxiety.

With luck, by the end of the summer I'll have taken some huge steps towards feeling comfortable in my own skin.

Saying goodbye to Ana and Mia

I was always an anxious and insecure child. I used to chatter to anybody who'd listen, mostly out of a fear that if I wasn't talking or making noise I would be ignored or forgotten. When I was ten my father started to sexually abuse me, at that point I stopped being quite such a chatter box. I preferred to be ignored, the more invisible I felt the safer I felt. The last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself. I never did feel invisible enough however, my father still noticed me on a regular basis.

Somehow, I lost my ability to talk to people easily and make friends. By the time I started secondary school I was a bit of a loner, though I made a few friends with some other shy, socially awkward girls. They weren't friends I could talk to though, not really. I didn't have the words to explain what was going on, how unhappy I was or my secret desire to vanish. It was during my first year at secondary school that I made the aquaintance of Ana.

I could tell Ana anything without fear of judgement. We'd make up stories together about how I'd already eaten, then we'd sit in my room until all hours unable to sleep but full of ideas. Ana held me close and promised to save me when my father abused me. Ana gave me the ability to smile and laugh at lunchtime, the confidence to appear a happy girl so that no one noticed or asked why I didn't eat. Ana was with me when I stood on the scales and watched the numbers go down, watched me get closer and closer to the dream of being small enough to hide.

By the time I started my second year people were starting to notice Ana. Ana hated the attention, the interference. We were worried that people would start to try and split us up. Ana was even more private than me. So Ana introduced me to somebody else, a new friend to add to our trip. Mia.

It was Mia who stuck with me when I ate to put people off the scent. Mia was with me late at night when I snuck downstairs to raid the cupboards. When I ate still frozen cheese cakes. Mia and Ana stood on either side while I threw everything back up again. Mia soothed me when the numbers on the scales went up again, Ana delighted when they went down.

For the next five years we played this see-saw game. Mia helped me get the numbers up, until people stopped caring. Ana helped me drop them again until the attention became too much. Then my two friends started to fall out. Mia let me get too big, Ana wanted me smaller. Mia thought it was perfectly OK to eat and eat and eat, so long as I got rid of it afterwards. Ana thought Mia got in the way, stopped us reaching our goal. They fought for a year.

The year I started university, Ana won the war. It was Ana that guided my steps as I dropped out, then moved out of home to avoid awkward questions. It was Ana who shut me away from life with just the scales and bottles of diet coke.

It was Mia who came to my rescue, when Ana had left me too weak to even leave my bed. It was Mia who picked up the pieces, who made it OK to eat again, as much as I wanted. So long as it didn't stay in me for too long. It was Mia who let me live a semblance of life, who helped me make new friends. I loved Mia so much. Mia stayed with me for the next decade, giving me permission to stay at home and eat instead of go out to work. Mia who encouraged me to end relationships when I was caught being sick after meals. Mia who said I didn't need to vanish completely, but just stay thin enough to feel like I could if I wanted to.

So it continued until one day I realised that it was Mia who denied me a career. Mia who denied me love. Mia who was never going to deliver on all those promises of happiness and a future.

Saying goodbye to Mia was hard, particularly with Ana waiting in the wings, hoping to step back in to the best friend spot. But I had finally realised something important. Ana had never been able to keep me safe or make me invisible, any more than Mia had been able to ensure happiness. Neither of them granted the promises they made so easily, yet I had given over half my life to them.

I needed new friends and real support. So I told people, I dragged Ana and Mia out into the open everybody could see them. I made myself visible again, and in doing so I found a world of hugs that were only hugs, safe and loving offered with no expectations. I found people willing to listen to what I had to say about things far more interesting than the numbers on the scale.

Ana and Mia still hang about the place, they aren't ready to go away without a fight. I argue with them every day and slowly but surely I'm getting there, with the help of my new friends.

When I was skinny...

I once passed out five times in a week. I felt dizzy all the time. I ached all the time. I was frequently sick, even the thought of food made me nauseous. Hunger made me feel nauseous too, so that was basically a lose lose situation right there. I didn't sleep for days at a time, then I'd sleep a whole weekend away. My teeth hurt. My stomach hurt all the time, which I kind of liked as it reminded me to hold it in at all times. I self harmed on an almost daily basis. I smoked too much, drank too much and took too many diet pills.I spent hours every day putting on make-up, doing my hair and changing my clothes. I spent hours every night doing the same thing. I had seizures caused by low blood sugar and electrolyte imbalances. My chest ached and there were often times I struggled to breathe. I ran late every night and early every morning. I did star jumps and burpies and sit ups. Hundreds of each every day.

Then there were the times I couldn't resist food. The times I spent all my money on cigarettes, fizzy drinks and junk food. So much junk food. Then I ate it, all of it. Too quickly to really taste it, certainly too fast to enjoy it. I ate until I felt like I was going to burst, then ate some more. I ate until I hurt too much to fit anything else inside me. Then I made myself sick. I didn't even need to stick my fingers down my throat. Then back to the food. Rinse and repeat until all the food was gone.

All these memories aren't happy. I wasn't happy. I was miserable.

So can anybody tell me why some days, I miss being anorexic. :(

Providing a bit of balance.

Something amazing happened today! I had decided I wanted to write about the risks of being underweight, just to try and balance out the 'fat is bad' message we're inundated with every day. Before starting I figured it would be a good idea to do some research, particularly as I could recall reading somewhere that being underweight posed greater immediate risk to your health than being overweight. Well, I didn't manage to find  the piece of research I was thinking of but I did find this.

Now this really shouldn't be news. Of course being underweight is unhealthy - that's why it's called underweight. Yet we never seem to hear about it. Unless it's in relation to starving people elsewhere or possibly in relation to anorexia.

But let me tell you something, it's much quicker to starve yourself to death than it is to eat yourself to death. I've never known anyone die within a few months of over eating, but under eating? Sadly, I am all too aware that can happen, so very quickly.

OK, now I'm going to do that thing where I relate this to my own experience. Which is absolutely useless as science but I hope it might illustrate some of what I'm trying to say. Currently, I'm over weight. In fact I'm the heaviest I've ever been. Yet, I'm also physically, the healthiest I've been since I was a young kid. My blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, lung capacity, blood levels and so on are all within the normal, healthy range. The only thing which isn't is my BMI.

The only physical problems I have are those which have been linked with the damage I did my body during my years of eating disorders. When I was underweight. So, some digestive issues and some muscle/ligament damage gained by exercising whilst being underweight.

What about when I was underweight - or even on the lower end of 'healthy' - how was my physical health looking then? Well, not great. I suffered almost constant headaches. I used to bleed, basically all the time. Seriously, lean on my elbows for a bit? They bled. Bumped into a desk/doorway/whatever? Bled. Fainted, a lot. Caught every single flu or tummy bug going around. Was constantly fatigued. Couldn't concentrate, which had a huge knock on effect in the quality of my school work. Also my ability to hold conversations with people without seeming rude. Lastly my absolute favourite - seizures! Yeah! Nothing more fun than 'waking up' in a hospital bed with no idea how you got there, feeling sick, sticky and terrified. Then falling over when you try to get up because every single part of you hurts, which you didn't realise until you tried to move.

Now, here's the thing. I'm not saying obesity isn't a health risk. There seems some relatively conclusive evidence out there that it is. All I'm saying is that it isn't the only one. Being a bit overweight is, according to the article I now can't find (fail) healthier in both the short and long term than being a bit underweight. So why don't the risks associated with being too thin get the same amount of attention? Maybe it's because more people are overweight than underweight in the west. Maybe it's because we're socialised to view fat as wrong so it's much easier to focus our attentions there. I don't know.

What I do know, is that when I worked in a hospital it was the underweight patients we worried most about. Particularly children, the elderly and pregnant women.