Hello all! 🙂 I am back, momentarily, writing to update you on my Body Image quest and my coaching with Mia. I have now completed four sessions with her, and so far it has been an eye-opening and enjoyable experience. In the past month (wow, a month!) I have started to track my thoughts and feelings around meals, my body checking activities, and more recently started reading The Beauty Myth. I am gradually making small changes to my thoughts and behaviours; it is still new to me, and intuitive eating is also still very new, so I just remind myself to be patience and to not expect massive changes in a short amount of time. I will post some examples of what these thoughts are, but please keep in mind that these could be triggering to some and also this is my own personal experience!

On Body Image:

Earlier today I had a few more moments of “analyzing” my body again and wishing parts of it were different. I thought about it when I was changing, I thought about it when I was in the shower, and sometimes when I am filling up my water bottle at the cooler I look at my reflection at the end of the hall and “assess” how I am doing and if I look how I want (spoiler: never satisfied). But I try to just move on from that moment as quickly as possible to avoid dwelling on it.

When I’m at work the most common thoughts I have are while I’m sitting down at my own desk. I usually focus on my thighs and my stomach. Because my legs are pressing against the chair, I think about how “big” and “fat” they are, and I wish they were smaller. For my stomach, I think about the “rolls & fat” that press against my skin as I sit. Again, I think about how badly I want to be small & skinny. So yeah, it is still something I think about pretty much every day at least once a day, as well as when I’m at home sitting on the couch.

On Eating:

8 PM Dinner:       Earlier today I went to the gym, it has been now 2 days that I have gone to the gym and I have mixed feeling about it. On one had, I am enjoying being active and I am proud of myself to finally get myself there. On the other, I can’t help but think that a big motivator to going is to lose weight. To make it even harder, I have not been to the gym in about a month so all my stamina I had is flushed down the toilet hahaha so physically it was extra demanding and part of me just wanted to give up, but the part of me that wants to lose weight was like “go go go!!”, so I don’t know if that’s still bad? Anyways, I went, I was exhausted, and I will probably be sore. So naturally one of the things I think about during the workout or right as I am done is “what am I going to eat when I get home” I used to be big into the protein shakes, but I haven’t had one in a while not have I been craving them. So instead I try to just eat food that’s not in a blender. I came home and I really wanted to have ice cream (I know, counterproductive much?), but I kept thinking “no, you worked so hard have something better”. So I made myself some tuna tostadas, but after that I still had my non-dairy ice cream–is that still bad? I am so confused, part of me says “Mia said not to label food bad!” but the other part of me is like “Are you kidding me? We just worked out so hard!!!”. So yeah, I guess I will sort this out with Mia on our session! After eating I was honestly just exhausted, so I showered and went to bed and didn’t think much about it.

A few things here to unpack, let’s be honest. Clearly, my mind is spending a large amount of time dwelling on my “flaws”, and when I do eat there is a good chance I have some sort of label associated with what I eat. If my mind thinks the food is “good”, I don’t spend too much time thinking on it. But if my mind thinks the food is “bad”, I question if I should eat it, and it is not uncommon for me to feel guilt afterwards. I also have some obscure motivation to workout, because I feel like I must work out in order to lose weight and get rid of the fatness that makes my body “ugly”. Now I know what some of you might be thinking: does this mean you have an eating disorder (ED)???? The answer is, I don’t know, but I will be talking to my psychiatrist about it on my next visit. I spoke to Mia about whether she encounters other clients with similar situations that also wonder if they have an ED, if they should seek help, if they are “sick enough” to get help.  The answer is: anybody can have an ED and everybody deserves help. Any kind of ED is ultimately a type of mental illness, just like depression or borderline or anxiety. Because I have been diagnosed with some things, I was able to put a name to my situation and get the resources I needed. My depression is likely connected to my disordered eating thoughts, because in our body and mind everything is connected. Mia made it clear that, not matter if I had an ED diagnosis or not, it is important for me to work on my behaviors and thoughts in order to live healthier, and that is why I initially contacted her and why I plan to continue to work on this with her.

Through reading the Beauty Myth, I am learning more about the historical, socioeconomic, and political context surrounding the female experience. I strongly recommend this book to men and women alike, especially if you are a woman who is struggling in any way with body image, even if you do not necessarily eat a restrictive diet or if you don’t think you have body checking habits. I wish I had read this as a teenager, and I wish more women around me had read it too. I won’t spoil any of the content from it, but I will leave you with a couple of excerpts to give you an idea of the content:

From The Beauty Myth, Chapter titled Sex, pg. 134-136

[This is in the context of the late 60’s, 70’s and mid 80’s] “Helmot Newton’s leather-adorned nudes appeared in Vogue, and David Hamilton’s photographs of naked preadolescents were sold in bookstores. The “ideal” female body was stripped down and on display all over. That gave a woman, for the first time in history, the graphic details of perfection against with to measure herself, and introduced a new female experience, the anxious and minute scrutiny of the body as intricately connected to female sexual pleasure.”

“[Pornography] censors representation of women’s bodies, so that only the official versions are visible. Rather than seeing images of female desire or that cater to female desire, we see mock-ups of living mannequins, made to contort and grimace, immobilized and uncomfortable under hot lights, professional set-pieces that reveal little about female sexuality” – N. Wolf

Hopefully this sets the tone of the book, so if you think it would help you understand certain “acceptable” practices about how women’s fashion, beauty, and sexuality is expressed in the world then this is a great start. I said before and will say it again, I think men should also read this book–this is not meant to be a jab at men or manhood in any way, and trust me this book also speaks about how all of these practices have an impact on men. Anyway that is my rant on that book.

I think that is enough for now, I hope this was interesting and maybe even useful to someone out there. Remember to be kind and patient with yourself!

Virtual hugs ❤

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Karen