Heavy

I'm going to dive right in here.  This post is about weight.  Too much of it.  It's no secret I've always had issues with body image.  For 25 years of my life I thought I was fat.  For 15 of those years I was wrong.  Which is so unfair now that I look back at my womanly figure that was in no way fat.  For me when I compared myself to my peers I was bigger, when in truth I was just more developed.  I have freaky fast growing genes.  Thank you ancestors, or milk hormones or mutant chemicals floating around in our environment.  Whatever it was I can't go back and change all that. 

The point is seven years ago when I recognized I'd let my weight get away from me I started trying to fix it.  Then I got pregnant.  Then I ate whatever I wanted.  Then I had the baby and still ate whatever I wanted.  Then I began working out and trying to eat better.  I even had a brief affair with running, which lasted approximately three months.  It was a summer romance.  Gone with the first chill of fall.  I realized that I hated running for the same reason I swore off running back in the sixth grade...boobs.  I said it.  It's the truth.  Also I tried to take my mind off of the sweaty monotony that is jogging with an ipod, but no amount of Justin Timberlake, Aerosmith, or Taylor Swift can prevent my mind from repeating with each pounding step This sucks.  This sucks.  This sucks.  

So here I am again.  At the beginning of this pregnancy I day dreamed about the kind of shape I was going to get in after I had the baby.  All the salads and veggies and water that I was going to get thin with.  I'm approaching 30 and it seemed the perfect time to get healthy.  I don't want to spend my thirties feeling like I have in my twenties.  Now five months after I've delivered said child I'm nowhere closer to the size 6 that I would like to be.  Not even a size 2 or a size 0 which seems like the magical number nowadays regardless of body type.  I'm not ever going to be a supermodel.  I've got curves and to get rid of them I'd have to starve myself which I just won't do.  

It's hard enough reading about famous women who have had babies and are frolicking on sunny beaches in a bikini mere weeks or months after giving birth.  I can usually shrug that off with the old well they have trainers and nannies and housekeepers, of course they have time to dedicate to getting back into shape.  But lately I've felt like I'm the only one who can't do it.  There have been three women in my ward give birth within months of me and it seems they are back to their old sizes.  Not to mention the girls on facebook who publish status's declaring things like Hello size 4!  They have everything together.  Not a hair out of place and definitely not frazzled and self conscious like me, knowing I still look about four months pregnant in my maternity dress I'm wearing because it's the only thing that hides my stomach.  I'm sure their intention is not to make someone else feel bad, and I'm glad for them because I wouldn't want anyone else to have to feel the way I do about myself.  And although I know I shouldn't compare myself to others it makes me feel like a total failure.  I imagine how happy their husbands must be that their wives still have it going on.  Although my husband doesn't say anything I feel like he must be so embarrassed when he introduces me to people.  I always think they are wondering why on earth he's married to a fat frumpy housewife when he obviously cares about how he looks and takes care of himself. 

I know that sounds shallow.  The funny thing is I would never look at someone overweight and make any sort of judgment about their character because I know how many factors play into the why of being overweight.  Weight has nothing to do with whether a person is warm and caring and genuine.  Yet I imagine everyone thinking the worst of me because of my weight.  I think deep down I think the worst of myself.  It's true for me that it's easy to love others but very hard to love myself. 

Sometimes I am stubborn.  I am bitter about the way women are valued in society.  Sometimes I think I don't make the effort to take care of myself and lose weight because then it means I'm playing into the way that society thinks I should be.  That only thin women are beautiful or worthy of love and attention.  And yet I'd be lying if I said my weight and how out of shape I am isn't making me miserable.  I want to be a good example to my girls, but I don't want them to think they are only valuable because of their bodies.  I don't want them having to obsess about every piece of food that goes into their mouths, but I also want them to love themselves enough to take care of their bodies. 

And around and around it goes.  I'm frustrated.  And about right now if you're still reading you're thinking I'm a total head case.  Which I am.  Only someone with a PhD in psychology could even begin to touch my issues.  I've violated my one rule for this blog: don't blog past 8 p.m.  Otherwise you get posts like this one spilling all my insecurities that I'll probably be embarrassed by later.  I just feel very alone in this problem.  I don't know what to try next.  I don't want a quick fix, but I don't know how to stop eating the way I do.  Food is my salve for all my hurts, past and present.  It's not healthy.  It doesn't make me happy in the long run.  What do I replace the food with though?  Honestly if anyone has any answers I'd love to hear them.  I don't even know how to begin believing I am worth it.  I know that sounds pathetic, but tonight I feel pathetic.  And there you go.  All my bleeding truths out on the page.