Recovery Advice for the Bride-to-Be

Inspired by a viewer question and a response to what I believe is popular demand - here's a bonus video: Recovery Advice for the Bride-to-Be.

Clothes, Shopping, & Eating Disorders

Here's this past week's Wednesday video. I've talked about this topic before, so I linked to 3 other videos of mine as well towards the end of the video if you are interested in further thoughts/advice/suggestions.

A Smaller Size Is Not A Prize

Shopping: you love it and you hate it. It can be enjoyable and maddening, fun and disastrous, happy and sad.

Much of these conflicting emotions stem from the toss-up of finding the perfect dress versus trying on pair of jeans after pair of jeans, none of which fit the way you want them to.

Often, it seems as though stores are telling us that, no matter what, our bodies are not “right.” We’re too skinny, too fat, our hips are too big, our butts are too flat, our stomach is too round, our thighs are too wide, etc. We inevitably try to make our bodies fit the clothes, instead of making our clothes fit our bodies. Needless to say, it can get extremely frustrating. It takes all the joy out of shopping for yourself. It can make you feel negatively about yourself. It reiterates again and again that your body is somehow not the way it should be.

Then there are the numbers. More numbers, like the numbers on a scale, dictating your mood: clothing sizes.

For one, they always seem to be getting smaller in stores, don’t they? You can wear a 5 in one store, but in another, where all the clothes seem so small, a 5 doesn’t come close to fitting. You’re forced to but something a couple sizes up and you feel horrible. Why? If it looks good, then why? Because that number has come to mean something to you. The numbers have come to signify something. If they go up, you’re too fat and if they go down, you’re doing well and looking better.

This is your first mistake. You’re giving these numbers—these clothing sizes, for God’s sake—a lot of power. And they mean nothing. It’s about how you feel in the clothes you buy that should matter. If the pair of pants you want to buy had a tag 3 sizes smaller, and you love the way they look on you—then you’d still love the way they look if that tag has a larger size printed on it. It’s just your mind trying to tell you differently. Trying to make you feel ugly, fat, and inadequate.

My suggestion—if you’re strong enough—is to cut the tags out of the clothes you buy. That way, you’ve used them for what they’re really for—to help determine what fits you in the store—and when you get home, you don’t need those damn tags anymore. I can hear what you’re thinking…you’re thinking that you do.

Well, you don’t.

You don’t need them to reference yourself. You don’t need them to tell you how to feel when you put them on. Look at the clothes for what they are—for what you like about them—not their sizes.

If you’re like me, the clothes in your closet are probably a few different sizes. Sizes vary by store or by material or by article of clothing (like your dress size not being your pants size). So who cares if you have all the tags cut out of your clothes? You’re not going to go out, sit on the bus, and have the person next to you ask, “Oh what size are your pants?”

If they comment on your pants, they’re more likely to say, “I really like your pants,” or “Where did you get those?”

Think about it.

And when you want to or need to go shopping again, you just try on clothes and see what fits without worrying about if you wore an 8 in the same store the last time you were in it. You pick a pair of pants that looks like it might fit and go from there if it doesn’t, trying on ones smaller or larger until you find a par that does. If your clothes at home don’t have the tags, you won’t be going into the store looking for a certain size and feeling terrible if it doesn’t fit the way you think it should. It’s just trial and error now, babe. You find the clothes to fit your body instead of thinking your body should fit into a size you’ve chosen in your head or have seen in your closet.
I know cutting the tags out of your clothes can seem pretty extreme. And maybe it is. But sometimes the extreme is necessary to get us to change our thinking, to get our heads back where they should be. After all, isn’t starving to fit into a particular size pretty extreme? Isn’t crying in a fitting room stall when a size—a number that means nothing—doesn’t fit pretty extreme? You get the next size, you try it on, and if you like the way it looks, you buy it. Don’t give over your power. Then you go home and cut the tags out until your bran can thinking for itself again.

It’s hard to do—to take the scissors to your clothes and cut out the part of them that matters the least. Doesn’t sound like it should be difficult, but it is. But you know, once you do it, there’s no turning back. The numbers will be gone and there’s no putting them back. And maybe you can breathe a little easier…and look at your clothes for what they are—a piece of your style.

Cutting out the tags is similar to getting weighed backwards at the doctor’s office. If you know the number on the scale holds too much weight (no pun intended) in your mind, you’re giving it too much power. Weigh yourself backwards. It’s kind of weird, but nurses and doctors are more used to this request then you might think. Don’t let that number dictate your mood and your well-being.

But it’s hard to do. To be strong enough to turn around, step on a scale, and step off without knowing what number showed up. You think—you’ll be dying to know. You’ll be curious. Well, of course.

Fight it.

It takes a lot of strength. To cut out the tags, to weigh yourself backwards, to let those numbers NOT matter.

But you can do it. You can take that power back. And you’re the only one who can. And when you’re in a better place, those numbers won’t matter so much anymore. And you can look at them again without handing over your power.

Your power is a prize.

Not your size.

Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008

2007 is over now and it was the healthiest year I've had in a long long time. Even as a kid I know I often was far too skinny for my own good, though I wasn't yet aware of the way in which my issues were manifesting themselves. I was feeling so thankful for having such a great year--a year of health and happiness, complete with an engagement, buying a new home with my fiance, and planning my wedding...then I realized--I'm not just thankful--I'm proud of myself too.

I'd go as far as to say that 2007 was my best year to date. I know that part of that is because of all the wonderful things this year has brought me, but a large part of it is because I was in a good place...a place where I could enjoy them. I was not obsessive, I was not anxious, and I was not unhappy. It took work to get to this place. I think, at times, I felt I was there before I really was. But now, I know that I can safely say I am in a good place. A place of which I can be proud. A place I can call home. I place I can call life.

At about 25 pounds heavier than my lowest weight, I feel healthy. I like my body. I still have my moments where I grimace when I look in the mirror or where I sigh when putting on a pair of pants, but these moments are fleeting and I do not think about them after. I think a lot of women, eating disordered or not, feel this way sometimes. But all in all, I like my body the way it is. It's pretty. It's me.

I'm still considered slender, but I have breasts now. I have shiny hair. I have legs that have shape. I eat right, I have snacks when I want to, and I work out--but not in excess. I'm taking care of myself. My stomach is still flat, but now I have enough body fat to be able to have a child. Before, when my body fat percentage was dangerously low, it would have been impossible to conceive. I had to buy new pants. It stung a bit at first, but in the long run, I'm glad. I told my best friend proudly that I had to get rid of some size 0s and 1s that used to be big on me because I couldn't even zip them up. I rejoiced in filling out my bras again. I look good, not ill. But most of all, I look happy.

I looked at old photos the other night...photos in which my collar bones jutted out grotesquely and my face looked drawn. I saw photos of me--of a concave stomach, a torso with protruding ribs, legs that were sticks and not feminine. I was so sad for that girl. Until I realized that girl is me--and I'm okay now! Better than okay. I don't know if it's strange or not, but I keep those old pictures of myself in a special folder on my computer so I can look at them when I want to love the body I have now. When I want to remember what it was like to be sad, dejected, hungry, and plagued by something I could not shake.

And now, when I look at those photos, I can tell that poor girl that it's going to be okay. Because it is. It really is.