Loving My Body...step 104

Hello dear readers,

Welcome to my first Body Love for Life blogpost.  Right away I should say that this is not an advertisement for a program that promises body love for life.  This is about my individual journey and I would not dare suggest that my process is the same as anyone else's.  BUT, if you should find support here that will help you on your own way, please do follow and enjoy the virtual hug.

This is a very exciting time.  I am inspired!! How often does that happen? So I don't want to spend too much time talking about my past because I want to tell you all of the exciting things that my future may have in store! But I will summarize (as much as possible), my body love story.  Keep in mind that almost every aspect of my life interacts with my physical being and perception of self, so I can't possibly include it all.

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I'll begin in 7th grade when I went on my first diet.  I think it was WeightWatchers but without the points system.  Almost WeightWatchers, my mom and I called it.  Which I went on and off from from age 11 to age 17. The reasons for these diets are all of the usual ones - peer pressure, family pressure, media pressure.  I never really succeeded in getting to my Ideal Weight, I was always technically just a bit above the line.  Until my gap year before college when I exercised for 40-90 minutes a day, skipped lunch, counted calories to the decimal, and lost the twenty pounds that had been bugging me for the past seven years of my young life.

When I returned home from a somewhat miserable year in Israel (which is another story for another time), I was prepared to lose those last 5-8 lbs that kept me from my Ideal Weight.  Instead, I began binging.  Having left my program early, I had just realized that I couldn't be a perfect person.  So I lost all of the control I had desperately been holding on to. And only after gaining back all of the weight I had lost did I realize how scarily I had been acting during my gap year.  How skewed my relationship with my body was.  How badly I treated it and how much I blamed it for all of my problems.

Come freshman year of college and I had joined group therapy for girls with eating disorders and was doing individual therapy with a specialist, too.  I began to recognize disordered eating habits and distorted thinking patterns and I hadn't experienced a real, uncontrollable binge since the summer.  I read an incredible book called Eating in the Light of the Moon...it told me that I was a smart, beautiful girl, who communicated through disordered eating when others couldn't understand me.  These were vital first steps.

Next, I went to a retreat at Kripalu Yoga Center called Integrative Weight Loss, which was much less about weight loss than it was about WHY we find ourselves tortured by weight and why we turn to food and how to make those habits healthier.  The mindfulness I learned there has sent me back to Kripalu again and again to glean more wisdom about my mind, body, and soul.




As a sophomore I became inspired by a theatre class to create a project called Silhouette Theatre - a company that would use theatre workshops to inspire positive body image and combat negative media.  What a thrill that was! I still hope to create a real Silhouette Theatre in the future.

Finally, it's been 3 years of attempted mindfulness and self awareness and I struggle daily to maintain a balance between health and love.  I am just not there yet!! And now I am engaged, preparing myself to start a life with my beautiful fiancé, Louis, and I just cannot stop now.  I am determined to continue to learn more tools and to take this next step, the 104th, I believe, on my Body Love journey.

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So that's a little bit of my story.  Maybe you can relate, maybe you can't.  But we all have minds and we all have bodies and we all need to find whatever way possible to help them get along and support us in our daily and lifelong tasks.

And just a couple of weeks ago, I found this book that seemed to relate to EXACTLY what I'm worrying about now: How to become healthier without obsessing over being thin on my wedding day? How to challenge myself without scaring myself into a corner?

Mirror, Mirror off the Wall by Kjerstin Gruys (don't ask me how to pronounce either part of her name) is about a positive body image PROFESSOR who gets engaged and can't stop worrying about how she will look on her wedding day.  So she swears off mirrors and reflective surfaces for the ENTIRE YEAR....including....her. wedding. day.  She's that crazy.  I would explain more of it, but I'm still in the middle of the book, so I'm going to include inspiration as I go.

Here are some things I have loved so far:

Willpower is a limited physiological resource!!!!! What?? Yes. It uses up glucose from the body.  So if you're going to make a big life change, nourish your willpower, make it as easy on yourself as possible, and don't take on too much!

This is from Kjerstin's blog that she kept while she completed her challenge:
http://www.ayearwithoutmirrors.com

How am I going to do this? Well, I figure if I'm working on healthy body stuff, this wouldn't be the year to perfect my social life.  Done.

And if I have to save my willpower, then I should allow myself to rebel in small ways that I've never allowed myself before (because I was too busy using my willpower for them): text at work! sing on the sidewalk! wear scandalous clothing! lie in bed for more hours than I should and watch tv! See? Things like that. Can you tell that I'm excited about this part?

Another thing I loved was the idea that I shouldn't feel guilty for having farther still to go and more to learn.  I thought I was done and that I had all of the tools I needed.  But it's still too hard.  And more tools and inspiration will make my lifetime goals MORE achievable, not less.

Here are some great Kjerstin rules:

-Challenge your assumptions about yourself! (For me, this means losing my fear of my potential to relapse into disordered eating and taking a chance at healthier habits!)

-Good enough is good enough (AMEN)!

-Focus on healthy behaviors, not the number on the scale (yes, yes, yes, and hell yes).

-Look to your role models (of which I am lucky to have many)

-Ask for help and be willing to receive it. (This is a hard one for me.)

-Sanity comes first! (refer to the amen above)

and without further ado, inspired by Kjerstin's tendency to power through...

Here is What I Want:

-To eat food that nourishes me in all of the healthy-feeling ways.

-To move often enough that my body feels mobile and capable.

-To learn new ways to accomplish these and make it easy for myself.

-To slowly lose weight in a healthy manner so pressure eases off of my limbs and muscles.

-To feel supported by myself and others along the way.

-To lose my fear of myself; to teach myself that there is room to change habits without relapsing.

How I am Going to Do This (draft 1):

--Repeat my mantra when I wake up and go to sleep (and whenever else I need).  This is a sentence I created through a dramatherapy session in which I explored my fear of trying to start exercising.  It is..."I forgive myself for the things that make me human." (Or "I forgive myself for being human"...depending on my mood.)

--Move every day for 15 minutes and 3 of those times for 30 minutes.

--Go to physical therapy to heal my lower back and strengthen my core.

--Allow for little rebellions in other places! Saving my willpower!

As for food...I haven't figured that out yet.  I am going to Kripalu this weekend with my fiancé (for his first time there!) and I am incredibly excited to make some more decisions there.

This is my plan.  I wanted to let you know.  I hope you find it interesting and fun, because I am finding it interesting and fun to share it with you.  Please do leave any comments and follow me along my way as I find my Body Love for Life!

With love, warmth, and excitement,

Gabriella