I'm pretty sure it will not surprise any of you to tell you that I have some obsessive compulsive habits. I like to lock my house doors at night and check them each three times. The third time I do it, I turn the handle three times just to be sure. I keep the radio volume in my car only on even numbers. I cannot go to bed with dishes in my sink. Before I sleep, I use the bathroom about 4 times "just to be sure" the same way I did as a small child when I was trying not to wet the bed despite the fact that I have not wet the bed since I was about 7 years old. (What's 20 years of being safe, right?) Like I said... obsessive compulsive. This applies to my battle with weight and body image as well.
I used to weigh myself daily (three times each morning, of course) and then love or hate myself based on where that number landed. Everything was controlled by that number. It nearly blew my mind to have my therapist say, "what would happen if you just stopped weighing yourself?" Unthinkable. But then I did it. And it has all turned out okay. I sometimes get nervous but then check it and I'm right where I knew I was. I am honestly so tuned into what my body looks like at each number on the scale that I can tell you whether I am down or up almost to tenths of a pound. It's actually super weird. In addition to weighing myself too much, I looked in the mirror and examine how "skinny or fat" I looked every time I walked by the full length at home. I was spending 5-10 minutes at night before bed in front of it in my underwear mentally abusing myself about how I looked. Then, I would go to bed mentally exhausted from the emotional beating I had just given myself. My stomach poked out too much this way or that. My pooch was to pronounced today. My belly button looked extra flabby (I have extra skin here when losing all the weight that I absolutely loathe.) This behavior was having a serious impact on how I saw myself. I was fat and unworthy of most things. At least in my head and in my mirror. And while I saw that is was an altered reality, I couldn't shake how it made me feel about myself.
Somewhere around the same time I decided to stop getting on the scale every morning and relying on that number for my self-worth for the day, I also stopped looking in the mirror quite so much. I didn't stand there for long periods of time anymore. I do still catch glimpses from time to time in passing. Sometimes I take pictures and try to get a better handle on things at my crazy-friend's suggestion. The mirror lies and pictures usually don't. The weird part about this all though is that recently, there has been some sort of mental switch. I am 5 pounds heavier than I should be and 10 pounds from my old goal-weight. I weight 160 pounds. My newer goal is 155 because I always have to have a goal to keep myself moving even if it's steady, that's just how I am, and my old goal was to weigh 150. I have to kill it with eating and workouts constantly to weight 150. This would pretty much mean eliminating carbs from my diet altogether and being grumpy and pissed off by the time I made it to 150. But hey, I'd look great — for about 2 weeks until I gave up and ate normally again. When I eat what I like and enjoy myself on the weekends, I weigh 160. It's what I weighed in high school and when I am being healthy but not extreme, it's what I weigh now. I can get to 155 by cutting out the extra weekend indulgences and it's not too hard. But honestly, it's not worth the cost right now.
As I look in the mirror lately, I am conscious that I am not at 150 or 155 and surely I see things I don't like just as everyone does. But you know what else I see? I see a girl who is pretty okay — at least a majority of the time. Most of the time, I can see a girl who is not fat but not exactly skinny either. She's thin-ish. She could stand to lose a few pounds but she looks healthy and happy. She looks like she works out. She looks like she can be seen at the beach and not want to be buried in the sand. She looks like a girl some other girls might aspire to be. She looks happier with herself.
When I look in the mirror, I still see flaws. I still see them and acknowledge them. They are there and I don't like them one bit. But now, they don't seem to define me quite as much. My flaws do not take away all the other good pieces about me. My sad-face-loose-skin belly button does not make me automatically fat. My stomach that pokes out just a bit when I stand this way or that does not make me fat or skinny either. They are just a piece of the puzzle. No one is perfect. Everyone has things that bother them and that they wish they could change. I do too, but they no longer define me. At least they don't today. And that's progress.
Everyday is new. And sometimes I look better in the mirror than others. And sometimes I might look terrible in the morning but by nighttime, I can see it more clearly and I look pretty great. I never know how my brain will let me see myself in the mirror any time that I catch a glimpse. But lately, the good glimpses have been more often than the bad and I am catching myself smiling a little more at that girl than I used to.
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