Weighing on Me: WEIGHT
I had a small bout of food poisoning the other day and my first thought was… YAS! I’m gonna lose weight without even trying!!! I don’t care if it will cost agonizing pain… SIZE 6, HERE I COME!
The truth: I want to be skinny. I’ve never ever been skinny. I almost feel as if it’s the opposite - I’ve always been overweight. There have been three times in my life, where I’ve been Toni-skinny (which is skinny for me, but I still couldn’t wear a bikini):
My senior year of high school. I was involved in 1000 activities and dancing every day. I I faced my first major depressive episode, and wasn’t eating. This was the first, last, and only depressive episode where I lost my appetite, rather than gained an appetite.
My senior year of college. I did the Atkins Diet. Basically, I only ate chicken wings, and no joke, I dropped about 20lbs in 3 weeks. But carbs regulate serotonin in the brain, which I was already lacking, and I tried to kill myself. I also gained the weight back in the most ill-proportioned way, and now I have second stomach because of it. Not a great ending.
2008-2010. I had gotten to be about 210lbs, which is a lot on this 5-foot frame. I lost about 75lbs. I was fucking disciplined. I would go on 8 mile runs before work, even in the harsh NYC winter. I would spend my Saturdays exercising for 4 hours as I trained for a triathlon and then a marathon. I felt great. I would even go to parties, and not drink because I felt so good.
I’ve gained back 35lbs of that 75lbs, and the scary thing is… I don’t know how or when it happened. But here I sit, with a BMI of 33, and if you’re good at math, you know I weigh 1XX.
I’m not skinny, but man, I want to be. And there lies the other part of my skinny truth: I hate that I want to be skinny. I look in the mirror and I see a cute face and someone who is kinda funny and pretty smart. I see someone who has endured a lot, and who probably should be dead. Let me clarify that before you send police and an ambulance to my home: I say that not because I want to be dead, but given the amount of dumb drunk things I’ve done in my life, an attempt on my own life, and an attempt on my life by another human… I’m surprised I am still sitting here typing this. In short, I look in the mirror and see someone who is an okay human, but damn, she needs to shed some pounds.
It’s frustrating because why does it matter? I’m healthy. I eat veggies, I’ve cut back on drinking, I’m not sitting around eating bowls of pasta all day, I rarely eat red mean (too expensive for the unemployed!), and now that I don’t sit near a candy bowl, I don’t even take in that many sweets. Yes, I drink Diet Coke, which I know how bad it is… But hell, I even crave water now over the ole’ DC. I do high-intensity cardio 5-6 times/week for 60 minutes. On the days I don’t do that, I take a walk or do some kind of low impact workout at home. My cholesterol, my blood sugar and my triglycerides are perfect. They can’t even find my blood pressure because it’s so low!
But you know what? As men scroll through Tinder, Bumble, and Match.com or see me at bar, they aren’t thinking, “Wow… Look at her low blood pressure. That’s sexy.”
Are men the only reason I am not body positive? Can someone love me like this? Am I lacking a husband and babies because my self-esteem is that low? For fuck’s sake, I hope not.
As I write this blog post, this is the only thing playing through my head:
Weight. It’s one little number, yet it dictates me entire life. Every moment. Of every day. WHY?
There is no clever ending here. I’m gonna take a spoonful of peanut butter and cry.