Old Habits Die Hard.

For as long as I can remember I have struggled with my weight. Some people say that and they mean that they have been overweight their entire life and never been able to control it. What I mean is that I have always perceived my weight to be an issue, even when it isn't. This way of thinking has led me to starving myself, binging and purging, reckless eating and over exercising. I don't like to say I have eating disorders, because I imagine "real anorexia" looks like a tiny, frail ballerina pushing peas around a plate. "Real bulimia" is the person who eats a whole pizza and a whole pack of Oreos and a pint of ice cream and a bag of chips and then throws up and eats more. "Real reckless eating" is the already morbidly obese person who hides candy bars in their underwear drawer and shovels pounds of fast food into their mouths every day. I was not the extreme of any of these things, but have certainly fit into the category of all of them on and off throughout my life. Family and friends never knew because my weight never fluctuated enough to become noticeable. I have never in my life been "noticeably thin". I have come out later in life and honestly shared some of the struggles with people who I thought might benefit from hearing my story, but I don't consider myself to be a "recovering" anything. Maybe that is naive of me. It probably is, but I am the master of minimization and like it that way. If I wasn't as good at minimizing as I am, I am certain the weight of the world would have crushed me by now.
*This is a total downer so far, sorry. Don't give up on me yet!
I say all of that because here I am, not far removed from any of it, trying really hard to get on the right track. The track that isn't any of the above but involves caring about my health far more than what a scale says. I want the road less taken; the one that curves away from self destruction and fad diets in the name of "skinny" and into the horizon of "whole, healthy, strong". This seems like a no brainer, you just gotta change your habits! Pick the right thing instead of the wrong thing! Eat the good stuff not the bad stuff! Right? Easy peasy. SO NOT easy peasy. See my problem lies not in initially picking the right things, but when I have to compromise, or have a moment of weakness I feel like such a failure I wanna dump the whole idea because it seems easier to go back to eating the pizza and heading to the bathroom. I know DAMN well that comes with its own guilt, which may actually be worse than eating a cookie when I've sworn off cookies. It all goes back to that extremist side of me that I seem to constantly have to reign in.
So here I am, this is my 2nd full day of eating since the juice ended and I am already worried about what eating is going to do to my weight. I lost just under 10lbs juicing, which was stellar and I definitely needed it. My body looks better (which is apparent in the before and after undies picture I took that I am totally never posting!), and I feel really good. However, coming off a fast means putting a few of those pounds back on, not even in a bad way just the nature of eating anything after not eating anything. Water, fat, muscle, whatever- it is just how it goes. I have been eating REALLY well especially compared to prior to the fast. I am avoiding processed food altogether, any wheat products as well as sugar. Most of what I have eaten has been fresh produce and protein. If this change had been made a month ago I would have been SO proud of myself. And, I am, sort of. The problem is that I just keep thinking about how if I  was only juicing I would still lose more weight. Basically I am reverting back to the same old unhealthy, scale based, eating disorder based way of thinking I have always functioned in. It would be SO easy for me to use "juicing" as a way to avoid food, cleverly disguised as a healthy cleanse. I am still thinking back to the scale. I am still more concerned about being skinny than being healthy and I don't know if that will ever really go away. I want it to, but I feel like no matter how much I know, (and I know A LOT, I am REALLY smart *wink*), this thought process will forever be my baseline.
I am the girl who appreciates EVERY body type on EVERYONE other than herself. I am the mom who encourages her children to think about health and NEVER about body types. I am the wife who recognizes that her husband of 10 years really finds her drop dead gorgeous, (even naked after 2 kids *miracle*).  I am the daughter who preaches against all of this to her mom when she gets stuck in the same rut. I am the friend who reminds you that who you are is beautiful and fat days don't actually mean you are fat. I am the stranger comparing myself to you inch by inch and ALWAYS finding something to appreciate about you.
This is the story of my life, and I am working SO hard at changing my story. We ate out today at lunch and I was hard pressed to find the "right" foods for my new eating plans. So I ate a salad with balsamic, chili, (small bowl), which is not Paleo because beans are evil. I also had a gluten free coconut muffin which is not Paleo because rice flour is evil. AND beets, which are high starch and meant to be avoided except for every now and then. I AM A COMPLETE LOSER. I CANNOT DO ANYTHING RIGHT. Is what I am saying to myself. Normally, at this restaurant I would have had a cream based soup (probably 2 bowls), a plate of 4+ different types of breads, a cream based high calorie dressing (because you're eating lettuce and that means you can use as much blue cheese as you want), and dessert. Clearly today I did really well. Yes, I had to bend a few rules, but at this point baby steps are a big deal, especially for such a huge lifestyle change. I KNOW that, and yet I still allow myself to feel like I have somehow failed.

This is RETARDED. I am too smart to be this DUMB. It is time to adopt POSITIVITY for, to and about me. It is time to put the scale in the motherfarking DUMPSTER. It is time to eat well and live well because I am worth it regardless of what size pants I wear. This is my new day and I may have had a million of them so far but I got a million more to go and I plan to take advantage of every single one of them.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am more valuable than rubies, made in the image of the Creator of the whole universe. I was made with purpose and destiny to do things far bigger than myself. Before I was born He knew me, every hair on my head. This life is not about how I look and one of the greatest tricks the devil has ever played is convincing me and everyone else that ANYTHING about ascetics matters to ANYONE. This world has it so backwards, and it has influenced so much of my own self worth. I will not do it anymore. I simply, will, not.
SO- Cheers to an amazing start to 2014, the ability to be honest with yourself, take care of the only body that you have the best way you know how, and share your story and struggles with others so that NO ONE is left feeling alone because THAT is what it is about. Everything used for the good.