Body Image: I'll remember not to look

My hopes were high as I began browsing the Plus Size section-- interestingly enough, it was the smallest section of the store. The variety was even smaller. I was left to choose between a ridiculous patterned tent-like shirt or a hideous body-hugging top which would show all of my fat rolls as well as how many I had eaten at dinner last night.

I grabbed a few of the less-ugly articles of clothing and headed for the fitting room. I saw myself in the mirror-- my shirt snug against my mid-section. How did I become so big again?

My eyes moved to my thighs. While they've always been large, they were always "firm"-- if that makes sense. This time, they looked lumpy, with purple veins spidering out across my legs like cracks in glass. My heart sunk-- a new level of self-hatred achieved. These things don't start to happen when you're only thirty years old.

One by one, I tried on each article of clothing. The top that I somewhat liked looked crooked across my body, and not because it was styled that way--it was simply cheaply made.

I wondered if whomever designed it, or sewed it, thought about the plus sized woman who might wear it one day. Was it an attempt to make a woman feel beautiful, or just another low-quality style that could be over-priced since plus size women have very few options when shopping for clothes?

And why do we even need mirrors? Couldn't we just imagine how we look based upon how we feel? At least then we wouldn't have to face the truth.

The times that I feel best about myself are the times when I don't think about my body or worry about my food choices. I'm able to live in the moment, enjoy a good conversation, savor a delicious bite of food-- to just be, with no judgement or rules.

The moment I look in the mirror and see the shape that is growing ever rounder, plumper, and fuller-- I begin to feel desperate, helpless, and afraid. Worst of all, I feel so much shame and self-hatred that I question whether I even deserve to have a body for my soul to dwell within.

I can't shake the image of my lumpy thighs. I find that I'm wearing a larger size than ever before. My mood grows darker. When I leave the fitting room, I can't even look people in the eye because I am so ashamed and confident that they are judging me by my size.

And the only thing that I have on my mind is how I will get some chocolate.

Logically, it doesn't make any sense-- but somehow, my emotions have taken over every part of my being. And it has been this way for a long time. My emotions take over and the only way I know how to deal with them is by food-- and that's not even effective in the long run.

Will there ever be a way out-- some chance of escape? Likely not.

I'm here in the only body that I will ever have-- fat, defeated, and fearful. I know that my body is trying to save me by causing these urges to eat. It's a way to cope. In times of restriction (dieting), my body has a primal urge to save myself because it thinks I'm starving. If I were starving, this would be a good thing, but I'm not-- far from it.

All that I want is freedom, but I feel imprisoned in my body and in my thoughts. I know that it's ridiculous and that I have so much to be grateful for. My body is just trying to save me even though I am destroying myself.

I understand that I am not a victim, but I don't understand how to truly take control. Maybe I try to have too much mental control over things that my body should be able to tell me naturally-- when I'm truly hungry, what I need to eat, etc.

For now, the next time I'm in front of a full-length mirror, I'll remember not to look at my thighs.

I’m Hosting a LuLaRoe Pop up Boutique! Featuring Plus Sizes (and more)

Have you heard of LulaRoe clothing? They have super cute styles and I am really excited to host a LulaRoe Pop up Boutique via Facebook! This means that you can join in on the party and browse through the clothing too. See the invitation below for all of the details. You can join my Facebook group for the party here or by clicking on the invitation below.

What can you expect? Lots of colorful leggings, dresses, skirts, and tops in misses, plus, and girls sizes.

The clothing is modest and stylish, for those of you who are concerned about that.

The quantities are limited so you don’t have to worry about everyone having your outfit, but it also means the clothes go fast!

I can’t wait to see what patterns will be available for my party!

Don’t worry, you don’t have to buy anything if you join the party! Just take a look around.

I hope to see you there! Leave me a comment when you’ve joined!

Weigh in Day: I actually weighed this time!

 

This week wasn’t a good one as far as my eating was concerned. I stopped tracking again. I am wasting so much time—if I just stayed on track I’d probably have lost 30 lbs. by now.

But there’s more to this than willpower. After all, I have been fat since I was about 7 years old—I think there’s some work that needs to be done so I can make the habits stick.

I made the mistake of buying Halloween candy on Wednesday and I just want to eat it! I did buy one big bag of candy that I don’t care for—but those Reese’s snack size pumpkins won’t stop calling my name!

Can I play the hormones card?

However, I did lose 1.9 lbs.—keep him mind that this is over the course of three weeks. I guess it’s not horrible if you think about my goal being to lose 1 lb. per week. But a loss is a loss and it’s better than a gain any day.

	This Week	Last Week
Weekly Points Used:	-	73/49
Activity Points Earned:	21	15
Activity Points Used:	-	15
Total Steps:	46,514	41,407
Weight Loss this Week:	1.9 lbs.	?
Total Weight Loss:	-4.1 lbs.	-

The horror of only having lost 4.1 lbs. since April. Sigh.

In other news, I’ve been working on “me” a little bit. I am using my Gwynnie Bee subscription to try to go outside of my comfort zone a bit.

I’ve been trying the leggings with a dress/tunic look. When I say “go outside of my comfort zone”, I really do mean that my comfort zone is quite boxy and restrictive and most people probably dress like this all of the time and call it a comfy outfit.

I have had zero confidence for most of my life. But I’m putting forth the effort to try to dress in ways that I want to dress but have felt too embarrassed to because of my weight.

That being said, I tried out this Lucie Lu Sativa Dress in Aztec Print and paired it with black leggings, a black Old Navy cardigan, and Madden Girl Black Macramé Portia C Moccasins (Amazon affiliate link)—the shoes are SUPER comfy by the way. I just wore what I had.

I’m obviously no fashion maven, but I felt cute in this outfit while wearing it. When I looked in the mirror though, not so much—I felt like I looked about 7 months pregnant and decided “whatever” and wore it anyways.

Please excuse the mess on the floor in the picture—I wasn’t planning on posting these pictures! Also, my mirror is ancient and has an un-washable fog, hence, the pictures are horrible quality.

I’m considering buying this dress since it’s fairly affordable and it’s really comfy—but I’m not sure I can get over how I feel like I look huge in this dress….decisions, decisions.

I’m loving the Aztec prints right now. My mom bought me this super cute sweater in the Aztec print that is black and white—I love it.

That’s all for now! Have a great weekend and Happy Halloween!

Thursday Update

I’m so glad it’s Thursday and a 3 day weekend with hubby home is just around the corner! We don’t have any big plans, but we plan to try to get a few things done around the house—which we badly need to do! Everything has been so crazy this past year that I feel like we were over our heads and have fallen behind on a lot of things—it will take some time to catch up again.

This past week has been pretty average. On Tuesday, I went to Kohl’s to exchange a dress for Sienna that was too small. She also needs some new PJs for spring/summer and hubby wanted some black and gray undershirts. I also found a skirt for myself, but the jury is still out on whether or not I like it. What do you think?

I imagine wearing it with my new denim shirt and a white tee—and if I wanted to get really trendy, I could wear a fedora hat! I love that look but I don’t usually wear hats.

Yesterday, I was super tired all day long. I should have just taken a nap, but instead I just sat around doing nothing and wanting to snack—which I did a little too much of. I must sleep when I’m tired!!

And then when I’m tired is when my anxiety and everything else kicks in. So our church meeting didn’t go so well with Sienna. Hubby takes care of her most of the time because of my issues. I just wanted to cry. Everyone was so nice afterwards and told us that she did really well and that they could tell us all kinds of stories about trying to take care of their children during the meeting—they’ve all been there. That was an encouragement to me.

This week I reached out to someone to try to make a new friend and was kind of rejected. My first try and it didn’t work out—I don’t think she really meant it to be anything against me but still…I didn’t need that on my first try!! haha

But the good news is that someone reached out to me and invited me to get together with her and another friend of mine to do a little craft project. We’re going to paint flower pots. Afterwards, we’re going to visit a new coffee shop. That’s this afternoon. I sure hope baby girl can handle everything…and me too!

Baby girl continues to be so silly. Last night, she was cheesing at everybody and giggling. She isn’t shy at all. She has been walking a little more lately. She started “singing” and whistling. Oh my goodness it’s so funny. Also, if I ask her what a kitty says, she makes this meow noise that requires her to stick her tongue all of the way out of her mouth to make. She’s also getting to be quite naughty and has quite the attitude at times. I guess if she’s still doing this stuff at 6 years old then we’ll worry—probably just another phase!

Weigh in day tomorrow…I’m not sure how it will go really. Hoping for the best.

I better get going because I don’t have a lot of time to get ready!!

Weigh in Day and Finalized Outfits for Family Photos

Before stepping on the scale this morning, I mentally prepared myself for a large gain. When I stepped on the scale, I was surprised to find that I could actually breathe a sigh of relief.

I only gained .1 lb.! Now imagine if I had stayed on track this week…I probably would have had a nice loss. But you never know.

Stats for the week:

• Weekly Points Used: All of them and then some 
• Activity Points Earned: 22
• Activity Points Used: All of them and then some
• Total steps: 46,546
• Weight Loss this Week: +.1
• Total Weight Loss to Date: –10.3 lbs.

I’m especially happy that I didn’t lose my “10 lbs. lost status”. I haven’t even gotten my pedicure yet!!

This brings up something that I need to work on—when I inevitably mess up sometimes, I need to remember that every healthy choice counts. I don’t need to wait until weigh in day to “start over again” with a clean slate. It’s totally a mind thing and as much as I wanted to keep at it…I kept thinking in the back of my mind, “well, what’s the point? I’ve already messed up this much!”. There is a point—health, and it doesn’t start and stop depending upon a couple of “bad” choices. It all counts.

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I was so excited to see that I received the skirt I ordered in the mail today!! I rushed inside to try it on and…”oh no”…I pulled another Alissa.

You see, I routinely make these stupid mistakes. Like accidently ordering the wrong color leaves for the tree decal in the nursery, or buying paint that I thought was gray and it was actually purple, or adding a cup of rosemary and salt to a recipe instead of 1 Tbs. Ok, that one is from long, long ago and was my first cooking experience, but you get the picture.

So what did I do? I gave the wrong measurements for my skirt! 3” too large, to be exact. I tried on the skirt and I literally cannot keep it on me because it’s so huge.

I may tend to make dumb mistakes like this from time to time, but you know what I’m also good at? Fixing problems. Although my sister says that I do not need to try to “fix” everything all of the time, I tend to think that in some ways this is a good quality that I have when it applies to things that do not involve emotional fixing…which is where I have a problem…and I’m working on fixing that one with my counselor…so I guess I just like to fix things. lol

Alright, so I thought…this skirt is just too perfect for the family photos that I’m not going to just give up on it. Better too big than too small. I safety pinned it together and it works. The next time I see my mom, I will see if she can fix it for me.

I really like how it turned out! What do you think? I will need to wear an additional tank underneath to make sure the chevron doesn’t show through my tank. The picture isn’t the greatest because I don’t have a good mirror (it’s old and has this foggy appearance that doesn’t come off of it).

I bought my tops at Old Navy (both the denim and the tank), and the skirt is from Needle Nook by Marcy on Etsy. The headband is from Hipsy Headbands which I ordered from Amazon Prime (affiliate link).

Here is what baby girl will wear:

And then I picked up this shirt for hubby at Old Navy. I was in a hurry and when I was leaving I saw a shirt that had all of the colors that we’re wearing…but don’t think I’ll have time to go back and get that one.

So what do you think?