Please Don't Tell Me I'm Looking Skinny

Hey Steph,

When I'm really stressed--I mean the kind of stress that feels like your life is spiraling out of control, not the I've-got-tons-of-stuff-to-do-and-not-enough-time-to-do-them-all kind of stress-- three things happen:

1. I don't eat.
2. I don't sleep.
3. I read tons and tons of scriptures.

I guess my brain thinks that I might as well be spiritually fit while I slowly kill myself through lack of nourishment. :) Fortunately, this response is very, very rare for me--though sleep is sometimes a harder task to achieve during normal stressful periods. But a number of years ago, I was sitting right in the middle of this state. In the midst of being emotionally unwell, I began to lose a lot of weight. Week after week, month after month, the weight came off. I didn't notice. My mind was on surviving the next hour of class without crying in the middle of it. 

But people sure did. 

"Amanda, you look so good." 

"Wow, girl, you're looking skinny. How did you do it?" 

"Girlfriend, you are gorgeous. Keep it up!" 

And later, like a switch, I went from being called "as thin as a model" to people asking, "Are you ok? You look too skinny." 

They didn't know. They didn't know that I wasn't eating, and fortunately, it wasn't because I was anorexic or their words could have promoted the continuation of my quick weight loss. They didn't know that as bad as my physical health was at the time, I was incredibly unwell emotionally. 

They didn't know.

Fast forward a few months later when I was eating and sleeping and not inhaling scriptures like a drowning person does air, I was eating lunch with a dear friend I hadn't seen for years. We had both known each other a long time and had both never been particularly petite girls. She knew I had had a rough year but could see I was doing better. She looked at me and asked, "So, how did you finally do it? How did you lose so much weight? You look great." Behind her question, I could see the frustration of dieting and the daily disappointment of looking in the mirror. I could see all those feelings I had felt my whole life emotionally filling her eyes. 

After explaining that my route to weight loss was something I would never wish on my worst enemy, she looked at me and said, "I'm sorry it happened that way. . . . It must be nice to not feel fat though."

I laughed. "I do feel fat still, sometimes."

I share this rather personal part of myself because the perspective of this experience has changed my life forever. 

First, I learned that the BMI is bogus (seriously, completely bogus! Read this article and you'll never care about those numbers again). At my lowest weight I was still just in the normal weight range on the BMI scale. But I was sickly thin--so if you're aiming for the bottom number on the healthy BMI weight, it might not be a good weight for your body.

Second, I owned that I was never going to be physically enough. After the fact, when I actually started caring about what people had said to me about my weight during this whole period, I got kind of angry. I was cheered on to keep it up and that I was "looking skinny" as if I was on my way to being actually skinny. And then one day, I was sick looking. There was not a time that I was perfect, where my weight was no longer commented on because it was just right. The arbitrariness of the whole thing just ticked me off. Since then, I've decided to just not care. I have been every pound that is healthy for my body. Not a single one was enough. Now I just aim to take care of my body and be healthy. Looks are a terrible gauge.

Actually lots of things do. It's incredible how good food tastes when it is not combined with guilt. Also, skinny is kind of boring day in and day out. 

Third, I found that self-esteem is completely outside of your weight. When I looked into my friend's eyes that day at lunch, I realized that the only difference between me and her and the way we viewed our bodies was that I had journeyed into the land of skinny and I now knew personally that that belief we had our whole lives that at some magic number on the scale, we'd finally feel pretty and attractive was a complete and utter lie. That number didn't make me feel pretty or attractive at all. I realized that if I was going to believe I was attractive, I needed to do it some other way. The number meant nothing.

This is basically what the first image is saying. 

Fourth, I began to see that I am more than my weight. As everyone commented about my weight, I remember thinking, "Why do you even care about that? Life is terrible, and you want me to care about the fact that I carry around less weight than I did yesterday?" The compliments just seemed like such a stupid thing when I was trying to figure out basic things like how to be happy and how to pass my classes, oh yeah, and how to sleep. It made me realize our focus is off. It's easy to compliment someone's looks, but we've got an intellect and a personality and a soul to compliment too. We'd be best to notice those things too.

No, I'm not going to be ticked off if someone compliments my weight. I'll admit it feels nice, but I've trained myself to remember at the same time that it doesn't really matter. And I'm not saying that you should never notice that someone has lost weight. I've had impressive friends work for months and months, day after day, working out at the gym and eating healthy to lose a lot of weight. That's a huge deal--and something we should celebrate! But a compliment like "You are such an example to me of hard work. That's really impressive." means a whole lot more than "Dang, girlfriend, you look hot!"

Cheers,

Amanda Kae