I have two announcements I’d like to make.
1) I quit the birth control pill. Whether or not if was affecting my weight, it was absolutely affecting my energy and my mood. I had headaches (which I never get), and my sleeping got even worse. Bye bye, pill. I thought we could make it work, our reunion had its ups and downs, but this time we’re done for good.
2) I will no longer be counting calories. I decided it’s stupid, at least for me. And not something that it makes sense to keep up for life. After writing my post yesterday, discovering this instantly addicting new blog, and reading another 100 pages of The Body Myth, I have decided it is urgently important for me to focus on accepting the body I have now.
One thing that really struck me was this post by Kate Harding, a body image activist and fat acceptance blogger/author. In the post, she writes about the crazy things that people believe about being thin, the things they tell themselves they can’t try until the thin self emerges with a big superhero S on her chest and starts doing all the things you’ve always dreamed of.
She also mentions something she refers to as her cognitive dissonance phase, when she simultaneously believed that she must accept her body the way it was while being equally convinced that it would be impossible until she lost weight.
I thought, holy crap, that is exactly where I am right now. I’m not hopeless. I’m just in the cognitive dissonance phase! That is exactly it. But if I’m to get through it, get to the other side where I can be comfortable in my own skin, I need to keep my eye on the prize and let myself be conflicted without getting confused.
As I declared at the outset of this blog, if I eat when I’m hungry, stop when I’m full, and continue to exercise, whatever I weigh is what I weigh. If my weight fluctuates between 145 and 150 or more, so be it.
