Reframing: It’s Easy

Ok, here’s the deal. This past semester, I had a big goal — I needed to reframe. I’m not talking reframing pictures on my wall, I’m talking reframing my approach to health. I had to accept that part of recovery meant gaining weight. I also had to believe that those extra pounds were victorious — signs that I was healing, allowing myself to learn and cope, rather than falling back on a binge and purge cycle – which I had become addicted to.

So, I gained some weight last semester and while it was hard, not gonna lie, to see the pounds creeping up, I refused to berate myself (at least triednot to berate myself). I realized that bulimia had become a crutch — an extremely self-destructive and addictive crutch. In my warped mind, bulimia was an insurance policy — insurance that if I ever were to eat way too much and risk gaining weight, I had a back-up plan that would fit into my schedule (cuz exercising off a binge can take hours). Obviously, that mental state illustrates both a fat phobia and distorted sense of reality. Bulimia isn’t a crutch and if it’s any sort of insurance, it was insurance I was slowly digging myself a grave. I knew then, and had accepted, that I privileged being thin over being healthy, and even over my life. I was going to stay thin, or die trying.

Why this obsession, this deification of being thin? The answer’s not so easy. In fact, it’s hardly possible for me understand my own frame of mind. There’s the rational part of me that knows being thin doesn’t trump being healthy, that knows thin doesn’t insure a happy life (or anything at all), that knows “thin” is a malleable concept. However, the part of me that acts, moves and breathes, conducts herself differently. It’s your regular metaphysical contradiction – the same phenomenon that allows normal intelligent people to act in ways that defy what they know better. Perhaps it was simply this — I gained so much when I lost weight. So much that I fear that gaining weight means losing those very things. I equated thin with those things I had gained, rather than realizing I earned those things. I was selling myself short! It’s not being thin that got me to the master’s program, into the band, or my boyfriend.

So, I had to – first – break the cycle of binging. This was the catalyst for the binge-purge cycle. Binging is, uh, kinda second nature to me. I’ve been binge eating since I was a child. I guess I’d define my type of binging as eating a massive amount of food, quickly, alone (or w/ my twin who I think mimicked my behavior more than suffered from a binge eating disorder like me) and in one sitting; and caring less about the type of food and its taste and more about the act of eating and the feeling of being full…or stuffed, uncomfortably, actually. I would typically binge when studying, being idle, or upon returning from a social event. All three are things that make me uncomfortable. As an introvert, it takes a lot of energy for me to be in groups of people. You’d probably never know – I smile big, laugh loud and seem at ease. But I’m also a great actress  I guess I’d gotten accustomed to eating when any sort of discomfort arose, or  upon immediately “surviving” a discomfort. I’m learning now to be okay with feeling uncomfortable, to allowing myself to actually feel rather than suffocate emotions with food.

There really isn’t a science to stopping binge eating. Psychologists who teach mindfulness suggest that people learn to eat intuitively and mindfully, sometimes teaching them to listen to music to avert a binge, or to practice meditation.

I guess, for me, the biggest change I had to make was truly setting myself up to succeed and believing I was worth the effort. Ya see, I’ve always been the type to metaphorically fill my plate up (is it any wonder I’d literally fill my plate, too?), leaving little time to “check in” with myself. I had privileged doing things rather than being. Let’s face it – it does become rather impossible to live healthily when you set yourself up to live unhealthily. So, I’ve also simply not allowed myself to keep food in the house that doesn’t fit with enabling my body to be as healthy and powerful as it can be. With no temptation in the house, I rarely even want it. It just doesn’t seem worth it. I try to think about what my body needs and as I grow to love her more and more, I actually want and crave  to give her those very things.

I’ve made it a point to take on less – no more working three jobs and being a full-time student - and to see that as success rather than a sign of weakness or impotence. I’ve made it a point to see my body as the greatest enabler and food as its power source.

I want to go back to being that chick I was a couple summers ago who was all about her biceps

and lived each day loving what her body could do. I’m getting there again. I can actually see my body transform as I transform mentally.

I now know that making the right choices for myself is the easiest thing to do. It’s not hard to eat healthy or to fit in exercise. It’s harder to treat myself like shit, believe me.

Think about it. How many times have we told ourselves that treating ourselves as we deserve to be treated is “hard” or not feasible? That making time for fitness and healthy eating is just too difficult. The true difficulty comes when you have to face yourself and answer why (and how) you’ve allowed yourself to get away with such self-abuse.

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<3,

The Cranky One