When your weight controls you...

Women, do you feel good about your bodies? 

Someone pointed out to me yesterday that even when I was exercising 5-7x a week, eating as clean as a rabbit, and weighing about 6 pounds less, I still thought I was fat. I still had a pear shape with thighs that barely shrink.  I still saw saggy skin, stretch marks, and imperfection. 

Because of injury, I quit working out like I was on a mission. Instead, I started practicing self-care and yoga.  It makes me feel peaceful, but the 6 pounds I have gained make me feel anything but. However, I look pretty much the same in the mirror, and my clothes still fit. They just fit in a more shapely way in the hips.  :O I look at women like Adele and Oprah, and think they are beautiful. I look at other women in my life- who I think are gorgeous, but overweight- and wonder why I can see beauty in them, but not in myself. 

So here is my reason for this post: I want to know the secret. How does one feel beautiful?  If you feel beautiful- truly beautiful- tell me how you got to that place in your life. Since I lost weight in high school, I have spent the past 24 years trying to maintain "normal" and not turn back into that fat kid my childhood friends remember. I can pretend I do it for my health, but I don't. I do it because I don't want to live in shameful hiding again like I did when I was younger.  I want to believe that if I were to wind up 205 again, I would love myself, but I know I wouldn't. If I didn't love myself at my lowest (115 and suffering from malnutrition), I am not going to love myself at 205. A healthy weight for me is between 150-160, and I ate myself then too!

My therapists' assignment for me this week was to do things that make me feel good and confident about my appearance. Here are the things I have done:

1. Cut my hair.

2. Colored my hair.

3. Bought Kat Von D Prayer lipstick- dark and dangerous :)

4. Wore my Vintage Floral Doc Marten's as much as possible this week.

5. Dressed like the grunge kid I used to be.

6. Painted my nails.

7. Went out in public in yoga pants and a hoodie, rocking my lipstick, daring someone to say something.

I have to be honest. I know I am not ugly. I know I am not obese. I know people find me attractive. But in the end, none of that matters because I don't look in the mirror all day long and see the positive things- like my kick ass lipstick. I live in my brain that tells me I am still a 205 pound fat girl with braces, sweet 16 and never even held hands with a boy.  My brain tells me I am not pretty: I am mushy, soft, I have big gums, I have ugly thoughts about people, I am a poser.  I appear to be normal, but inside I'm screaming.

What makes you feel good? What makes you feel confident? How do you get what you see in the mirror to match what your mind is telling you? How do I reprogram my mind at 40 years old?