From Self-Destruction to Self-Improvement

“You have perfect child-bearing hips.”

That’s what a guy friend told me when I was a high school freshman. He meant it as a compliment. I took it as criticism. That comment fed my already-warped body image and became, “You’re not good enough.” I’ve carried that in my saddlebags since I was 13 years old.

I’ve always been insecure about my body. When I was young I was so skinny that everyone thought I was anorexic. Concerned adults wanted to make sure that I was eating enough. Jealous girls wanted to know how I did it. I probably weighted about 80 to 85 pounds until I hit puberty. I was on the swim team and I was so skinny that I looked like a skeleton in a swim suit.

And when I hit puberty—at the tragically young age of 11—I wished people would start asking me if I was anorexic again. I reached my full height—a whopping 4′ 11″, and where there used to be nothing but skin and bones, my hips and thighs blossomed almost overnight. And I grew an ass that J Lo would have been proud of. But at that height I felt like I was as wide as I was tall.

I was absolutely mortified because I got my first period when I was staying at a friend’s beach house over the summer. I had to tell her mom, who had to help me with my first maxi pad. Which is what every shy teenager wants to do, right? When we returned from our trip, my friend didn’t speak to me the entire school year, which was a real skill, considering the fact that I went to school with roughly the same 40 kids from first through eight grades.

I was the first one in my class to “fill out.” I went to a Catholic school and our uniform consisted of wool herringbone skirts and white blouses. When I returned to school after the summer everyone could see that I was wearing a bra under my blouse instead of the T-shirts the rest of the girls wore. I started to wear my sweater every day, and bike shorts under my skirt were a staple because the boys in my class were obsessed with flipping my skirt.

The worst part was I went through such a rapid growth spurt that I developed angry reddish-purple stretch marks on my boobs, butt and the inside of my thighs. I was too embarrassed to ask my mom what they were and how to get rid of them, and since this was all pre-Google or Wikipedia, I had no idea what to do about them. It was years before I’d wear shorts again. And a bathing suit? Nuh-uh.

I’ve done battle with my body ever since. My weight has yo-yo’d up and down over the years. At my heaviest I was probably 120 pounds (on my short frame it was the equivalent of 100 pounds to me) and at my lowest about 90 pounds. I went to the gym for the first time when I was 16. My parents paid for my membership and a few sessions with a trainer so I could learn the proper way to work out. I loved it. But working out became another way I’d abuse my body over the years.

At some point during my sophomore year of high school I became totally addicted to Dexatrim diet pills, which until a few years ago contained Ephedra, something a kid with a heart murmur had no business being on. At. All. I remember sitting in class one day, breaking out into a cold sweat, unable to stop shaking. My heart was beating so hard I thought I was going to have a heart attack. And I started to hyperventilate.  It didn’t help that I probably hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the day before.

That incident scared the shit out of me and I managed to wean myself off of the diet pills. At least for a few years. But through high school, I fasted, experimented with crash diets, restricted calories, cut out entire food groups and even flirted with bulimia. Meanwhile I worked out obsessively, lifting weights and running on the treadmill for a couple of hours. I had no idea then how dangerous all of that was. But it didn’t matter that I was unhappy and felt like shit; it mattered that I looked good.

All of that fucked up my metabolism and ultimately failed to help me lose weight. I alternately looked bloated and puffy or totally tired and gaunt. I’m sure my parents noticed but my dad had just lost about 50 pounds (in a more healthy way) to lower his blood pressure, and my mom had her own weight issues to contend with.

In college things weren’t much better because I moved from Northern California to Southern California. As much as I love living in Los Angeles, this place continued to warp my body image. Here the message is that the female body needs to be perfect. We’re surrounded with unrealistic images of what beauty is and should be. This city is populated with an unnaturally high percentage of women with “perfect” bodies, perfect hair, blinding white teeth. It doesn’t matter that it’s all an illusion because it looks real enough. I am short, curvy and on a good day, more “cute” than sexy or sultry.  So as an insecure 20-something I worked double-time to stay skinny.

In my 30′s I worked at a fitness magazine so I know better than anyone that a little airbrushing and good lighting and maybe a nip here and a tuck there creates the look I craved. But I still messed around with Ephedra pills, extremely high-protein diets, and extreme workouts.

But one night a few years ago during a boxing workout, my relationship with my body profoundly changed.

After doing combinations on the heavy bag for 30 minutes I was red-faced and sweaty from head to toe. My workout bra was even soaking wet. I glanced at the mirror and started to grimace because I looked so disgusting, but I stopped myself when I saw how strong my arms looked. For the first time in my life I appreciated my body for its strength and power. I finally realized how distorted my body image is.

I’m trying to stop being so critical and so mean to my body. I still scrutinize myself in the mirror but I’m not pre-occupied with my weight 24/7. I don’t obsess about everything I put in my mouth anymore. I don’t really diet—if I notice that my clothes are fitting tighter I’ll cut out the crap I’ve been eating and return to healthier foods until I feel comfortable again. I’ve been a little lazy lately and haven’t worked out in a while, but I think I needed to break because it was starting to feel like a job or a chore.

I’m slowly starting to come to terms with the idea that my goal is to feel good, be healthy. I clearly still have a way to go because today I shoved a fistful of caramels in my face for no other reason than they were there, but instead of chasing them with a fistful of chocolate-covered raisins, I drank a bottle of water.

I’m a Facebook friend with the guy who told me I had perfect child-bearing hips, and I asked him if he remembered saying that to me. He did and was so upset that the comment messed up because it really was meant as a compliment.

I could make some profound statement about being kind to your body, blah, blah, blah, but the reality is the next time I pull on some jeans that are too tight, I’m probably going to have a meltdown so someone remind me of this post, M’kay?

(PS: I only started to wear shorts again this summer.)