Dying to be thin

For the better part of my life, I have fought with my weight. I’ve always been taller, more curvy, better padded than most of the females throughout my entire life…and subsequently hated it. Since I was in elementary school, I was acutely aware that I was always “bigger” than everyone else and that it was something to be ashamed of. Even in high school, when I was quite fit playing volleyball, I was still wearing a size 10, compared to many of my friends who could fit into trendy clothing in sizes 2-6. 

These insecurities followed me to college, as I gained weight, crash dieted, gorged on pizza at 3am and went on juice cleanses all over again. I have always had an unhealthy relationship with food. I love good food. I’ll eat and eat, just because it is delicious, even if I am stuffed. In the years after college, I threw myself into my work and stopped dieting, gained weight and became more unhappy with my body. In 2013, I decided it had to stop and spent the subsequent year loosing 100 pounds, dropping to a healthy, muscular 180 pounds. And still…I wasn’t satisfied. I remember thinking…if I could just loose 10 more pounds, I’d have the body I wanted.

Soon after, I met John, fell in love and gained a bit of weight back, but stayed under 200 pounds until our wedding day. But it took a lot of work to stay there—6 days a week of working out hard and constantly counting calories and feelings of real guilt when I ate poorly. If I could just get back to 180 pounds, I would be happy.

The “fat girl” insecurities never go away. They follow you and haunt you no matter what you do.

So, what does this have to do with cancer? Why does this matter today when I have cancer—a bigger battle to fight?

It matters because the insecurities are still haunting me.

Today, I weigh 150 pounds—30 pounds less than my “perfect” weight. It’s the thinnest I’ve ever been as far as I can ever remember. Now, I look in the mirror and feel disgusted. I look terrible. I wear long dresses and skirts every day to disguise my thinnest from those who haven’t recently seen me so they aren’t as disgusted as I am with own image.

I have to try to consume as much as possible a day—3000 calories or more. It is nearly impossible for me to flip the switch in my brain from eating the least amount of calories to eating the most calorie rich foods I can think of.  I’ve traded protein shakes for muscle building to Ensure shakes to get me through days I can’t eat anything else. It is mentally exhausting to try to eat all day long when you feel like absolute dog shit 85% of most days. In addition, most every food I love no longer even sounds delicious to me—its like a form of torture, I swear.

This isn’t my dream body. This is a body ravaged with fighting nausea, fatigue, digestive issues for the past 4 months. My belly is distended and rounded from my enlarged liver. All the bones in my chest, ribs and back are visible. I have so little fat in my breasts that they look like deflated balloons and fill out no bra that I own. My arms have no muscle left and sag with loose skin. I finally got the popular “thigh gap” I’ve always envied, in the worst way possible. Everything I worked for in the gym for years is gone.

I’ve been dying to be thin my whole life and now, I got it. You can run from insecurities, but they’ll just morph and become a whole new beast in a different realm. Be careful what you wish for in life, I guess.