Weight Anxiety

If only it was this easy...

Society deems it a sickness, an ugliness that the body must carry. There are many cures, of course, in the forms of diets, pills and all other sorts of things. That evil, of course, is body fat. Americans might be becoming fatter, but there is a greater stigma against fat than ever before. That includes me. An increase in pounds and the fat on my body terrifies me and I want it gone. Fat is just bad and disgusting in ways I can't explain; I've developed such a revulsion to it that it literally makes me sick to think about it. Lately, I've been finding myself thinking in random moments about how I can shrink the number on the scale  and how much I need to exercise. A number on a scale does not define me. It does not make me a better person, and it does not serve me in life. And yet... Somehow it matters to me. Somehow it's enough to ruin my day and stick in my mind.

I know that my weight anxiety stems from my social anxiety and my tendency to exacerbate things in general. It's the one anxiety that I can't seem to erase from my mind, the one thing that I can't rationalize. If I gain enough wait, then I'll be fat and if I'm fat, then I'll be ugly. Of course, if I'm logical, my looks shouldn't hold such a hold over me. And yet... My insecurity over my looks is one thing that doesn't necessarily have to be logical, but it's there nonetheless. It may not be logical, but it is emotional. Instinctive, somehow. I might try to root it out all day long, yet it wouldn't work. It's almost like it's something that's been deeply entrenched in me since I was a young girl.

In many ways, it's the most irritating thing in the world. The idea creeps up in the worst moments and it ruins good things. Right now, I'm terrified to go to camp because of the exercising arrangements there- the gym and the pool are both off-limits. I'm envisioning all of the pounds I'll gain there. My terrified mind has even come up with a solution for this- running up and down the stairs during free time. Today in gym class, we went swimming (the seniors wanted to go in the pool one last time and my teacher acquiesced to this). My teachers wasn't forcing us to do anything, but just wanted us to have fun? So what did I do? Worrying about having to go down the shore house tonight, I actually spent that time doing laps and even did extra because I was frantic about the doughnut I ate earlier in the day.

In a lot of ways, it's also crippling emotionally. I'm left in constant fear all of the time. Every day, I have to worry about how much I eat and how it will affect me. Every day, I have to worry about my exercising habits for that week. It's exhausting. In addition, I also feel bad about myself whenever I feel like I'm not doing enough.

Despite this, I have no willpower when it comes to food. I resist for a little bit when I see desserts, but I eventually give in. When I do, I eat like a madwoman. I yell at myself the entire time I'm doing it, but that  never stops me. When I'm done, I only think about how stupid what I just did was and how I'm going to have to exercise it off later. It's a sick cycle of resist, eat, exercise for me, and it never seems to stop for me. Just never.

I do feel a lot better about myself than I did before I started to exercise. That's something. At least, now I'm in power about these kinds of things. I feel like I'm closer to beauty and that I'm not exactly fat anymore. At the same time, I'm still incredibly worried that I'll gain even the slightest bit and send me right back where I started.

Also, I'll have more time to lose weight in the summer, especially now that my mom has so kindly bought a gym membership. That might help a lot, especially since it has a swimming pool (and I actually found out today that I like swimming).

Usually, I try to end my blog posts on a hopeful note. I don't know if things will ever change here. Hopefully, I'll remain less paranoid. Until then, I guess I'll have to retreat to the treadmill.