I just got home about a half hour ago from a roughly 3 mile run at the gym. It felt great, and I feel strong, but I didn't start my day feeling that way. I weigh myself every day and track in a spreadsheet, but I take my "official" weight on Fridays, which gets logged in my fitness trackers. I had been on the 187 plateau for weeks and was feeling super discouraged, so when I got down to 184 last night I was excited to finally be making downward progress. Then I weighed myself this morning: 185.5. There is nothing like gaining a pound from the previous night and only losing a pound in a week to demoralize you, especially when early in the weight loss efforts 2-3 pounds a week was the norm. I go to the gym, I run, I do resistance training. I eat a vegan diet. It was so disheartening and frustrating that it triggered some massive self image issues with me today. I felt fat, I felt unattractive, and every time I went to the bathroom, I made myself look in the full-length mirror so that I could see that I wasn't fat, and there had been no real change in my body overnight, and I had to remind myself that today is supposed to be the first day of my period (supposed to) and I always retain or gain weight around days one and two. After coming home from work and eating chips because I was feeling self-destructive, I thought I can just do 1100 calories today it's fine. But that line of thinking is dangerous and even I, who preaches to people that food is fuel, that there is no such thing as bad food or good food, can fall into disordered thinking about food from time to time. I am not anorexic, bulimic, or orthoexic (I do log all of my food and count calories, but I eat what I want) and if you are, please seek help. Thankfully, I am self-aware enough to recognize my patterns of destructive thinking and made myself go cook a delicious, healthy dinner, and then I immediately went to the gym.
My body is strong. I felt powerful while running. But I also need to realize that while exercise helps my mental health, I still live with bipolar disorder, and intrusive thoughts, depression, and mania in their many incarnations are always going to be with me, and I need to pay special attention to my moods when I make the decisions I do when it comes to weight loss. I almost didn't go to the gym tonight because I felt so bad about myself, I was going to take a rest day, be "gentle" with myself, and lay on the couch. Instead, after eating my nutritious, tasty dinner, I snapped out of it, realized I was walking the path of self-sabotage and self-loathing, and got my workout clothes on and went.
I've had self-image issues since puberty. I'd always been overweight, had acne, and didn't feel attractive. I was a late bloomer with relationships so it took my first serious relationship at 27 and being told that I was beautiful and desirable to actually believe it. But even with that confidence, self-loathing and negative body image still lurk, and when my mood dips, or I don't feel great, or I don't see the result I want to see on the scale, they come to the fore and I go back to feeling like shit about my body again. Just like with my manic or depressive episodes, I need to be self-aware of these times and overcome them. These are feelings that will always be with me, and I accept that, but it is in my power to overcome them when they rise to the surface.
Humans are the animal kingdom's best endurance runners, and I aim to live up to that. Negative body image be damned.
