Calling myself out on something

I'm calling myself out on something - this is never pleasant. This may take multiple posts.

First of all - I went to the gym tonight - an actual gym, not the gym in my condo. I went with a colleague who belongs to the gym across the street from our office to take a spin class. Yes folks, this dabbling in exercise is taking me way outside of my comfort zone. I am trying to decide whether to join this gym - would I go, would I take classes, does it fit with my work schedule? The stationary bike seat - it's not comfortable. Maybe you need some padding on your behind (which I don't have). My butt is not happy with me. So one hour later, lots of sweat later, a bottle of water later - I actually survived and felt pretty good. I had been scared going into it. We are talking a lot of sweat - like dripping down your back - if you have any makeup up on (which of course I did) it's gone in 10 minutes kind of sweat. I am happy to report that all that sweat later - my eye shadow was still completely on (priorities folks - if you are going to embarrass yourself - you might as well look pretty doing it I suppose).

Unfortunately, the spin classes are all at 6 - which is really too early for me generally speaking. Plus, am I really a gym person? An expensive gym person? Am I a $111 a month (that's with my discount through my employer) type gym person? I suspect probably not, but I am going to use another guest pass to take another spin class next week while I try to figure it out.

This is where I'm calling myself out. There we were in a room of 40 people, mostly women, cycling away. Everyone appeared to be in great shape and looked really great - everyone looked fit and healthy. Then there was me thinking - my gosh - these people all look great and I'm smaller than all of them - what kind of messed up body image am I operating under? When I look at myself - I see someone who could stand to lose 5-6 pounds - I feel disgusted when I look at myself. I feel gross and I feel like I look terrible. I don't see what other people see when I look at myself and it doesn't matter what I know to be true - my body image is really far out of line. For some reason - tonight - I saw just how skewed it actually is.

Lately I've been exercising - to be healthy, and to try to fight depression and alleviate stress/anxiety - but I would be lying if I didn't admit that I am also trying to lose 5 pounds. Now granted every time I've wanted to lose weight - I go about it in a healthy way - but this is where I'm calling myself out. I'm 5 foot 9 and 133 pounds. I feel most comfortable with myself when I weigh 128 - I want to weigh 128. Why? Do I have to admit this? Because there is some part of me that thinks I need to weigh less to find a guy. I've always been thin - good genes - I've always had super fast metabolism. Up until I was 19 - I only weighed 115 pounds at 5 foot 9 (that's actually really gross) - and trust me, I wasn't anorexic or anything like that - just fast metabolism. I eat more food than most women I know - even now. I would even be embarrassed to admit what I've eaten today - that's how much food I eat. And I just stay the same - 128 to 133, even without exercising - it just fluctuates a bit depending on a few things.

I don't need to lose 5 pounds.

There is more to this calling myself out and it does have to do with food and what is and isn't normal when it comes to your relationship with food - next post maybe.

Mostly though - I'm just calling myself out on this because I am sick and tired of feeling uncomfortable with my body - I just want to like my body and like myself - I want to see it realistically - I want to perceive myself accurately - I want to have confidence no matter what. I'm tired of wishing I looked different - of wishing I were shorter, thinner, that my feet were smaller, that I had better hair - I'm tired of it. I just want to like myself - right now, this second - without changing anything. That person - that felt those things - that didn't like herself - that did things for wrong reasons and made bad choices out of fear and low self-esteem - I can't stand to be that person for another day. I want to love myself and accept myself, and I never have before.

Edited to add: In my defense - naturally I feel the need to defend myself since I know how crazy this all sounds - that's why I don't talk about it - because it sounds ridiculous for me to talk about body image issues - but this is a real problem for a lot of people, no matter what size you are. Anyway, in my defense - the reason I feel most comfortable with myself at a lower weight - is because I don't gain weight evenly. I gain it in one spot - the middle - my waist. Plus, I have extremely long legs and a very short torso - so there isn't much room there. People always say, you could gain 20 pounds and no one would know. And that's true - if I gained it all over - but I don't. 5-10 pounds on my short little waist is noticeable and for me to be proportionately thin - I have to weigh on the very low side of normal. My body has always been that way - my body is like my mother's that way. Now - why I am so obsessed with this is really the issue, and I do know how crazy it all sounds - I'm just saying - these things are real issues for me that I don't talk about and that I feel like I can't talk about because people don't understand why I could ever have an issue with it. I'll explain in the next post about food.