Daily Wahnsinn

Following my earlier breakdown, I’ve decided that I need to change something. Clearly, my obsession with the scale, food and exercise is not healthy and it’s doing more harm than good. My happiness for the day should not be controlled by what a stupid number says. Thoughts of purging, having to fast and reduce the amount of food I eat should not come to mind only because three digits are not what I want them to be. Thoughts of having to punish myself for not doing well enough have no place in my mind because they are neither healthy nor will they get me anywhere. I need to learn again how to listen to my body, to love it and accept it unconditionally and always – even on days when I don’t feel great. I’m aware that what I have can be considered disordered eating and I need to stop it before it becomes an eating disorder.

I had a chat with a co-worker earlier today and I’ve received lots of wonderful advice here on Tumblr as well as from my friends on Twitter.

Who knows. It might just be water weight. It might be muscle. It might be fat. I don’t know and I need to stop obsessing over it. It might be more undigested food in my stomach than usual. It might be a combination of some/all of these. I’m not doing myself a favor. Far from it.

So I’ve decided that I need to take care of myself more. I am doing well by eating healthy and by exercising. But I also need to make sure I don’t just treat my body healthily, but also my mind. I can’t go crazy over this. Starting tonight, I’m taking more care of myself. There’s no need to wait until next month. I’m starting now. I’ll be taking the following measures:

• No scale until 2/28. That’s five weeks from now. I’ll take measurements this weekend because I haven’t done that in forever, but I will not step on a scale until 2/28. (I’m pretty sure Weight Watchers lets you attend meetings if you don’t weigh in. Right?)
• The mani/pedi outing tonight that I was going to skip? I’m making myself go. Letting myself get pampered.
• I’ll go through the list of Tumblrs I follow and I’ll be cutting down on the number of blogs I follow as well as the kinds of blogs I follow. I don’t see any thinspo on my dash, but I don’t think looking at fitspo is very healthy for me right now either. I don’t think that seeing pictures of super-toned women in short shorts and sports bras is good for me right now. I’ll be looking more at healthy cooking, vegan/vegetarian, travel, environmental and running blogs. Or anything animals and tea. I’ll still be updating this Tumblr about my exercise, my health, my eating and general whereabouts, but overall, I’ll try and cut back my Tumblring time.
• I’m seeing a doctor on Thursday. So, here’s a TMI and probably pretty shocking thing that I’ve kept mostly to myself for a pretty long time. I’ve not had my period in almost 9 months. I think the last period I had was in April or May of 2011. I wasn’t really concerned about it because, well, I’m just not the kind of girl who misses, uh, bleeding and cramping. When it first stopped, it was just gone. A couple of cycles ago I started having PMS symptoms again (bad skin, mood swings, being emotional, water retention/bloating), but no actual period. While I am not dying to have my period back, I do understand that it’s a natural function of the female body and that the fact that I’ve not had it in a long time means that there is something wrong with my body. I hate going to the doctor, especially the gynecologist, but taking care of myself means making sure my whole body is in balance. So on Thursday, I’m seeing a doctor.  

Operation Taking Care of Myself starts now.