Being a female, and growing up in America, I can't help but think about my body image. I have been raised in a society that thinks being skinny is being beautiful. I' m bombarded with images making me believe thin is in. I have fallen victim to the media and their unrealistic photo- shopped models and bony celebrities. A force that is greater than myself has made me question if I should have had that last slice of pizza.
I am currently at a healthy body weight but I would be lying if I claimed to be happy about it everyday*. Some days I want to be smaller. There are days when I obsess over everything I eat, the weight on my scale, how I feel I need my body to be in order to be beautiful. It's completely ludicrous, actually. My BMI (Body Mass Index) is 19.4, 0.9 away from being underweight (!!!) for my height, and some days I still want to be less.
I want to be less to feel like more.. It's a sad struggle but to deny that I don't deal with it would enable me from writing about what helped me overcome dealing w/"food noise" (mostly**).
As mentioned in other posts, I am a reality TV junkie and my absolute fave is Ms. Bethenny Frankel. Some of you might know she wrote a book called Naturally Thin, which has helped me deal with my, what she describes, "food noise." (Some of you also might make fun of me for buying and reading a diet book written by my favorite reality show star but I.don't.care.) Bethenny says food noise is what "...yells in your ear all day long, making you fell bad- or good, if you lost a few pounds, as if a two-pound water-weight loss makes you a better person" (Frankel, 2009, p. 24). She goes on to describe the difference between your food noise and your food voice. Your food noise allows you to binge on an entire box of cookies (it is Girl Scout cookie season, ya feel me?) because you had one cookie, so your whole day of healthy eating and food restriction is shot anyway. Your food voice tells you when you're really hungry and when you really just want a damn cookie and that it's okay to have whatever you want in moderation.
Bethenny has more helpful guidelines in her book, like Your Diet Is a Bank Account and You Can Have It All, Just Not All at Once. Dealing with my food noise was struggle but after reading her book in it's entirety, my food noise grew weaker and my food voice stronger. I don't let food stress me out anymore. It's not worth it. On an average day 90% of my food choices are good ones and that's good enough. I'm at a healthy weight and, despite having some days where my food noise is extra amped for whatever reason, I'm happy.
Stay tuned.. -a.
*IMPORTANT note: I am happy MOST days..
**Since I am a human being, and therefore not perfect, I still have my "some days" when I drank too much the night before or ate the entire burrito because the perfect combination of meat, beans, rice, guac, salsa, and sour cream, all wrapped up in a warm whole wheat tortilla was too delicious to ever stop
Frankel, B. (2009). Naturally thin. New York, NY: Fireside.
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