TW/CW: Eating Disorders, Body Dysmorphia
Last week, I was talking with my therapist about body image issues and telling her how often I thought about food. I was explaining the guilt wrapped up in food for me, the feelings of shame associated with mealtime, the endless cycle of thoughts racing through my head at the grocery store.
“What would your life be like if you let all that go?” she asked me, once I had paused to take a breath. It was a good question. What would my life be like if I spent the time I spend thinking about food on literally anything else?
“I would have so much more mental energy,” I told her. I would have time to sit down and write in my free time. I would be able to spend more time being creative and having fun. I would be able to enjoy a nice meal out with my friends without beating myself up at what I ordered, or go to a party without kicking myself for the snacks I ate.
I absolutely love to cook. I love the process of experimenting, putting a lot of love into what I’m making, and creating something wonderful. However, I don’t indulge this love as often as I’d like, because I end up feeling poorly about myself after I eat whatever it is I’ve made. If I let go of this guilt, I would be able to enjoy this love of mine so much more fully and joyfully.
The body positivity movement has been difficult for me to embrace, not because of the way I view the bodies of others, but because of the way I view my own body in particular. I scroll through pictures of women of all shapes and sizes and think, she’s gorgeous. But even if that woman is my exact body type, I think that I somehow look terrible while she looks incredible.
I don’t think gaining weight is a bad thing, nor do I think losing it is a bad thing. I think our bodies go through so much during our lives. They’re with us through everything that we endure. They carry our trauma, our scars, and our history. They grow and they change, they gain and lose muscle, they stretch and bend and break. Weight fluctuation is just a natural part of existing in a body. I very genuinely believe these things to be true of the bodies of other people. So why am I so hard on my own?
Hiking has put me in touch with my body in a way that I haven’t felt before. I enjoy pushing myself to a clear goal, and my body is really the only thing required to get me to the top of a mountain. I’ve begun to appreciate what my body can do for me rather than what it looks like. It’s also helped me to look at food as fuel, rather than labeling what I’m eating as “good” or “bad.”
Climbing a mountain isn’t a replacement for therapy, of course, and I’m really lucky to have a therapist who understands the specific needs I have in regards to food and body image. But hiking has helped me contextualize the concept of body neutrality, and not assigning judgement to the way my body changes through different phases of my life.
My body is the home for all that I am, but it is not all that I am. I am funny, and resilient, and smart. I’m a personality and a mind and a soul, and I care for my body because it houses all of these pieces of me. It’s nothing more than a home, and it’s also nothing less than one. I’m working on treating it as such.
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