vulnerability

For those that follow me on social media….which I’m assuming is most of you since I post this stuff there too. You may remember my “story” a few weeks back about me trying to take nude photos of myself in the hammock in my back yard, only to have our amazing UPS driver stop by, with a package and bone for my dog (as he does every-time) which then made my dog run to him, only to have me fumbling with my tripod, robe and flip-flops.
It was a great day for us all.

Ironically…..I didn’t like any of those photos *insert eye-roll.

If you missed that story, and I’m sure you’re sad now that you did, I was taking photos of myself to share the vulnerability with my clients that they share with me. These days, I have mainly been focusing on birth photos and therefore, I may only meet my clients in person (not over zoom) for the first time, when they are in labor. I can imagine that being extremely hard and uncomfortable for them, so I was trying to share myself in a vulnerable position (of sorts) with them……to even the playing field, if you will. But as a mom of two, my “vulnerable” state isn’t being nude, or having people see me nude. Granted, I don’t prance around my house naked or air-dry after the shower, but my kids walk in on my getting ready, while I’m cold plunging in our personal plunge (and yes, I totally do that naked), while I’m going to the bathroom, etc. After having kids, so much of your modesty is gone. If you had a hospital birth, you inevitably had a spotlight on your va-jay-jay at one point with several people in the room with you. If you had a homebirth, you may have been strutting around your home laboring while naked and then relaxing in your birthing pool or bed after having your baby.

So, I tried photos again yesterday (coincidentally enough, the UPS driver dropped off a package about 30 secs before I decided to strip down……we need to work on our timing…*another eyeroll). This time I had a different sort of vulnerability in mind. It’s about my body, but more so, how I’ve spent countless hours focusing on changing it and hating it. Trigger warning to anyone with eating issues, but let’s go!

12. The age I distinctly remember wanting to go on a “diet.”

(This is a picture of my husband and I. I was 13 at the time and we were in a musical together (and no….we weren’t dating.))

I remember perfectly, chatting with my sister (who I get along with fantastically now and she’s my best friend….), she was 15 and I was 12. Our neighbor was at our house and my sister, being the bitch she as at the time (Love you Woo!) said something like “wow Sarah, suck it in!” Now don’t think this was the catalyst to a lifetime of worry over my body…this was just one thing. What happened next was, me running to my room, crying. I was embarrassed that she said something in front of our neighbor and I knew I had a “tummy.” My sister then felt horrible and ended up having such a bad asthma attack that she was almost hospitalized…..I guess we’re even.

Being a child of the 80s and 90s, diets were all the rage. Diet soda, fat-free cookies, fat-free chips (you know, the ones that gave you diarrhea if you ate them), Nutri-system, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Lite this, low-calorie that. It was embedded in us. I saw Kelly Kapowski on Saved by the Bell and wanted her legs (even though Tiffani Amber Thiessen had her own dieting struggles in that role), Claire Danes in My so-called life was so easily waif-like and skinny. Don’t even get me started on 90210. Shannon Doherty was basically pegged as the “fat one” and she was just as tiny as her counterparts. There wasn’t a lot of body positivity from the likes of Lizzo coming through the radio….it was just the fat and funny friends on the sitcoms. So I kept my “tummy” covered and started doing my mom’s Jazzercise tapes in the basement. We also had this weird ab-roller thing that helped you do sit-ups without the strain on your neck. I was barely in fricken junior high and I was focused on doing my workouts when I wasn’t in basketball or tennis.

That’s me, upper left, next to the blondie (Hi Kassie!).

Um…..do I LOOK fat? Nope! Hindsight’s a mother-fucking bitch and would’ve saved me quite a bit of time (also….check out that tan!!…..I’m excited for summer).

I guarantee when I first saw that photo of my basketball team (I was 15 at the time, according to the time stamp), I was probably focused on how chunky my legs looked. I remember watching Titanic in the movie theater and thinking “wow, those people went through so much, they suffered so much….I can easily lose 10 lbs.” Yah….that’s what I thought after Titanic. Thanks Jack Dawson. I would stand with a certain book between my feet to see how far apart my thighs were or if they were touching. I weighed myself every morning….after peeing and naked, of course. I didn’t really understand what kind of calories my body needed, so I would gorge myself on “fat-free” food and wonder why that wouldn’t work to lose weight.

Finally, in high school, with a car and some money of my own, I figured it out. I started to eat those little packets of oatmeal for breakfast, I’d pack my own lunches and head to the Y after school for a couple of hours. I remember being so irritated when I couldn’t get to the Y quick enough because all of the elliptical machines were taken and those burned the most calories. They said there was a 30 min limit….but no one else was waiting….so what if I just went 60, or 70. Burn around 600-700 calories on that, then pop over to the treadmill for a bit. I didn’t start incorporating weights until junior year but this high cardio workout seemed to do the trick. I started losing some weight. Then I’d be very picky with what I ate at home and if I over did it? …..laxatives. How fucking disgusting.

I tried throwing up a few times, but I just couldn’t figure it out and I didn’t like it. So completely emptying my colon from everything I’ve eaten, seemed to be the next likely plan of action. It took a bit to time it right, and I couldn’t do it every day (what with school ‘n’ all) but I soon had a plan of taking a certain amount of pills and then roughly 6 hours later…..emptiness…..in the form of sitting on the toilet in the middle of the night or early morning hours.

Did you know that your body develops a tolerance to laxatives? I started with 2-3 pills and by the time I stopped taking them, I was swallowing 10-12 at a time.

It’s so weird to think of now. What I put my body through. The money I spent. And for what?

I graduated high school at 118 lbs. I’m 5’7” with some good child-bearing hips on me….so that was small. I had a flat stomach (or at least I did before the bloat kicked in after the diarrhea) and I felt “small.” I was also obsessed, tired, and had a schedule to keep. I needed to workout roughly 2 1/2 hours a day. I worked at the water park the summer between senior year and college, and those hours were long, so it was easy to not eat. I made a game with myself to see how early I could stop eating for the day. “Ok…so if my shift ends at 3 today, I could eat something when I get home, be done by 4pm, then not eat again until 8am?….That’s 16 hours, I can do that.” Then I tried 17 hours and 18. When you’re lifeguarding in the sun all day and not eating all that much….you get really fucking tired. I don’t recommend it.

My freshman year of college sucked. I had a scientology roommate (she was bat-shit crazy), I was so obsessed about when I was going to fit in working out and what I was eating, that I missed out on a lot of the fun dorm experiences. I only went to a handful of house parties, where I didn’t drink (empty calories) and declined invitations to go out to eat or hang out in other dorm rooms where the snacks would be plentiful. I was terrified of the “freshman 15.” Besides all of this wreaking havoc on my social life…..my physical health wasn’t the greatest. My period was all shades of fucked-up. Weird, I know. I went to the doctor and my hormone levels ended up being “pre-pubescent or post-menopausal.” Apparently that’s not great. So this 19 year old virgin was put on birth control pills to try and regulate those hormones.

Guess what happened? That freshman 15? More like freshman 30. Yup. Without even changing anything, I gained 30 pounds. My size 8 jeans that hung on me, I couldn’t zip, or barely get over my thighs. Those cute little tops, now looked like a sausage casing wrapped around me. My flat stomach? Poof! Looking back, those birth control pills did me a favor. After I gained weight (and cried a lot about it, and then my doctor put me on different pills), I decided, “well….if I’m going to be ‘fat’ I might as well eat again.” Mind you, I wasn’t fat, but I did start enjoying myself again. I went abroad 3 times in college. I was lucky enough to go to Italy for a few weeks one summer, France the next and then took a semester abroad in London. And OH MAN did I drink AND eat. It was glorious. So much bread and cheese. And alcohol. ALL the alcohol. There’s a good chance I slutted it up a bit while abroad (sorry mom) but hey, I was making up for lost time! I graduated college at 166 pounds and I wasn’t thrilled with my body, but I was ok with it.

I ended up moving to Chicago with my then boyfriend and gained another 18 pounds….so I was rocking 184 now.

Then I got a job at a corporate office where I was an administrative assistant and definitely the heaviest of the 4 administrative assistants.

After my then boyfriend and I broke up, I moved in with one of my coworkers (a super tiny, compact thing) and fell back into old habits. She was probably 5’2” and 100lbs dripping wet. Men looked at her and bought her drinks. I was the fat, funny friend. So my good ole pals, laxatives came back to play. This time though, with one bathroom in our 2 bedroom apartment, timing became more important. There was one morning, I timed my pills wrong and couldn’t go through with my ritual when she was going to need to shower soon. So I quickly threw on my clothes and said I was going to workout early today and RACED to the gym before I crapped my pants. That was a fun little eye-opener as to what not to do.

I ended up moving back to Point in 2008 and quickly started dating my now-hubs. We got a dog after moving in together and I lost about 15 pounds over a year and thought that 170 was a good place to be and that my body was just right there. Over the course of 2 1/2 more years, I walked our dog at least 4 miles a day, no matter the weather. I worked as a server for a fancy restaurant in town and was on my feet all the time. I ended up losing 20 pounds just by doing that. No laxatives, no restricting, no diets, just walking and working.

Through 2 pregnancies and 10 years, I basically maintained my weight around 150-155. I incorporated weights and circuit training to help with muscle tone and to be stronger. I look back at 2020 and think……”damn I looked good.” I have a picture I sent to my sister, of my new bikini, and at the time, I was judging my thighs, my hips, my not-toned stomach. “Should I wear this? Does it look ok?”……now I see that picture and I’m like…..”Holy shit! why didn’t I wear that daily??” Because guess what? I’m 41 now and hormones hit. Over the last 2 years, I’ve gained around 15 pounds. I’ve cried about it. Tried Optavia (don’t….just don’t), gotten back on Noom, counted calories, looked back at pictures longing for the 150s again. But you know what? I think I’m done now.

I think I’m done weighing myself every morning and having it control the mood of my day.

I think I’m done restricting and counting and having my brain be overrun with “what to eat or how to move” next.

I’m 41. I’ve spent roughly 30 years……30!…obsessing about food, my size, my rolls. Do you know what I could’ve gotten done in that period of time?? I could’ve written a novel, been a doctor, climbed Mt. Everest. I mean seriously….the brain space that was wasted……it’s ridiculous.

When I have shorts on, my kids like to “lovingly” jiggle my thighs. I’ve told them in the past that it makes me uncomfortable (because they usually do it while saying “jiggly jiggly”….little shits), but as of late, I’m like “yup, they jiggle and they can take your butts down and run 5 miles!” My arms aren’t as toned as they used to be, but I’ve been able to increase my weights when I’m lifting and I’m proud of that. 2 days ago, I ran 6.3 miles on the treadmill and didn’t die. Jon and I signed up for a half marathon in September. We’re headed to the St. Louis area next week to watch the eclipse and I’ve written down a bunch of awesome restaurants where I plan to EAT and not bring laxatives or worry about my jiggly thighs. When we get back, we’re starting our training program for the half and I’m going to work on my endurance and stamina and not deprive myself. I’m even going to buy some new leggings!

It’s 1:34pm now and the dog needs to be walked. I’ll walk him 2-4 miles because I enjoy it, not because I have to. Then later, I’ll go downstairs and do my weights, because it makes me feel good. I’m 41 and it’s taken far too long to get to this point and there will continue to be pitfalls and body-loathing and judging my cellulite, but that’s okay. I’m going to have my cake, and wine, and burger, and salads, and whiskey, and steamed vegetables and whatever the hell else I want……..in moderation ;)

So that’s me….being vulnerable. No UPS driver needed.