21 Day Fix Advice

My journey to build healthy habits took me a long time. Before I found what worked for me, I bounced between various diets and exercise programs and struggled with disordered eating habits. By the time I found the program that would ultimately work best for me, I had such an unhealthy mindset that I almost couldn't do it. I could tell that this was a healthy way to live, but it was so difficult to deprogram myself! It was so frustrating because I had the tools and I felt too overwhelmed to use them. 

I've talked to many of you who have at some point felt the same way. So here is some advice that I wish someone had given me before I started my journey towards a healthier lifestyle. 

It doesn't matter what program you're using because this applies to all of them. I personally use with the portion control container system for nutrition, 30 minute at-home workouts, superfood shakes daily, and accountability groups for support and motivation, and I wrote this blog with this plan in mind, but if you're doing something different this advice will help you too, I promise. 

One.

You don’t have to change everything at once. This plan, although it's simpler than any eating plan I’ve ever tried, has a learning curve. You don’t absorb all the information and apply it to your daily life immediately, as is true with most things.

I’m an English teacher, so I’m going to use the analogy of vocabulary instruction. If my goal were for my students to know and use 50 new vocabulary words – really understand them on a deep level, not just memorize them to regurgitate them on a test – I wouldn’t teach all 50 on Monday and expect a 100% success rate by Tuesday. I might give out the whole list on Monday, but I’d explicitly teach 10 words one week, and 10 words the next week. Then we’d review all the words taught so far, clear up any confusions, and so on.

The same is true for this nutrition and fitness plan. If you can adopt 100% of it immediately, then by all means go ahead, but that’s not where I was at when I started. Try your best of course, but if you don’t really get into the groove of meal planning until week 2, don’t worry about it! It’s a journey, and if you stress yourself out about not following everything perfectly every second, it won’t be a very fun one!

Two.

Be active in your challenge group. Challenge groups are what set this program apart from fad diets, so utilize them! Use them to hold yourself accountable! Post about working out, making a great meal, saying no to a donut, the moment you bite into a guilt-free treat, or the day you realize push-ups are getting easier.

Post about your struggles! My breakthrough was a moment in my second round when I ate a piece of pizza for lunch. I could feel the “Well, I ate one bad thing, the whole day is a failure, I might as well continue eating crap and start again tomorrow,” mindset washing over me. Then I went into my challenge group and posted about what happened, asking for support. No one judged me, and at least 6 people responded with helpful comments that enabled me to turn my day around.

So POST, comment on other people’s posts, and like things! It doesn’t have to be in real time, but set aside some time each day to login and be active! It will help you stay on track, it will help you build relationships with your team, and those relationships will, in turn, help keep you on track.

Three.

Listen to your body when you exercise. If it hurts in a way that feels bad, take a break. When in doubt, modify an exercise. I learned this the hard way when I was sidelined by a knee injury. You know what’s worse than missing a workout, or ending a workout early, or modifying it even more than the modifier person in the videos? Missing an entire week (or more!) because you injured yourself. Resist the urge to power through all pain all the time. Focus on your long term goals. One workout will not make or break your progress. It’s the consistency that counts.

Four.

Remember that consistency is key. One cheat meal won’t ruin your progress. The flip side of that, however, is that one healthy meal also won’t make you lose 10 pounds. Every day consists of hundreds of tiny decisions you make, and the ratio of healthy decisions to unhealthy ones over time drives your success.

This was my biggest hurdle at the beginning of my 21 Day Fix journey. It took months to deprogram the part of my brain that jumped to “Well, I messed up, there goes my whole day, bring on the Cheez-its.” MONTHS. Yesterday I forgot my food at home and ended up eating 2 pieces of gross pizza (fine, it was 3). I stopped there. I drank tons of water. I did not slide into a binge, AND IT FELT LIKE A MIRACLE. A miracle I worked really hard to accomplish. …so a goal.

I’ve found it helps to think of it as a ratio of healthy to unhealthy choices. I aim for 80/20 healthy/splurge. Some days it’s more like 70/30. Some days it’s closer to 30/70. Thinking about this mathematically helps me immensely, because if 300 tiny choices make up my day, then 1 or 2 unhealthy ones barely leave a footprint in an otherwise successful day. Returning to the numbers helps me remind myself that even if I eat 70% unhealthy food one day, that 30% counts for something! 

Five.

Plan your cheats. Not everyone has them, but if you do plan to splurge a bit here and there (and Autumn herself says she aims for 90% on plan, 10% splurge so don’t feel guilty if you do), plan it in advance. Look at your calendar. What events are coming up? If your friend is getting married, or it’s Thanksgiving, or your friends are in from out of town and want to cook you a traditional pasta dinner, maybe you want to splurge. Eliminate the impulsivity of the decision. I try to, without exception, only splurge when I plan it ahead of time. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it gets easier. If you know that you’re going to be eating a piece of cake from your favorite bakery after Shabbat dinner on Friday night, then you’re more likely to say no to the candy bowl at work.

Six.

FALL IN LOVE WITH DATA. Numbers matter, but you need to open your mind to numbers beyond the scale and the tape measure. Some weeks you won’t lose an ounce or an inch, and that’s extremely frustrating. It helps to broaden the numbers you’re measuring. During stretches when I’m not seeing the scale or tape measure numbers budge, I focus on other numbers. Last week, for instance, I noticed the following:

-I’m not asking, “Do I look OK in this?” nearly as much. It used to be constant, and multiple times a night. Now it’s once a day if that.

-I saved roughly $20 by making recipes that used at least 1 ingredient I already had, which means I can now spend that money on something else… like boots! Just kidding. I already spent it on jewelry.

-I worked out 1 more time than the week before.

-I’ve decreased the amount of time I spend thinking negative thoughts on a daily basis. I am also able to snap out of it when I do get super negative. I’ve still got a long way to go, but 10 minutes feeling uncomfortable in my own skin trumps 2 hours any day!

Force yourself to think about and celebrate those non-scale victories (NSVs as we tend to call them). This is about more than the number on the scale. That's an important part of it, but it's so much more, and when you fixate on one part of this journey, you are missing out on SO MUCH. Don't do that to yourself. And if you start to, reach out to your team! Tell them you're feeling frustrated. Remember that we're all in this together, and that's why we're going to succeed. 

PS: I run monthly accountability groups (aka challenge groups, they go by many names) to help people on their own health journeys! If you are interested, or want more information, get in touch! leahnopants@gmail.com 

Be proud of where you're at RIGHT NOW.

This is not a before pic. This is not an after pick. This is a “I’m feeling strong, confident, and happy in my own skin so I’m going to show you what USED TO BE my least favorite part of my body because I’m a BADASS” pic.


Now, my stomach is my favorite part of my body, even though it’s still the least toned. You want to know why? Because my stomach shows that I’m still kicking. I’ve been through some terrible times personally and professionally. I’ve spent whole years starving myself and existing on diet pills and diet soda. I’ve binged, and purged, and compulsively exercised all because I didn’t feel good in my own body. And I’m still here. I’m still kicking. I’m still getting stronger, physically and emotionally, than I’ve ever been before, especially when I was 30 pounds lighter. My stretch marks, my cellulite, my lovehandles? They are battle scars from a time when I wasn’t taking care of my body, so my body took care of itself. I wear this body - every inch and pound of it - with pride.


Every time I start to hate on my body (and it happens, because this is a loooong-term process) I remind myself that I’m doing all the right things. I’m improving my balance, strength, flexibility, energy and mindset by eating right 80% of the time, exercising consistently, and surrounding myself with like-minded people who hold me accountable and help push me to be a better version of myself every day than I was the day before.


So while I’m sure in a few months I’ll post another pic, and I’m sure in it my body will be significantly more toned, I don’t think it’ll mean as much to me as this one.


So please please please please PLEASE be proud of your now. Appreciate where you are in this exact moment in time. I don’t care if you were thinner 2 years ago or you’re going to be 10 pounds lighter by May, BE PROUD OF YOUR NOW.


You know what? SHOW ME. Post a pic below. Show me your favorite part of your body, your least favorite part of your body, or anything else. Show me your muscles, or your scars, or your lovehandles, I don’t care show me something!


If you want to do it but aren’t sure where to start, show me calves because I am a total calf person and I LOVE looking at them and appreciating them.


If you want to post a pic but you don’t feel comfortable, get in touch. I can help you get there.


*Also, don’t mind the background of these pictures. I took them in my landlord’s place because our apartment is too teeny to fit a full-length mirror. To her credit, when I knocked and said, “Can I take a photo of my stomach in your mirror?” she asked no questions at all.

This one goes out to my team

This one goes out to my team. Usually, this is the time of year when as the days get shorter, I get depressed. I am NOT a winter person.

Today, I was feeling that almost-winter malaise, but then I went on Facebook, clicked on my health and fitness accountability group, and 20 minutes later I was doing single-leg squat jumps while my cat judged me from a corner.

You all inspire me so much! You are all wonderful and I appreciate your honesty, your work ethic, your creativity, and your enthusiasm, especially today when I really needed it.

Some of you I've never met, and some of you I've known for years, but we are connected in our common goal of getting stronger, healthier, and happier. You are the team I haven't had since high school and college that I've missed so much as an adult.

LOVE YOU GUYS!

PS: In case you're wondering what team--> I'm running an ongoing Healthy and Fit Through the Holidays Accountability group online! If you are interested, or want more info, shoot me an email at leahnopants@gmail.com I run these accountability groups regularly so if you're stumbling upon this page at some later point in time, don't hesitate to get in touch!

 

Yesterday I ate a pint of Ben&Jerry’s ice cream.

It’s exactly as bad as you think. There is no reasoning that could explain it. There are no extenuating circumstances to validate it.

It wasn’t impulsive. I thought about it, and decided to do it. I walked to Tedeschi and bought it. Then I ate some of it. Then I ate most of the rest of it.

I was stone cold sober.

I am a Beachbody coach. I help others build healthy fitness and nutrition habits. This is my job. I run accountability groups structured around giving people the support they need to accomplish these goals. Yet I ate Ben&Jerry’s last night.

It wasn’t part of my plan. I didn’t work hard on my fitness and nutrition all week so I could earn this. I worked hard all week to earn some splurges on Thanksgiving dinner. I enjoyed them thoroughly, got right back on track, and then for some reason, 2 days later, I went off-track.

I tell you this because I want you to know that it’s okay if you’ve done this too. You’re not alone. We have so much working against us. So many industries (unhealthy food, quick-fix weight loss) want our money and are willing to do anything to get it. There are so many people, and so many companies ready to shame us so that we’ll give them our money.

The only way we can fight it is to talk about it. The only way we can try to build healthier fitness, nutrition and mindset habits is to own every piece of it, and help each other through it. Which is why I’m telling you all about this.

So wherever you are on this journey to a healthier lifestyle, I beg you… Please talk about it. Whether you’re happily on your way to a healthier you, barely hanging in there, or somewhere in between, talk about it. 

I didn’t get into this business so I could run accountability groups full of people who did everything perfectly the first time, all the time, right away.

So how are you?

Really?

Transformation Tuesday #1

Before, you'd either find me exercising for 2+ hours a night at the gym or sitting on the couch. I was very much an all-or-nothing exerciser. For stretches of time I'd be toned and in pretty good shape, but when things got stressful, I'd lose strength, muscle tone, and endurance.

Now I work out 6 days a week in my living room using weights and resistance bands aka my new love. I work out for half an hour some days, and an hour on others.

Sometimes I go to the gym down the street, but most days I'm content to work out in my home gym. No commute. No waiting for machines. If I decide to work out, 3 minutes later I'm working out. No excuses.

This is the smallest house I've ever lived in, and it's packed to the brim with books from my classroom last year (as you can see in the photo) but you know what I realized? I don't need a lot of space. I don't need a lot of equipment. I just need weights, a resistance band, and an amazing team of accountability partners cheering me on.

Oh, and a good sportsbra of course. Let's be real.

How I'm avoiding the unhealthy spiral of the holiday season!

No one needs to be on a diet during the holiday season. Whether you want to lose 0 pounds or 200 pounds, you don’t need to count calories, cut out entire food groups, or miss out on social events with your friends and family. You can even LOSE weight, if that’s what you want.


What you DO need is a plan, because without a plan, the unhealthy spiral begins.

For me, it starts with Thanksgiving.

• The dinner stretches late into the night because I go back for seconds (okay fine thirds).
• I have leftovers for breakfast on Friday.
• Everyone is in town for the holiday, so we inevitably go out Friday night (and/or Saturday) and then I drink too much bourbon and inhale a box of Cheez-its at midnight (which I bought from Tedeschi because I don’t keep Cheez-its in the house).

The spiral continues from there through New Years...through New Years...

• I’m hungover, because I forget that I can't drink like I'm 22 anymore, so I order pizza and swear to eat healthy tomorrow.
• I wake up late, don’t pack a lunch, require 3 cups of coffee to function and then end up being up half the night.
• My friends throw a “Holiday Party” between Thanksgiving and Christmas so we can celebrate when people are in town. Cut to an entire table full of desserts. I eat 8 brownies.
• I get takeout, because why at this point what’s one more day.
• I feel sluggish so I don’t exercise. This compounds my sluggishness.
• My mood suffers due to lack of exercise.
• I binge-watch a show on Netflix and order Thai food. I do NOT select the delicious AND healthy items on the menu.

The spiral continues.

• The parties continue.
• I avoid the gym because the thought of putting on spandex is horrifying.
• I regret not buying some phony weight loss supplement from Amazon Prime on Black Friday.
• I start googling workout plans despite my frustration with the people who mob my gym after New Year’s (I can’t stand them even when I am one of them!). 

Considering how I usually feel by the time December 31st rolls around, is it any wonder that I hate New Year’s Eve?


NOT THIS YEAR.

This year I have a plan, and it involves eating healthy 80% of the time and splurging 20% of the time. It involves guilt-free treats most of the time, but sometimes full fat sugar-laden pie, because you can eat that occasionally when you HAVE a PLAN and you don't slide into the spiral I described above.

This year I have a plan, and it involves feeling good instead of depressed and lethargic as it gets cold outside. 

This year I plan to build muscle, lose fat, improve my flexibility and balance, and cook and eat great food. 

This year I say no to the spiral. 

Join me for a Game of Thrones-themed nutrition and fitness accountability group starting on November 30th!

We’ll focus on:

-Clean eating and portion control

-Half an hour of daily exercise

-Making a plan so we can enjoy the holidays to the fullest and get back on track the next day

-Game of Thrones-themed workout challenges, recipes and challenges!

Email me at leahnopants@gmail.com OR go to my website to sign up for a challenge pack!

Game of Thrones-themed Fitness/Nutrition Challenge Group Alert!

Challenge Group Alert! And this one has a theme: Game of Thrones!

Winter is coming…

and it’s bringing with it holidays, parties, leftovers, wine, short days, and in my case, cold weather, snow piles, a general malaise and a whole lot of excuses.

I’ll start tomorrow.
What’s one more day?
Might as well wait until ______.
But it’s so COLD and DARK and MY CAT is in my WARM BED.

NOT TODAY.Not this time.
Not this winter.

This winter I’m going to improve my strength, flexibility and balance. I’m going to plan to eat pie and stuffing and plan to get back on track soon after, because this is real life, and I can eat cake sometimes without undoing all my hard work on my fitness, nutrition and mindset.

And I’m going to do it in style, with Game of Thrones themed recipes, mini-challenges, prizes, and excessive discussion of Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen!

Can you commit to some (but hopefully all) of the following on November 30th?

-30 minutes of exercise a day
-Clean eating and portion control
-Superfood shakes that taste like dessert, help with weight loss, and can be made into guilt-free treats.
-A private, online group full of accountability partners to support you.

I commit to:-build an amazing, supportive team to help inspire you and hold you accountable to your goals
-provide recipes and tips
-keep you motivated with mini-challenges and prizes!
-helping you build a healthier mindset

Get in touch so we can talk about your goals and I can save a spot for you!

Email me.

Visit my website. 

Comment below! 

21 Day Fix Problems

This is the story of my life on the 21 Day Fix.
That is all.

Getting ready for another awesome week!

XO

PS: Original Link To Someecard Here

How I'm losing weight without starving myself, and building a healthy relationship with food.

So I’m in a really good place right now. I’m eating balanced, healthy meals that make me feel satisfied but not gross. I’m practicing portion control and eating whole foods that I cook myself (mostly). I’m NOT calorie counting (I know that I usually eat around 1400-1600 calories, some days less, some days more, but I track portions and food groups, not calories). Every day I drink a magical chocolate protein shake that tastes like dessert. It keeps me full for hours, gives me so much energy that I’ve cut down on coffee, and really helps with cravings. Plus, I can use it to make guilt-free peanut butter cups.

[It Happened To Me: I found a way to make healthy peanut butter cups that taste BOMB. And I don’t even feel gross the next day, because they’re healthy, because that’s how it works when you eat healthy food all the time…]

And yes, I’m losing weight, but more importantly I’m losing inches, and I’m doing it the right way.

I started the program a few months ago, when I saw my high school friend Lesley posting about it on facebook. I’ve done almost every fad diet there is, so I’ve seen a lot of hopeful facebook posts and been through my share of clickbait rabbit holes.

No seriously, here is a list of all the diets/eating programs I have tried. In parenthesis is the number of times I’ve tried:

Medifast (5x)

Weight Watchers (1x)

Atkins (2x)

South Beach (lost count)

Keto (1x)

Paleo (1x)

Jenny Craig (1x)

HCG diet (only 500 calories a day) (1x)

I have survived on almost nothing. I have survived on diet pills, diet coke and saltines (WHATUP 2002, don’t miss you at all!). I have exercised too frequently for too long or not at all because I’ve been so starved. I’ve been through years of really stressful teaching positions that led me to put on weight (talk to me about cortisol if you doubt that stress can and will affect you metabolically), and do drastic things to get it off.

So believe me when I say that when I saw Lesley’s posts on facebook, I approached them with a healthy degree of skepticism, because I really didn’t think it was possible to have a healthy relationship with food, exercise and your body. I thought I was doomed to spend a life treating my body as something bad that needs to be controlled and kept in line.

Last spring, when I started seeing Lesley’s posts, I was opening the medicine cabinet right when I got into the bathroom so I didn’t have to look at my reflection when I washed my hands. That’s how bad it was.

Then I found the 21 Day Fix. It’s all about clean eating, portion control, 30-minute at-home workouts, and a daily superfood shake that tastes like goddamned dessert (and can be made into peanut butter cups). The 21 Day Fix has brought so much simplicity to my eating and exercise routines.

I never thought I could workout at home because I craved the community my gym provided. But the 21 Day Fix comes with a different style of community. Instead of going to the gym, I belong to a challenge group on Facebook full of people doing the same program as me. They’re all over the country, which is WILD, but so cool. We have tons in common, and no one cares when I post about how my cat tries to interrupt my workouts by farting on my dumbbells, so I’m happy. I love these groups, and the people in them. I think they are what makes the program work as well as it does. They keep me motivated and on track.  

My home gym 

It takes time. I do a meal plan for the week every weekend, and I stick to it about… 80% if I’m honest, but I still eat so much more healthily and save so much money because PORTION CONTROL.

The most important thing about 21-day fix is the focus on having a healthy and positive mindset. I got to the point where I realized that I’m capable of losing weight. I can eat less and exercise more and take pills and cut out whole food groups. I’m great at that. But until I fix what’s happening in my head… I’m just going to gain the weight back. Until I learn to change how I think about food, and how I think about my body, there’s no point in any of it. And that’s what 21-day fix has helped me to do.

I used to look at a huge Snickers bar and think “BAD. BAD FOOD. I’m bad if I eat this. If I eat this, it’s a bad day, and everything else I eat may as well be bad too because the day is a lost cause and I can go back to eating good food and being a good, healthy person tomorrow.”

Now, I look at a huge Snickers bar and I see it for what it is. It’s going to taste amazing, but it’s going to make my blood sugar rise and then drop, leading to me wanting more sugar, and if I eat more, I’ll want more, and I’ll feel sluggish for the whole next day. Some days, I decide that it’s worth it to splurge, and I do, because this program is a lifestyle, not a diet, and sometimes you have to eat a Snickers bar. But I make a decision based on information rather than emotion, and whatever decision I make, I have a group of people to support me because they’ve been there too, because we’re all in this together.

So I’m about to begin this journey where I co-host a fitness and nutrition challenge group with Lesley in October. I’m nervous, but I’m excited. And I’m looking for 5 people to join me in this challenge group. 

So if you’re ready to... 

• change the way you look at your body and food
• feel more comfortable in your own skin
• lose pounds and inches
• build a healthy mindset
• save time and money
• see lots of pictures of my cat trying to work out with me and eat all the great food I make

GET IN TOUCH! It’s a journey that you don’t have to go on alone. Join our crew. You'll love it.

I also started a facebook group around having a more healthy mindset around fitness and nutrition, so if you want to join that, ask and I’ll add you!

If you just want to chat, I love talking about this stuff, so get in touch!

And Lesley, I appreciate you so much. I was going down a really unhealthy path, and your relentless positivity, your constant support, and the 21 Day Fix saved my butt. Thank you.

Email me
Go to my Coach website (although I haven't really updated it yet)
PS: Yes, I made my Beachbody Coach website URL Leahnopants. 

A sample meal I made that's on-plan... These are fajitas, from before I started eating meat again. Replace the tofu with blackened chicken. 

BODY DYSMORPHIA: I'M MESSED UP. Are you? Let's discuss.

I just read this beautiful, haunting, honest, and hilarious piece by a writer who recovered from anorexia. It came in the middle of an internet rabbit hole I fell into, one of the negative-body-image-fierce-lady-writer variety.  As usual, I emerge from the reading binge, bleary-eyed in my underwear, wondering what it all means for me: as a writer, a woman, a daughter, a friend, a teacher of adolescents, and a lifelong disordered eater.

Confession time: My weight never dipped below 100 pounds. 

Here's the thing: not all anorexics and bulimics are thin. Many of us look quite normal. At my smallest, I looked a bit bony, arms and legs dangling off a normal-looking, even slightly soft midsection. Both times... At 16, eating 300 calories a day, downing half a dozen horse-sized diet pills, and running track... At 26, eating 890 calories a day, working out endlessly and never leaving the house... I looked good. 

I was never hospitalized. I came close once, after going four days without eating and passing out during a final exam, but never quite made it there (thankfully). 

No one ever staged an intervention. There were no doctors, nurses, treatment centers, support groups, or anything of the sort. Only crash diets, gym memberships, vomiting halfway through a 10 mile run on an empty stretch of highway, and years of feeling unhappy and uncomfortable in my own skin. 

At my thinnest in recent years, I was 127 pounds, and looking back I'd sacrifice a few relatives to get back to that weight, but at the time I felt pudgy. I remember vividly how, even with so little fat on me, when I laid down to tan in my bikini the skin on my hips fell out of my bikini at an unattractive angle. It's gotten to the point where I don't know what I look like at all. I can't tell. Nothing fits. My body appears stretched out, loose, misshapen, and weird. My face looks good, not fat like before when I was crash dieting, but my body... I guess you can only bounce back from so much. 

I go through positive phases. I'll see myself naked in a mirror, lift my arms above my head, and think, "You know what? I'm actually pretty hot." Looking at my stretch marks, I'll think, "Damn... those are awesome stretch marks. They're badges of honor, battle scars to be worn with pride... They are marks of survival, not failure..." 

Then I remember that nothing fits, and I want to cry again, I want to give up, I want to crack down and get back in shape I can be proud of, I want to lie down and do nothing at all... 

AND IT'S JUST A BODY. Before you even think about saying it, realize that I've said it to myself a million times, and I'm saying it right now as I write this: What the hell is wrong with me? Why do I let this take over? Am I that vain and self-absorbed? Is there nothing else that matters to me? What does it say about me that I'm so obsessed with how messed up my relationship with my body is? I hate it. I hate it. I wish I could stop it. Part of me hates you for judging me, but part of me is right there with you, making a face at myself. 

I don't know what to do next. The whole thing makes me extremely uncomfortable. But I have to find some meaning in all of this madness, or else what will it have all been for? There's no way I can just wake up one day and not agonize over my body, right? That ship sailed in elementary school. I was never going to be normal. Maybe I should set my standards lower and learn to cope. 

CONFESSION TIME: I hate myself. Not who I am, but my physical self. I think it has always been this way, and the periods in my life when I thought I was coping were actually denial. I don't know if I know how to NOT hate myself. 

RELEVANT EXAMPLE: My legs look great still, but all I see when I look at them is how much nicer they would be if I hadn't tortured them with years of yo-yo dieting. All I see when I look at them is the fact that they don't fit into my pants and I refuse to buy new ones because new ones are failure. All I see when I look at them is that they are 3.5 inches greater in circumference than they were 1 year ago and I HATE that I know that, I HATE that I have the measurements of my thighs logged from this week last year. I HATE THAT I'M THE KIND OF PERSON WHO MEASURES MY THIGHS, LET ALONE WRITES THOSE MEASUREMENTS DOWN WITH DATES. 

Part of the problem is the fact that I'm afraid to talk about it. I feel self-absorbed, selfish, superficial, obnoxious, and like a total jerk because there are people everywhere that have real problems bigger than being 20 pounds heavier than they should be and not feeling confident naked. People everywhere yo-yo diet, cry in fitting rooms, and count calories, and we shouldn't talk about it because people are in real pain out there and every time we talk about our self-indulgent self-proclaimed self-hate, we're marginalizing the real problems and wasting time that might otherwise be spent solving them, or making our lives better and more fulfilling so we aren't self-indulgent assholes who worry about ourselves all the time. 

Today I'm going to take a stand in the opposite direction: I am genuinely unhappy in my own skin. Regardless of what that says about me as a person, it's the truth, and it's awful. I know the vast majority of the problems in this world are far worse, and that millions of people would love to have this be the worst problem they deal with. But to me this is a big problem, and for myself, I won't let it be marginalized. 

I'm hoping that if more of us talk about disordered eating and unhealthy body image, we'll start to feel better. It doesn't need to be sensational to hurt. Every time I walk down the street behind a thinner woman and find myself searching for a physical flaw on her, just one thing I can claim to "beat" her at, it hurts. She's probably a lovely girl who has important things that matter and she's not preoccupied with the fact that maybe her legs could be slightly more muscular because she's a good person who has better more meaningful things to fill her time with. She doesn't deserve my critique, silent or not. Every time I think back to this mythical time when I was thin with despair -- which is even stupider because I know that at that time I was just as unhappy as I was now, despite being much lighter and fitter -- it hurts. Every time I see someone eat just one portion of something indulgent and I remember gorging myself on Doritos in second grade because even then I couldn't moderate ANYTHING -- it hurts. It hurts to realize you've spent your whole life failing at something. It hurts to admit all of this. It may not be poverty, hunger or abuse, but it hurts, and it's real, and you can judge me all you want for writing about it in such excessive detail, but I need to do something. 

I have battled eating disorders, body dysmorphia, negative body image for most of my life and it feels as if it's eating me alive. I need help. And I'm going to talk about it. 

What about you? 

Why I spend hours reading what other people write about their eating disorders

I make no secret of the fact that I have a messed up relationship with food. Everyone in my life knows of my twisted body image. It’s pretty hard not to. All you have to do is watch me interact with food, talk about food, abstain from food, exercise compulsively, refuse to leave the house for 3 months until I’ve lost weight, or talk about how much I wish I could just eat a bagel without feeling guilty for at least 72 hours afterwards. I’m a writer, a talker, a storyteller, and a world-class yo-yo dieter. I also have no filter. So my dirty laundry is always on display.

The first official diet I went on was Atkins at age 17, but I might even go back further, to sophomore year. My school picture was heinous, and my retake was beautiful. The difference between the two: a season of varsity cross-country. In sixth grade I ran one mile a day after school every day for a month until my brown baggy pants from Express (the ones with white contrast stitching that Rose also had) were baggy and I rejoiced in the mirror. In first grade I started complaining about how my thighs spread out against the leather car seat. Even before that, I switched to skim milk and insisted on only eating bread if it was toasted, because the texture of mushy bread reminded me of the texture of my mushy tummy, and that made me feel like invisible mosquitoes were biting me all over. I can remember tons of bits and pieces like this, disjointed memories forming a strange constellation I’m still trying to make sense of.

I’ve come to realize that when it comes to disordered eating, there is no past tense. There is no end, all better, wrapped up in a Lifetime movie bow as the credits roll and the people embrace. It’s always a part of you, it always will be, and if you really think back, you’ll probably realize that it was a part of you long before you knew it. I know I did.

Which is why I submerge myself in eating disorder writing. I keep thinking if I read enough of other people’s problems, my own will start to make more sense, or at least not be so stifling. Being at war inside your own skin is tough. I have so many years of resentment for my body built up that sometimes it feels like sitting in my living room. all the windows opened, on a pollen-heavy spring day, when my roommates and I have forgotten to clean, the cats have been wrestling, and I have a bad cold: SO MANY ALLERGENS FLOATING AROUND THAT I CAN’T BREATHE AND WANT TO INJECT BENADRYL INTO MY VEINS AND EYEBALLS AND FINGERNAILS BUT NOTHING WORKS.

This is one of the aforementioned cats. He has a lot of fur. Lots of allergens. YAY  METAPHORS! 

I find it helps me to read about eating disorders because it’s a combination of escaping my problems and dealing with them. I’m immersed in the content of my problems, but not directly dealing with my own. It’s an indirect therapy, like when the detectives on SVU ask a young sex crime victim to draw pictures of her life, and the pictures help them solve the crime and help the little girl deal without an intense, dimly-lit, Detective-Stabler-flying-off-the-handle interrogation. (Sidente: This scene DID happen in the episode. It was just later).

But what does it all mean? I just ate healthily for most of the day before eating a slew of random items that had too much combined fat. I spent half the day complimenting myself on stopping when I was full only to spend the rest of the day eating past the point of being full and reminiscing about how wonderful it felt to be kind of empty in the morning, a messed-up bliss that only comes at midnight after eating a tablespoon of almond meal for no apparent reason. Then I read. I read and read and read. And here’s what I’ve come up with:

It has to mean something, all these hours spent reading about all these struggles. I’m not sure what it means, but I’m going to figure it out. And I’m going to write about it. Obviously. Get ready.

Bronchitis AND Pneumonia: GO HARD OR GO HOME.

Well that sucked.


I’ve been a teacher for years. I have on occasion (read: frequently) exhibited unhealthy behaviors that promote illness, including but not limited to:

• running in all messes of freezing cold precipitation 
• staying up too late 
•  drinking too much 
• drinking too much again the next night 
• not eating healthily 
• getting dehydrated 
• sharing water bottles with any number of people 
• not getting enough sleep for weeks at a time 

Despite all this risky behavior... I HAVE NEVER FELT THAT AWFUL IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. 
I’d like to start by telling you what it was like through other people’s eyes. I’ll tell you what it was like for me.. Don’t worry.. I have lots of stamina and a rambling ability that rivals televangelists.

MY BOYFRIEND will tell you that he knew I was sick because I wasn’t putting on a brave face or trying to act like I was okay. I’m not sure what he’s talking about, because I find it difficult to hide anything at all from anyone. Every year there are a couple of close calls when I almost admit to total strangers that I have menstrual cramps. But maybe he sees something I don’t. Maybe I hold some modicum of my discomfort in. That sounds like something real live grown-ups do, and I usually don’t associate myself with that demographic, but maybe I’ve changed.

He’ll also tell you I was a zombie who farted a lot, but you can ask him for more details on that one.


MY FATHER will tell you that I flip-flopped between bouts of intense pain and wittily making light of my situation. When he found me, I was shaking in a wheelchair of the ER, which they gave me because I kept falling down. I wasn’t fainting, per se, rather I was experiencing repeated bouts of kneesnotworking syndrome. It was the strangest thing. One minute I was standing, and the next minute, it felt like my feet, calves, knees and thighs were resting on top of one another, but not connected in any way, like jenga.


It was awful. I’ve had swine flu, regular flu, scarlet fever, and a variety of other illnesses. I’ve also run a marathon. Believe me when I say that this body ache was the worst thing I’ve ever felt EVER. LIKE EVER. My muscles stung constantly. There was no ache. There was no up and down. You know how the fire drill is a repeating beep sound? Well, in the south, we had tornado drills, and instead of beep beep beep it was one long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. That was what the pain was like. One long kick in the muscles that somehow stayed consistently awful without letting up.


I tried stretching and got yelled at (“Hey, the girl who just collapsed and is in a wheelchair is trying to do yoga, someone tell her to cut that shit out.”) I tried wheeling around in the wheelchair to use my muscles, but it only helped temporarily, and I was so weak. Everything hurt. Pain vibrated through me.


MY FATHER will also tell you that after telling the same symptom story to 2 people, I got tired of repeating myself. I took out my writing notebook, made a list of symptoms, and started showing it to anyone who asked. As new symptoms appeared, I added them to the list. At the beginning, I gave a half-smile and explained that I was a writing teacher. By the end, I stopped caring.


Then we have the issue of hospital food. I happen to be very well acquainted with this hospital's cafeteria from my mom’s surgery. Their macaroni and cheese sits like a brick in your stomach but hot damn is it a good-tasting brick. However, I have trouble walking in this hospital since I associate it with my mom being weak and covered in iodine and tubes, and I was having trouble walking in general, so that wasn’t an option. Luckily, I had a back-up plan.



Have you ever had a night when you got too drunk, and you wake up the next day and dread opening your eyes to see the scene in front of you? You just KNOW you’re going to open your eyes and see that you’re still in your clothes, expensive DKNY stockings ripped beyond repair, raccoon eyes smeared across white pillowcases, contacts plastered to dry eyeballs, cell phone dead, half-eaten Lean Cuisine next to you that was healthy before you dumped no less than 1.5 cups of parmesan cheese on it? And then you open your eyes easily (what? I removed my makeup so it’s not gluing my eyes shut?), blink 28 times because you can’t see (I took my contacts out?), and see that you’re wearing matching pajamas next to your plugged-in cell phone and a to-do list neatly written on a post-it? I love those nights. None of that has any right to happen, because I decided that ONE LAST SHOT of Jameson’s (it’s always Jameson’s) wouldn’t kill me except it totally did, yet somehow I wake up in a perfectly orderly calm nonchaotic fashion? I love those mornings, when in a drunken stupor, you inexplicably managed to execute every single nighttime ritual, even ones you sometimes forget about when sober.


Sometimes in bad situations, this happens to me. It’s like there’s a panic switch and when I flip it, my body shifts into a silent autopilot that does everything right without panicking. Sometimes when a student tells me something and it has to be dealt with RIGHT THEN because it’s a big bad and there are 26 others students there only 7 of whom are quiet, this switch gets flipped. I make up something for them to do, assign it in my military voice, pick up the phone, and get shit taken care of. Or when someone I love is hurting and everyone’s standing around wringing their hands unsure of what to do, and I start barking orders. Most of the time I don’t think it’s that I do anything that special, it’s that I do SOMETHING and I do it RIGHT THEN. People need you to take action more than they need you to take the perfect right action. It’s kind of like driving in Boston. If you wait around and contemplate every move you make in traffic until you’re 100% sure it’s the right one, you’ll end up wrapped around a telephone pole most of the time. You’ve just got to pick something and go with it.


Anyway, on Wednesday of last week, this switch got flipped. I called my roommate/savior from the road and the second I heard her voice I dissolved into tears. She’s one of those people who was born a nurse and spent most of her life waiting until she could legally become one, and it shows in her voice. She’s a healer, a fixer, a problem-solver, and an empath. She’s exactly who you want to hear on the other end of the line when you’re struggling to stay in one lane of the highway and not faint, but she’s also the reason I lost it. I knew it would be okay, and I could stop goinggoinggoinggoinggoinggoing and just HURT because she was going to make it okay. 

I got home, and since I was resigned to letting other people take care of me (finally!), I was able to think for myself. I took a shower, shaved my legs, deep-conditioned my hair, brushed/flossed, and put on scented moisturizer. I picked out my favorite track long sleeve, an XL a relay meet that’s soft as fuck and stained from that fantastic rainy run when Tori and I went puddle-jumping. I tried on three pairs of knee socks to find a pair that was soft but sturdy. I packed 4 books, 8 colored RSVP pens, my writer’s notebook, my phone charger, and an extra pair of socks for good measure. I even made sure I was wearing cute underwear in case something terrible happened and my clothes had to be ripped off me in what would look like a scene from Grey’s Anatomy except with my added cellulite. I also packed an assload of mesclun mix lettuce, a mini-tupperware container full of Ranch dressing, and cut up a cucumber. I was prepared.


How I had the peace of mind to do this I don’t know. As my dad frequently reminded me, he didn’t have that luxury when taking my mom to the ER for her infected finger, which explained why he couldn’t devote as much time to picking out cute socks. I guess I was just on autopilot. Good thing.


SIDENOTE: I realized when I needed to eat that I hadn’t brought a bowl for the salad, and my Tupperware wasn’t large enough. (BOYFRIEND QUOTE: “What’s with the container of leaves in your bag?”) I remembered having food poisoning years ago and the little pink plastic dish they gave me to puke in, so yes… I asked for one. To eat my salad in.


I hate emergency rooms. It’s my belief that the relationship you have with a person enables you to help them more effectively (in any profession: teaching, writing, healthcare, etc). Thus the fact that no one knows you in the ER makes it that much more difficult for all involved. They gave me an albutirol breathing treatment, Tylenol, anti-nausea stuff, and a couple of other things, none of which helped much but did stop me from feeling like I was teetering on the edge of bad and worse.


There’s a difference between telling someone there’s no magic cure to fix them and telling someone there’s no magic cure to fix them but here are some ways to help deal with the symptoms until the body can fix itself. I’m a teacher. I’m here to learn. I’m a smart, agile thinker with maybe a bit too heavy a hand on the WebMD app. Telling me there’s nothing that can be done short of ibuprofen, water and rest is like telling me stare at a stab wound in my leg and wait for the knife to leave on its own recognizance.


All they told me to do was sleep, take ibuprofen, and drink water.


WHAT THE WHAT FUCK WHAT?

Every tiny movement shot pain through me. My body was heavy and unwieldy and not staying vertical. You don’t just send me on my way with a codeine prescription. I vaguely remember getting the prescription filled at CVS. Walking through the aisles was akin to swimming through molasses. I opened a container of goldfish, ate half, put the remainder next to the Fresca and paid for my prescription only. I ended up home. Codeine made me puke. It always does.


The next thing I remember is Saturday morning.

I have glimpses of being awake long enough to eat enough to take codeine and hopefully not puke (but I did anyway). I slept for 21-22 hours a night. When I couldn’t sleep anymore, I took sleeping pills. I drank lots of water. I took ibuprofen. I coughed and coughed and coughed. Everything stayed the same.


That kind of weakness is nothing I’d wish on anyone. I was hot then cold then hot then cold then FREEZING because I’d sweated through my sheets. My gums bled because I brushed my teeth after each time I threw up and I threw up a lot. I started eating whatever I wanted because it was going to come up anyway my roommate S's girlfriend/MY SOUL SISTER QUOTE: “Twice the flavor, because you taste it coming up, and half the calories!”).


At some point on Sunday afternoon I realized I still wasn’t getting better. I hadn’t turned a corner. I still felt just as shitty as I did on Wednesday night in the ER. I still couldn’t walk more than 10 feet without taking a break. I still struggled on stairs.


On Monday morning I woke up unable to talk. Well, I tried to talk. But talking stung my throat and I coughed up blood so my mother finally relented and actually texted me to communicate (Mama, you’re good at texting, why don’t you do it more often?). I called a cab company to take me to the hospital to see a doctor in the practice, but I sounded so bad they wouldn’t come get me. My father, luckily, did. Of course they were laying a gas line in my street so I had to walk 30 feet to his car. I almost didn’t make it.


The doctor was one I’d never seen before: tall, handsome, black and very quiet. I began with this: “I have felt like this since last Sunday night, and I’m sorry, but please don’t tell me there’s no magic cure except rest, water, and ibuprofen, because if you say that I will snap. I don’t mean to be a bitch, but I’m not getting better.”


This guy was SO COOL that I wish I could change my PCP to him. I love my doctor, I do, but this guy was amazing. He poked and prodded and listened to me breathe for a good five minutes, but then he started having me say numbers while he listened through a stethoscope. He explained that he was listening very carefully to see how different sounds traveled. When I repeated “Ninety nine” sixteen times, he called someone in for a second opinion. He sent me to get another chest x-ray, which showed congestion and stuff (??) on the bronchus. This wasn’t new. Upper respiratory infection was the diagnosis from the start. But when he compared the x-rays, his face changed. I saw that cool “A-ha!” House M.D. moment crawl across his features. I had bronchitis. Bad bronchitis.


He started listing what OTC meds I would need, and when I asked him to write it down, he said, “You don’t know what these meds do, do you? Let me explain. Then you’ll remember which ones to get.” It sounds simple, but I didn’t know. Twenty seven years and I didn’t know that post-nasal drip irritated the throat and caused a cough, and Sudafed worked by drying up the nasal passages to prevent this dripping. I didn’t know how ibuprofen and acetaminophen worked differently, and how to use them both to their maximum effectiveness. I didn’t know the first thing about my lungs. MIND = BLOWN.


Back in the car I was dizzy and light-headed when my phone rang. I wish I could tell you exactly what he said, but I was so out of it I don’t remember the details. Something about how he’d consulted more research, called an expert in another part of the hospital, sent my x-rays over, and determined I had bronchitis AND PNEUMONIA. Bam. Antibiotics sent to CVS not a moment too soon.


Bronchitis AND pneumonia. I guess I’m incapable of doing anything halfway. I have to go all out. The pneumonia was in the pre-stages the first time I was x-rayed, so it didn’t show up. Because it was combined with the bronchitis, it was effectively hidden or camouflaged or overshadowed or WHATEVER by the bronchitis. No amount of ibuprofen and water and rest was going to fix that.


Seven hours later I felt like a different person. I was still hurting, but the fog had cleared. I was still weak, but I could finally pick up the cat without needing a five minute break afterwards. I pranced through the living room and announced to Stephen, “I have pneumonia AND bronchitis, WHAT!!” to his bemusement. After that, I did need to rest. Prancing takes a lot out of you.


Tuesday and Wednesday (today) have been a mixed bag. Sometimes I feel okay, and I think, “Man, it’s only 11, I should go into work and teach the rest of the day,” and then I’m hit with a coughing fit and I have to sit down for 2 hours. Last night I coughed myself awake 5 times, and I coughed so long I actually gagged. But the moment I realized I was getting better was when my boyfriend said, “What’s that face?” and I grasped the wonder: the body ache was gone.


Last night when I was writing out my sub plans for today, I had the biggest, goofiest smile on my face. My job is stressful day in and day out. Combine that with the fact that I’ve been more or less sick since October, and it’s been a while since I smiled while making lesson plans. Usually, when I come home, I’m so emotionally or physically destroyed from the day that it’s hard to feel anything else. But I found myself grinning as I typed, “if they aren’t engaged in the discussion, ask them how many of them have ever been bumped or pushed or shoved in the hallway right outside the class. Then, connect it to the metaphor of the poem: A pinball is also bumped, pushed, and shoved in a pinball machine.” I LAUGHED (yes laughed) as I typed, “If all else fails, tap into their deep appreciation for complaining. Remind them that the author wrote this poem about disliking middle school, and they have plenty of things they also hate about middle school.” It was a wonderful feeling. I can’t remember the last time I felt it. I LOVE figuring out interesting ways to get through to adolescents. I LOVE figuring out what makes them tick. I LOVE their quirks, their volatility, their mood swings, their perfect combination of asserting their individuality and independence while still seeking your approval. I LOVE IT. I’m not thrilled that I had to take six days off to become reacquainted with this love, but maybe that’s what had to happen.



THANK YOU:
1. Dad, for spending your day in the ER with my mother then me last Wednesday, and for taking me to the doctor’s on Monday and leading me around the hospital as I bounced from office to x-ray room to office and back again.

2. Mama, for the matzah ball soup and love and support.

3. MY COUSINS—I’M SO SORRY I HAD TO POSTPONE THE TRIP. I love you.

4. My boyfriend, for never leaving my side, not getting mad at me for being comatose for the better part of a week, taking care of me, getting me ice packs, and holding me together.

5. Roommate, for your support, comfort, validation, back massages and love. And the first ride to the ER.

6. Roommates, for putting up with me.

7. Friends and colleagues for your well-wishes. It means a lot. Seriously.

8. Whoever subbed for me for the past week and everyone at work who helped when I was gone. I know it sucks having a teacher out.

9. Pitch Perfect, for introducing me to the cup song, which I practiced to entertain myself in the waiting room.

10. Awesome Doctor Man for obvious reasons

11. the cat, for keeping me company.

12. Dick Wolf, for creating Law & Order: SVU (which I was too sick to watch until yesterday… That’s how you know shit’s bad).





One final note: The x-ray technician will tell you I’m a pro. She led me into the changing room and said, “Take off all your clothes, even undergarments, and put on this robe.” I responded, “Oh please! I came prepared.”

“T-shirt, no bra?”

“You bet.”

“Ain’t your first rodeo girl, woohoo!”