Day 20, Monday: Get real. Share something you’re struggling with right now.
I’ve been blogging every day in May along with Jenni’s blog challenge at Story of My Life, and while I’ve been faithful to the schedule, I’ve been blogging my own topics for the most part. This is one that I want to touch on, because I feel like this particular issue is one that a lot of women, whether they’re in the military or not, struggle with.
When I was young, I dealt with serious body confidence issues. I gained all my height in a hurry, so I went through the majority of elementary school and junior high being “the big girl,” taller than my peers. On top of that, my dad was a football player and I got his frame, so being small was never going to be in the equation for me.
I don’t remember exactly how it started, whether someone teased me about my size or just my pre-teen self-conscious awkwardness taking its toll, but for a time, I stopped eating. Literally. I’d take my food off my plate when no one was looking and either hide it or throw it away. Don’t ask me why, I can’t explain it. But after a time, it took its toll. At my worst, I was 5’7″ and weighed under 100 pounds. That might be doable for women with really small frames, and models go dangerously close to that, but not for me. Like I said, not a small frame, here. This was not healthy.
Thankfully, my mom is a psychologist and she recognized what was going on with me early on, and was able to help me out. By the time I started at West Point, I was a healthy weight, but dealt with weight issues all over again the first time I had to step on a scale and was told that by Army standards I was overweight. Cue the weight and weight loss issues all over again.
This time it was worse, and it took me a while to get myself back together. Fortunately, with a dietician’s help this time, I prevailed and really started learning the ins and outs of healthy eating. What I should be eating in order to maintain a healthy weight, physical strength, the levels of energy I want, and proper nutrition, and what I should be avoiding.
I’ve gotten my weight more or less under control. I do like to eat, and I love gourmet food and beer, so getting to and maintaining that healthy weight is one of those things on my 101 in 1001 list that I need to address. Proper working out, less butter, less beer. It’s that simple.
What isn’t that simple is the issue of body confidence and the negative body image I still carry around with me.
I mentor a lot of cadets who have decided that they’re going to serve in my branch of choice, Engineers, and a lot of women cadets in general, and one of the things I really focus on when I’m talking to them is not projecting my own negative body confidence and weight worries onto them. The last thing a young up and coming cadet with a lot of stress to wrangle needs to hear is a role model and mentor calling herself fat. Seriously, it’s nearly impossible for me to describe myself in words and to not include “I’m definitely not skinny,” “I’m a big girl,” or just flat out “I’m fat” in there.
It’s really hard to feel confident in general, whether I’m presenting at a conference, consulting, or standing in front of a classroom in uniform, thinking that everyone is looking at me and thinking of me as “the fat girl.”
I have to have confidence to be able to do my job. I have to be able to quell that evil little voice in my head telling me “you’re fat” and to just be honest, and here’s the honest truth. I wear a size 8. My lovely unisex digital camouflage uniform that I’m modeling up there is a size small. I’m at the very top end of a healthy BMI for my height. If I lose ten pounds, I’ll still be in the upper end of the BMI for my height, but I won’t have to get taped at Army weigh-ins and my clothes will fit again. I just ran a half-marathon. I eat a healthy diet that probably includes too much butter and beer. None of that includes a positive or a negative, or judgment of any kind. As long as I look at it that way, I’m okay.
I’ve tried to teach my cadets to think about things in the same light. I have them define what “healthy” is able to do in their eyes. Climb rocks? Run a 6:30 minute mile split? Run an 8:00 minute mile split? Push up 175 on the bench? Do a Warrior Dash? Hike the Bataan Death March? Get a good score on the Army physical fitness test? Once we’ve established what they think “healthy” can do, we talk nutrition. What do they eat? What should they be eating? Do they eat healthy portions a reasonable number of times per day? Are they getting the fuel for their workouts that they need? When we talk about weight – and because of the Army weight standard, we do have to talk about weight – we talk about it in terms of BMI, what the healthy range is, where they’ve been in the past, and whether or not it works for them. And nowhere in there do we mention the word “fat.”
While this works, it’s still my personal little battle, fighting those negative thoughts and weight worries whenever they creep in. I want to be – and really technically have to be, for my job – fit and healthy, so this is all constantly on my mind. The tricky part is just making sure I’m focused on fitness, and not focused on that other f-word.
How about you, friends? Do you or someone you know struggle with body confidence? How do you focus on the positive aspects of fitness?
KCS
