Mirror, Mirror...On the Wall...

When it comes right down to it...the nitty gritty of dieting is all about the pursuit of beauty, isn't it? I mean, when I starting dieting at 13...when I first became addicted to diet soda...the appeal to me was that I could drink soda that wouldn't have all that sugar in it. And what my little friends told me was that sugar made you fat. And, you know, the last thing we wanted to be at 13 was fat.

And that's where it began. Because where I grew up...one couldn't be fat and beautiful. Right?

So it was all about being beautiful. And being beautiful meant that you would be loved. If you were beautiful, then you'd attract the right kind of boy and you would fall in love and live happily ever after.

Wow. Those fairy tales did a number on me, didn't they?

It has taken me so long to really understand that beauty isn't a physical thing. As Helen Keller said, "The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they must be felt from the heart."

For years I have laughed at the notion that Super Models are beautiful...yeah, I guess if by "beautiful" you mean a woman with the body of a pre-pubescent boy with a boob job, then yeah, I guess Super Models are beautiful.

Alright, there are some really pretty models but, to me, they are so skinny, that I find that actually very unattractive.

Still...even though I don't believe in our society's idea of beauty...there's still something that makes me not love me, not think that I am beautiful, with all this extra weight.

When I pause and listen to what's in my heart...what my body says to me is that it isn't that I don't feel beautiful...it's that I don't feel good. Having a big belly actually doesn't feel good to me. When I overeat and my stomach is feeling really full, I feel physically sick. Somewhere along the way, I have twisted that feeling into "I'm not pretty. I'm a fat, lazy good-for-nothing!"

Now that's twisted, right? I gotta change the way I think about those things. But part of that is learning how to nurture myself that doesn't make me feel sick. It's about nurturing myself in a way that makes me feel "beautiful," I guess.

If you look to the sidebar on the right, you'll see a link to the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. It's a little film that shows the Evolution of a Super Model...it's pretty interesting. The message is that it takes a lot of work for Super Models to look like they do...and yeah, I get that...but they are still super skinny.

America's Next Top Model...season 10 (TEN!!! It took 10 Seasons!) finally had a "plus sized" lady win. She was a size 10. Ten is plus-sized or as they finally said at the very end of the show...it's "full-figured"...my ass. And you know how they play with sizes. A 10 on ANTM is probably a 5 at Macy's.

Progress Update: I've walked everyday since last Sunday. I have been eating very little processed food. I have cut back on my glass of wine per night intake. And, I'm kind of embarrassed to say, I did give in to temptation and jumped on the scale a few days ago.

I really don't want to be weighing myself everyday or really every week. I think I get too wrapped up in the numbers. I think it is more important for me to focus on what I'm eating and moving my body.

So I won't be posting my stats again until the weekend before the Flying Pig. That'll be about a month from when I started this blog, so you'll be able to see my progress, if any, then.