Mind Chatter

So, after reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, I decided that one of the parts of my life that needed to be rewritten was my physical health and appearance. If I changed my outward self, I was certain my inner self would follow. I would flourish and grow. I would inspire and teach. And you know what? It's happening and I love it.

But let's go back to the beginning, shall we? And as a reminder, Donald Miller says in his book that we have to do things that are uncomfortable in order to grow, and this post most definitely fits in that category.

I have done countless diets in the past. It all started in high school when I stopped playing softball. It was okay to be 160 pounds when I was playing a sport, sometimes it's nice to have a little weight to throw around (I am 5'6", by the way, in case you don't know me in real life). But it was not okay with me to be 160 when I was done playing and had retired my cleats.

Cue Jenny Craig. I started going to Jenny Craig on a weekly basis. At your weekly appointment, you weigh, talk with your counselor and then choose your prepackaged menu for the week. Aside from the enrollment fee, you have to pay weekly for your foods. The average price per week (and remember, this was circa 1995) was probably $90. The food was okay, there were some things I really loved (French toast with berries, yum!) and there were some things that were vile (oatmeal raisin bar). It took me five months, but I returned to school for my senior year at 130 pounds. I accomplished this, by the way, at the same time I worked at the snack bar at Crestview Country Club. How is that for determination?

Knowing what I do about health and nutrition now, I would never advocate someone going to Jenny Craig. Why? Their foods are largely (genetically modified) soy based (very bad for you, despite what some manufacturers claim) and packaged in plastic containers that are often meant to be microwaved. Plastics leach into foods and are toxic to our bodies, mimicking estrogen and causing a host of health problems. I never microwave in plastic and I have replaced all of my food storage containers with glass. There is some seriously scary stuff going on with our food and food products out there (non-stick pans, plastics, soy, high fructose corn syrup, etc.), but getting on my soapbox about that is not really related to this post, so I will step down until another day...

Ahem. Where was I?

Oh, yes. I was finally skinny and going back for my senior year. I went to a small high school, a whopping 96 kids in my graduating class. I had always been what I would call a floater (no, this is not a poop joke). I fit in with a variety of cliques and just kind of floated between groups. I was friends with the popular girls, I was friends with the nerds, I was friends with the average Joe's. I was just everyone's friend, plain and simple. But I was almost never noticed by the boys. Until I came back skinny.

One would think that would be awesome, right? The whole bad teenage movie of the nerdy girl turned total hotness and homecoming queen happening in your own life? Okay, not total hotness and homecoming queen (however, Snowball Queen nominee, is that close enough?), but you know what I mean. I was finally noticed. And I hated it.

It made me feel resentful and jaded. Why in the world would I give some jerk the time of day just because he is suddenly interested now that my size is smaller? Seriously? How shallow! That Marilyn Monroe quote comes to mind, "...if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." I didn't hear that quote until I was an adult but it definitely sums up how I felt.

Enter, stage left: my first boyfriend. Long story short: we dated for a year, we broke up. Should have been end of story, right? Wrong. His parents said horrible, horrible things about me that got back to me (small town, remember?) and their words affected me very profoundly. Remember the girl I was? I was a nice, naive girl and always rooted for the underdog. I did not deserve the hateful things they said. As an adult, and especially as a mom, I can see how they were huge jerks and it was their problem, not mine, but the 18 year old Me couldn't see that. Present day Katy would have told them where to stick it.

Curious as to what they said? I was 145 pounds (had gained a bit back) and as they were convincing their son to end our relationship, they decided to hit me below the belt and attack my physical appearance. The phrase that affected me the most was, "she's fat and she's just going to get fatter." Yep. That was their entire case against me. Kudos to them.

Hearing that crushed me more than I can really explain. I was so fortunate in school to be in the role of "everyone's friend," that I never had to deal with being teased or picked on. This was really my first experience with anything bad being said about me, and it was hard. It was very hard. Their words became my new inner dialogue and I began to believe it. I let those mean words become the thing I would repeat to myself several times a day.

Those words kept me from eating a morsel for two entire weeks. I dropped weight. Fast. My parents threatened to hospitalize me if I didn't start eating. So I would pretend to take bites, scoot food around on my plate, cover it with my napkin, etc. I lost twenty pounds in two weeks. Anytime I felt hungry, I would just think about what they said, and would instantly lose my appetite.

And then the town started talking again. "psssst..Katy Schrag is anorexic, have you seen her?" And you know what that did? It fueled my fire. It kept me going down that path, I never wanted to be called fat again. I did all kinds of messed up things including drinking mouthwash and syrup of ipecac to make myself vomit (which it didn't work, it just gave me an upset stomach for an entire day), handfuls of diet pills daily, diuretics, starving myself for days at a time, not sleeping because of the ephedra in the diet pills, hours upon hours of exercise...you get the idea.

And that, my friends, is how I became the overexercising, eating disordered person I referenced in my previous post. To be continued, yet again......