running from the fat girl

As I start this blog, I am aware this topic may be something not everyone can relate to. 

When you read this, you may completely agree and understand my point.  Or, you will have no friggin’ idea where in the world I am coming from.  So let’s put it out there……

• if you have never been on a diet
• if you are one of those girls who actually have said the words out loud “I have a hard time keeping weight on”
• if you are just in complete denial
• PLEASE STOP READING right now and go eat a cheeseburger.

For the rest of you who are still with me, here I go…

While I don’t have many memories of my childhood overall, I have some very clear memories of being teased by other children. 

In the beginning, the teasing was about the red hair and freckles and yes, I am over those.  Seriously, it is unbelievably ironic to think those girls who teased me and other redheads about the color of our hair may actually be paying big bucks to duplicate the color my hair was in elementary school (and still is).  Please don’t take this statement as cockiness at all.  After so many years of teasing, I have earned the right to be happy with my hair!

The teasing that has stayed with me and probably always will began when I was about 9 and developed a little chunkiness.  Funny enough, one of my very first memories of being called fat was by a girl in fifth grade who grew up to be a supermodel.  I am absolutely, 100% serious.  To all of you who think your memories of being made fun of are painful, imagine knowing one of the girls who made fun of you subsequently graced many covers of Vogue, Cosmo and better yet, she was featured in George Michael’s video “Freedom”.

In any case, that was a long time ago.  I am currently rounding the corner on the end of my thirties and I am not asking for any pity parties for the teasing I endured as a kid.  So many of us experienced teasing at one point in our childhoods.  We could fill many hours of Oprah with all of our memories of being teased.  As is the case in so many aspects of our lives, we all have a story.  It makes us who we are deep down.

Deep down, I am a fat girl.

I will always be a fat girl.  Even though I currently wear a small single digit size and on a good day, Joy Behar could possibly call me a “skinny bitch”, I am still a fatty.  Just like a recovering alcoholic is still an alcoholic for the rest of her life, I will always have the “fat me” as a part of who I am.  Even as I write this, I wonder if a year from now I will still be able to fit into the jeans I am currently wearing. 

Maybe as you read this, you have no understanding of what I am saying.  Or maybe you are just like me.  Your current body size does not define the size you see in the mirror as much as your memories do.

In the last few years, I have learned so much from talking to other women.  I have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge by being more open and honest about my own relationship with food.  In facing the truth and discussing it with friends, I have discovered I am not alone.  I thought I was the only person ever to look around a room and wonder if I was the biggest girl there (I still do this to this day).  When I look back at pictures, I realize even at my own peak weights, I was never as large as I thought I was.  I realize I have a clown mirror inside my head, which is always going to distort the information my eyes are sending to my brain.

The image you have imprinted in your mind of what you believed you were during your preteen years may indeed be what you will always see in the mirror.

That is my theory about most women’s body image.  Many women I meet continue to consider themselves the size they were in their early teen years.  If a woman was thin in middle school, she still sees a thin girl in the mirror.  I was chunky so I will always see that.  I wear a size 4 and still see that girl in the mirror most of the time.

There is one thing I do that breaks this theory and is better for my mental health than my many, many, many years of therapy.

I run.

I go outside on a beautiful day armed with a well-filled Ipod and I run to a new perception of myself.

When I run, that fat girl can’t keep up with me.   It sounds incredibly hokey and corny but it works for me.  It is the one time I am convinced I am not that girl anymore. 

 

Insert running music here: Manfred Mann, Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce,  Another runner in the night… 

After my first mile, I am not the fat friend at the fraternity party whom the guys will not make eye contact with. 

More running music: Coldplay,  I used to rule the world, Seas would rise when I gave the word, Now in the morning I sleep alone, Sweep the streets I used to own…

After my second mile, I am not the girl who received a letter from her high school best friend telling her, “Girl, lose some weight.” 

Even more great music:  Tina Tuner, every now and then, I think you might like to hear something from us, Nice and easy, But there’s just one thing, You see we never ever do nothing, Nice and easy, We always do it nice and rough, So we’re gonna take the beginning of this song, And do it easy, Then we’re gonna do the finish rough, This is the way we do “proud mary” 

And, by mile 5, there is no trace of the girl who found a note on her car one summer, which said, “Who is the Red Elephant?”

Of all the things I have shared about myself, this is absolutely the most personal.  Unfortunately, I spend too much of my life caring way too much about what people think of me and hoping people like me.  In this case, my desire to have YOU like me is not anywhere near as important as it is for me to possibly help someone else overcome any left over emotional crap.  Or, as my family likes to say, if you are still “playing old tapes.”

I hope you have something you do for yourself which does for you what running does for me.  If you don’t, I hope this inspires you to try running for yourself.

If you really think about it, you will realize running is a lot like sex.  You don’t always feel like doing it but when you are in the middle of the actual activity, you really enjoy it and wonder why you don’t do it more often.  And like sex, if you do it well, you get sweaty.  And as a friend pointed out, just like sex, some people like to do it alone and some like to do it with a partner (or in a group).

And lastly, running (and sex) is best when you are listening to really good music!

 

Insert Bruce Springsteen here:

Spread out now Rosie doctor come cut loose her mama’s reins

You know playin’ blind man’s bluff is a little baby’s game

You pick up Little Dynamite I’m gonna pick up Little Gun

And together we’re gonna go out tonight and make that highway run

You don’t have to call me lieutenant Rosie and I don’t want to be your son

The only lover I’m ever gonna need’s your soft sweet little girl’s tongue and Rosie you’re the one…..