Exercise and Eat Right... whatever that means.

Eat right and exercise! Calories in, calories out! It's just that easy! Look, now nobody has to be fat anymore! hahahaha. No. There are genetics, matabolisms, hormones, medications, and all sorts of other factors that weigh in (pun not intended, but I'm leaving it in!), not to mention that silly grey matter telling you a dozen conflicting things about how you look and what you should do about it.

Why is our whole society so crazy when it comes to weight, exercise, health, and all that stuff? The easiest way to see this ridiculousness is to watch commercials. (I know nobody watches commercials anymore, but humor me, because I'm too busy playing on the internet to fast-forward the tivo) First a Jenny Craig ad about being the best you you can be, then some diet pill/quick fix weight loss ad, and top it off with a Wendy's commercial where a skinny girl tells you to eat a bacon cheeseburger. If that's not insane, I don't know what is.

I've had such a yo-yo weight experience as an adult. When I was younger I never really thought about it, I ate what I wanted and I played hockey and that was that. College is when I first started to notice and think about it. Then my senior year, in preparation for my wedding I went on my first real crash diet. It worked! And I was very, very proud, so were all the people around me, it seemed. It was the first time in my life I'd really lost weight through controlling my diet. I got so many compliments, it felt amazing and empowering. And something switched in my brain. Suddenly being thin was important. So for the next next 7 years I did some crazy things: dieting, over-exercising, joining online anorexia communities for the "thinspo" (images meant to inspire thinness)... but my other anxiety symptoms were also getting worse and after the concussion I finally got help, and after that I stopped controlling my weight and I got much more mentally healthy.

But since then, if I'm being honest, I've never been able to "forgive" myself for gaining weight, or not losing it. Because part of my mind tells me I can do it, if I'd just stop being lazy, or if I just controlled my eating better. "Eat right and exercise" That part of my brain forgets that I'm on meds that take away the strongest of my OCD feelings, those feelings that had lead me to plummeting to a size zero after having kids. Some days I feel like the meds take away my anxiety-produced ability to achieve and left only the thought monkey in my head, who is quieter now but still mocks me for skyrocketing to my current weight. And on those days I hate the meds, I hate my body, and I hate the world for reinforcing my issues through TV ads and everything else.

But I'm trying to heal. I'm trying to internalize a message of healthy at any weight. After all, weight isn't the be-all of health measurement. You just can't tell if you look at somebody it they are healthy. That skinny person could be eating healthily or eating horribly, that fat person could be sitting on their ass or going to the gym every day. There's no one solution that fits everybody. Not one diet, not one exercise plan, not one body type. And guess what? That's ok. So "eat right" and "exercise", whatever that means to you. I'm trying to internalize this myself, and it's hard, but I think it's a good message.