Bikini Body

You know the feeling when it's time to take off your clothes..... 

and put on your swimsuit. 

I always used to put off shopping for a swim suit. Right around March, the spring break swimsuit line would start popping up at stores. Facebook ads for bikinis emerged as I pranced around the interwebs each day. 

The subtle and insidious approach of "swimsuit season" would lie just below the surface of my consciousness.  

I'd spend a few moments in the mirror after removing my 10th layer of sweaters and pants because it's still cold outside in New York in March. I'd do a quick evaluation, "Can I pull off a bikini right now?" 

I'd compare my body to Kate Upton's on the cover of Sports Illustrated thinking, "She's like 'curvy,'" so it felt fair. I'd note the cellulite on my butt and thighs, check my stomach, and my arms. 

Always, I was disappointed. I never measured up.   I'd vow to start the diet tomorrow whether it was no carbs, no cheese, no sugar, or just 200 fewer calories. I'd research causes of cellulite, belly fat and exercises to get "bikini ready."

UGHHHHHHHHH! Here's the stupidest thing: I spend like 10 days total a year in a bikini. I'm not even a beach bum. As a competitive swimmer, outdoor swimsuits for me have almost always been about being an athlete, swim instructor, or lifeguard (aka I wear a one piece because I actually need to be able to swim without letting all the goodies out). I legit don't really have that much time for the beach. 

Why the HELL did I spend so much of my life preparing for 10 days of the year?!!!

And so, here are some reasons why you, too, can stop caring about "getting bikini body ready:"

1. Your shape should never regulate your behavior. 

Many women don't do fun things in their life because they're worried about their appearance. As a water baby. I can tell you the beach is a blast and it should never be missed because you feel like you don't look like Kate Upton in a bikini. Um, hello, can you say body surfing? 

If you're really worried, go into the water and use the water as a cover up. The sand usually makes you pretty opaque. As a bonus, you can still soak up some sun because the water is reflective.  

If you're not a water baby, reading fiction and basking in the glory of our closest star to earth is truly transcendental. Just, you know: wear sunscreen, please. 

2. Support body diversity by being a diverse body. 

I just want to say you are definitely not the only human being on the beach without a magazine beach body. In fact, not even the people on the magazines have beach bodies. Any human who has watched one of those time-lapse videos of Photoshop magic knows that glossy magazine bodies are unicorns anyway. 

So, let's all help each other be satisfied with the bodies we all already have by showing them off. Studies show that seeing more diverse bodies makes people more comfortable with more diverse bodies which is kind of like, duh, but it's important. 

3. It's kind of feminist to wear a bikini whatever your size. 

As my home girl Laci Green mentions in this video, bikinis started as a form of liberation afters years of sexual repression so bikinis are kind #TBT feminism. 

Also, if it's hot outside and you want to go swimming, you should just go. Suffering is silly. You don't have to punish yourself any more, lady. 

Not the word I'm looking for

I hesitated before I clicked on it. 

Body-checking one more time, I was about to click on a quiz to determine whether or not I had an eating disorder. 

"I don't think I'd qualify as having an eating disorder," I thought. 

This was my freshman year of college at NYU, a place ripe with young beautiful women coping with the move from their smaller towns to the bright lights of New York City. If you were thin in your small town, people in NYC are thinner. If you were pretty in your small town, there are plenty who are prettier, better-dressed, smarter, better, faster, stronger. Even bigger fans of Kanye West and Daft Punk too. 

I was struggling with this. I didn't know who I was any more in the big city and I was lonely. 

I felt like all I knew was that I weighed more and had more acne than I ever had before in my life. I was desperately trying to have the body that I had before college as an athlete. 

I was in a deep dieting phase of restricting and, inevitably, binging (although I wouldn't have called it that).

I tried to eat clif bars and green juice for lunch. My sugar would crash pretty rapidly and then I'd give up and eat an entire box of cereal before dinnertime. When dinnertime came, I'd vow to eschew the dessert table and then be disappointed when I found myself 3-4 cookies in. 

Once or twice after my clif bar lunch and taking a pretty rough round of antibiotics for my new NYC acne, I felt pretty pretty dizzy. Then, and only then, did I think, "Maybe what I'm doing isn't healthy. Maybe I have an eating disorder?"

I quickly shook the thought though because I never passed out, my weight was in the "normal" range on the BMI scale and I had regular periods. Also, I didn't try to make myself throw up. So, no. Clinically, not eating disordered.

"Eating disorder" is a loaded term.

It's clinically diagnostic and many people think that it just doesn't apply to them. It only applies to one of them Olsen twins and, like, Ellen's wife or whatever. 

Often when I describe the work I do as a body positive health coach, I'll mention my time as an operations manager at eating disorder treatment center because it transformed my relationship to the word. 

Beyond the fact that I now know the diagnostic criteria for insurance companies (although I'm sure it's changed), I also got to see the people that it affected. In meetings, I learned about what people were struggling with. I read the books we recommended to clients, families, and the rotating interns. 

I started to see my own messed up relationship with food through them. 

When I realized this, I went from seeing the disease as a #firstworldproblem to a feminist issue.  And it wasn't just restricting in totally crazy ways or purging in totally crazy ways. It was far more insidious than that.

Diets, calorie counting, body-checking, obsessive food thoughts, getting on the scale multiple times a day. These things all sounded familiar to me. 

I still don't identify as "having an eating disorder." If I should, then I think most women should.

Beautiful, smart, and talented women everywhere, regardless of their size, are spending time, energy, and money on their body projects. And why? You know: a fat-shaming, sexually objectifying, patriarchal culture. 

I still very much believe in the importance of thorough clinical work for those suffering with clinical eating disorders and to be fair clinical diagnostic criteria is not as exclusionary as it once was (look up OSFED and EDNOS. Some therapists are just avoiding the diagnosis entirely).

I believe that women don't have to spend any more time dieting, calorie counting, body-checking, obsessing, and weighing themselves. 

Ladies, we have more important work to do. 

Mo' skinny, mo' problems.

It always seems so good at first. The glee. The satisfaction. The pride. The new way your clothes fit. 

I'm talking about weight loss. 

I've been through the ringer with this. I've lost weight on purpose. I've lost it on accident. I've lost it because I'm training like a lunatic. I've lost it after taking antibiotics or the stomach flu. I've lost it when I'm sad. I've lost it when I'm stressed. I've lost it when I'm calculating every calorie in and calorie out. 

The sad part is no matter the reason, healthy or not, people notice weight loss. And.... they usually compliment me on it. It's hard not to feel attached to this new weight loss and the attention that comes with it. 

The love and attention that comes with weight loss can be life-affirming, exciting even. I want to acknowledge and validate that experience. It's real. People compliment you and pay more attention. Suddenly, you're catching eyes with more attractive strangers. Your friends might even be like, "Damn, girl. Your butt is looking amazing these days."

This is the slippery slope. 

When the number is low or dropping: love, attention, confidence, happiness. 

When the number is high or going up: self-hatred, less attention, low self-esteem, depression. 

If the scale makes you feel this way, you can't have good without the bad. 

If you base your self-worth off what this external object tells you on any given day, you are destined for a roller coaster ride. External validation is a lot like self-objectification. You don't see yourself as a WHOLE person, you just see the number.

And, girl, you're a lot more than that number. You know that, though.  

Do I look pretty?

This happens to me every damn day: I must decide what I have to wear. 

It makes me want to say Clay Davis's line from the Wire repeatedly. 

Being a woman and getting dressed is kind of absurd. Depending on where I'm going, I feel like I've got certain things to keep in mind.

Am I trying to look professional?

I better hide any part of me that might look young or sexy.  

Will there be any men staring at me during my journey? What streets am I walking down?

I shouldn't wear too tight of pants that draw attention to my butt or my legs. I better make sure my bra and my neck aren't showing too much. 

Am I seeing a particularly body conscious person today? 

Some friends seem to comment on whether I look skinny or not.  Since my skin is pale now, I feel like I should wear a different color shirt. 

How am I feeling about myself today? 

I feel a little bloated today from eating Chinese food yesterday. I don't know if I should hide my body in a big cozy sweater or put on something that makes me look sexy. 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guessing that I'm not the only one who feels this way in the morning. 

This experience of seeing myself as other people see me is something called self-objectification. Self-objectification is seeing oneself as an object. In the current US media culture, this self-objectification often takes its form as sexual objectification. 

Studies have actually shown that this self-objectification increase rates of depression, habitual body monitoring, increased risk for eating disorders, lowered sexual pleasure, lower GPAs, and lower self-esteem. 

The answer, my friends, is to subjectify instead of objectify yourself. 

Here 3 Ways to Make Getting Dressed more about you:  

1. Function

What are you doing today? Do you need to walk through the elements? Will it be hot or cold? Dress for the weather. 

2. Self-care

What makes you feeeeeeel good and I mean this in a non-objectifying way. I mean this quite literally for myself. I like to wear soft clothes. I like to wear clothes that don't dig into my body and leave marks. I'm working on finding shoes that don't give me blisters. 

3. Wear what YOU want. 

One of the coolest and most liberating things about living in New York City is that you could walk around wearing a paper bag as an outfit and I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't look at you twice.  I'm firmly of the belief that if you think you look awesome, other people will too. Confidence is the sexiest, most professional thing you can put on. 

But the whole point is not caring what THEY think. You're the subject. 

Don't be dull

All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. 

And when Jill is a dull girl, Jill likes to find fun foods because eating is her only real break ( or she totally loses it in an isolated mountainous hotel).  

 I live in New York City and New York City is a very expensive place. In order to stay here and work here, one has to work very hard just to stay afloat. 

When I first graduated from NYU, I had job at a grocery store.

The hours were pretty horrible. The pay was pretty minimal but I was hoping that I could somehow grow in my field by continuing to stay there. Being low-ranking in retail is especially challenging because you have to be available at all times. That means late at night and on the weekends.  And that's what I did. 

This meant that whenever fun activities at night and the weekends would come up, I would politely decline in favor of my work. So, instead of seeing my friends and being 22, I stayed home and spent a lot of time with Netflix and Hulu.

It was pretty grinding and soul-crushing. 

My big release, however, were snacks and alcohol. I loved coming home and enjoying whatever snack I found on sale and whatever interesting IPA I could afford. Other nights, it was cereal. 

And because it was the most fun part of my day, many nights I couldn't stop eating. I would eat WAAAAAAAY past my fullness cue.

I don't tell this story to show you guys how awesome I am. I mean, I am, but that's beyond the point.

 Symbolic restriction in our lives can lead to literal "binges" with our food.

When we limit what we do, our body compensates. In the same way that calorie restriction actually physiologically sets you up for a binge because your body becomes convinced that you're starving, mentally restricting our lives can also result in the physical manifestation of binging on food. For other people, binging might look more like overspending, drug or alcohol abuse, or, in the case of The Shining, a full psychotic break. 

By loosening the reins on our lives, we can actually achieve a healthier relationship with food. 

Here's what helped me to survive those dark days:

1. I came to terms with the fact that I was hungry after my late night shifts. 

I had to accept that I needed a little self-love after a long day behind the register. This brought a little mindfulness to my late-night snacking.

2.  I got promoted. 

Hard work pays off. Eventually, I had a new job that allowed me to have a little bit more control over my schedule which meant that I could actually plan a few things with my friends and family to relax. 

3. I made friends with my coworkers

Coworkers understand why your schedule is sooo crazy and don't think you're just blowing them off when you can't hang. They know your schedule and understand when you can't make it. Also, it makes work more fun when you go in and get to hang out with people you like. 

So, for those of you that feel trapped by your lifestyle right now and KNOW you're using food as a way to manage it, let's talk. Schedule your first  FREE session with me.