My forever battle.

   So I'll just put it out there. I've always struggled with body image. It's something that I probably will ALWAYS struggle with. Even before I had children, I was in a constant battle with myself to be skinny. Not healthy. Skinny. I starved myself. I worked out too much. I binged, and purged. I had an eating disorder, and I will always have the brain of a person with an eating disorder. When I look in the mirror, I don't see the same thing that other people see when they look at me. It is what it is, and it's something I am constantly at war with myself over. 

   After I had Poppy, I bounced back quickly, though I was very uncomfortable with the stretch marks and... other things that motherhood had done to my body. Sometimes when I looked in the mirror, I saw only those flaws, and felt as though I was something monstrous. After Flynn, the weight loss took longer, but walking, nursing and eating healthy did the trick. After I had Avalon, I began to lose the weight and was almost down to my pre-pregnancy weight when our family was hit with some very hard blows. Like a binger does, I found comfort and solace in eating, but the mother in me couldn't hurt the body that I was using to nourish my infant daughter. Since I couldn't purge, I gained A LOT of weight. In a matter of 10 months, I didn't even look like myself. That Christmas I saw a myself in a photo and I was devastated. I decided to make a change. I began working out and eating the right foods and I lost 70 lbs :) But I still wasn't healthy.

There's fat Lauren in all her glory!

There's skinny Lauren, looking skinny.

   Being healthy is MORE than looking skinny. Being healthy is taking care of your body, loving your body for all of the amazing things it does for you. Being healthy is NOT beating your body down until it behaves or looks a certain way. It is NOT crying when you see yourself in the mirror, or stare down at the scale. I don't think I've ever been healthy, really healthy, and I don't know if I ever will be. I don't know how to even begin. But I'm going to try, and failure is simply not an option. The stakes are way too high.

   You see, sweet Avalon was born missing a copy of a very important gene. The gene is called SH2B1. To sum it up, SH2B1 helps the hypothalamus work like it should. Avalon's body can't sense the signals sent by leptin and insulin. She doesn't feel "full" like other children and her body stores fat more than others. Because of her chromosomal deletion, she is also hypotonic, which means that her muscles are weaker than typically developing children. Avalon will always struggle with her weight. She is doing well right now, and has only gained 2 lbs in the past year, but I don't know what the future brings. Simply put, I am mothering an amazing child whose body will betray her. I don't know if Avalon will be healthy as she grows, or if her weight will become harder and harder to manage. But, regardless, I want Avalon to love Avalon. I want Poppy, who is thin as a rail, to love Poppy. I want daughters who will look in the mirror and smile. I want daughters who will grow into women that don't see what I see when I look in the mirror at myself. 

    I teach my children to write, because I know how to write. I teach my children to ride a bike because I know how to ride a bike. I teach my children to love others because I know how to love others. But how can a woman who doesn't love herself teach her children how to love themselves?? I see the stakes and it scares the living daylights out of me. If I don't learn to cherish myself, I will fail. The sense of self-worth that grows in them is as soft and delicate as  a small blossom on a cherry tree in spring. If I don't change, I will blow it a way with the storm that rages in my own heart, not intentionally, merely because of proximity.

    Being as hard on myself as I am, I find it hard to do things for my own good. But I will do this for my children. I will take in food that nourishes me, and doesn't hurt me. I will use my body in ways that make it stronger, and don't destroy it. I will use words and language that build them, and me up. I will not ask my husband if my jeans make me look fat in front of them, or talk about calories and things that are "fattening." And maybe some day I will find a way to stare openly at my reflection and feel peace, not pain. 

    And yeah, lately I am not feeling like the best me that I can be. I know that I am not strong right now, that I have been eating things that don't make me feel good, and I really need to take a look at the way that I've been treating my body. I need to make positive changes, but it's hard to do that when weight can become an obsession. When being SKINNY becomes an obsession.  I do not own a scale, and that is the best thing for my well-being, but I do need a way to measure my progress. I feel like summing up progress in inches rather than pounds will be a much better measure of HEALTH, not thinness. My goal is to lose 5 inches in a little less than 6 months. That means that I can go slow, and learn how to take care of myself. Setting a goal like this will keep me accountable, while hopefully taking a lot of the focus off of appearance, and putting it on health. I want to lose inches because I realize that being overweight is not healthy, but mostly I want to grow in my ability to see that I am okay, stretch marks and all. I want to be a good Lauren, inside and out. Not just a skinny Lauren this time.