thin

"thin" is an hbo documentary directed by lauren greenfield that takes place in florida at the renfrew center, a rehabilitation center for women battling anorexia and bulimia. i have always found it difficult to sit and watch women who have pencil-thin arms and being able to make out their spinal cord.what shocked me most was the reaction after the documentary was over and how three of the girls in attendance have had or have an eating disorder. it was a powerful documentary and discussion that brought me to tears.

it was upsetting to watch these women cry on a daily basis because in their mind, 100 lbs was disgustingly fat and the more they gained, they more they wanted to leave the center and fall back into their bad habits. one of the women couldn't even enjoy her birthday cupcake because it was too sweet and she wanted a bran muffin. another woman was asked to draw what she thought she looked like and the end result was a figure that could be equivalent to a stocky man. the art counselor then traced her on top of what she thought she looked like and the difference was obvious. but this woman proceeded to comment on areas of her body, i.e "saddle bags", "love handles", "breast lift" (etc.) in the center of her body, she wrote HELP ME. these women are trapped and in their mind, they look in the mirror and see someone twice their size. anything over 85 lbs is obese and the more i listened to these women talk about their daily fight with food, i reflected on my own personal weight problem.

i myself have never had an eating disorder and have lost all my weight in a healthy fashion but it doesn't mean i haven't wanted to lose more weight, quicker, so i could finally be skinny. i've never had a thin body type and now, while i look better than i have in a long time, i'm still overweight for my height. it's a constant obsession, worrying about calories and what food i should and should not eat, and the sooner america embraces fuller figured women, the sooner ordinary people will. i'm not perfect everyday and it is dissatisfying when i make myself eat a salad instead of a hamburger or chicken fingers. when im at the gym, sometimes i want to cry because i hate having to work harder than some of these girls who were born with thin genes. even with the latest tabloids, jessica simpson gaining 20 lbs, is absurd because she looks beautiful but since we can't make out her collar or hip bones, she is vowing to lose all of the weight she gained. it's a constant pressure that i just like many other women feel and it comes from all ends: the media, family, friends, the opposite sex (etc.) the number you see on the scale does not define your character or what you're capable of. that three digit number can destroy you if you let it crowd your thoughts. it's scary how they can run your life and i hope that i never let them get the best of me.

as i learn to embrace my curves and work with what i have, i hope that women who suffer with these disorders learn the same things and realize that being a size 2 or 16 is irrelevant. once you learn to love yourself the way you are, you can only go up and that's a beautiful thing.

fat tuesday

i'm not gonna lie - i didn't really understand fat tuesday until last night when my roommate explained it to me. since lent starts wednesday, and usually people give up junk food, fat tuesday is sort of a last hoorah. i personally believe in fat friday. after a week of eating well i indulge in some chinese or some take out from red robin , or if i'm feeling particurlarly indulgent i'll celebrate what i call "whale weekend", haha.

as far as lent goes, i'm not sure what or if i'm going to give anything up. i was thinking of a couple things today and they were weak at best: stop complaining, stop being mean, stick to the diet.. blah blah blah. lent is for people who don't do new years resolutions (oh, and catholics i suppose). instead of devoting yourself to something all year, you devote yourself to something for just a few weeks. i don't even go to church and i'm not going to get ashes (and i'll probably eat meat) so i'm thinking i'll sit this one out.

however, assuming i would use lent as the first step of a long process, i think what i'd like to give up most is letting one person continually get the best of me. i'm an overly sensitive person so i always try to rework a situation and make myself believe "this is what i want" and i just deal. my friendship with this person is not equal in the sense that i'm constantly there for him and willing to listen and comfort him but when the tables are turned, when it's me who needs a friend, i don't get the same in return. this certain individual has been in my life a long time and we were in love, we were friends, we didn't speak for a period of time and now, i don't know what it is. i want him in my life but it gets so hard because no matter how much i say i want things to change, they never do and we fall into the same obnoxious patterns. he knows i love and care for him, i truly do, and he takes advantage of it. i hate the feeling of regret because i don't regret the decisions i made but i do regret that him and i can never really be friends. there are a lot of feelings there, said and unsaid, that just make this close to impossible. i need to let go of what was because that is what is keeping me here in the first place. but how do you let go of the first boy you ever loved? what i need to do is look forward because eventually someone else will come along and as much as my friends say i deserve better, i hope one day i'll actually believe that and find the strength to move on.

on that note, enjoy those donuts and bagels because fat tuesday is over in half hour :)

4 days until break

today i went back to class after what was one of the best weekends i've had in a long time. i managed to stay awake for all of them, get in a decent work out, and suck it up to go to my night class - my shakespeare night class. i caught the last half hour of the secret life of the american teenager (the first-half i will watch tomorrow night online) and now i'm here, creating blogs and thinking of pointless things to say. february has come and gone and soon i will be on spring break, celebrating my sister's 29th and catching up on all the shakespeare plays i haven't read. time goes by so fast and tonight, i thought i'd write about something i was thinking of a couple weeks ago: the difference between highschool stephanie and college stephanie.

my freshman year of high school, i kid you not, i had no friends. i went out for the softball team and sprained my ankle the first practice i showed up to. sophomore year i continued with the no friends pattern, minus a few people i talked to during school, and i went for my first job: super stop & shop. i rocked that evergreen shirt and you were one lucky customer if i was the one bagging your groceries (until i quit in april for softball). i'm not sure if i had no friends these two years why my grades were so crappy but junior year, i didn't mess around. i got serious about work & was pulling off 3.7-3.8 gpas. by this time, i did have a small group of friends and life got fun again (how emo do i sound?) sophomore-senior year i dated a boy who changed my life in so many ways and i'll always be grateful for that experience (despite what i may feel about him now and love/marriage itself). if we could get physical for a moment, i won't lie that when it came to food, i took the brownie over the carrot stick. softball season would slim me down but i always had more to love. i usually kept to myself and was in one or two clubs, none for more than a year. i graduated with a solid gpa, a solid group of friends, and the solid idea i was going to king's college a political science major so one day i could be a lawyer.

WRONG. as soon as i got to king's, i changed my major to professional writing (thank you creative writing & mr. halaw). eventually i picked up a double in psychology, but my first semester this year dropped it in exchange for mass communications (thank you sara pokorny & the crown). instead of law school, im looking to be a journalist. i'll probably end up in a rat infested apartment somewhere in new york, living off crackers and green tea but i'll love what i do :) college freshman stephanie was similar to high school stephanie - minus the fact i became more outgoing, joined all sorts of clubs and eventually stepped on a treadmill. to date, i've lost almost 60 lbs and i'm hoping to lose a little more before summer. however, it's college sophomore stephanie i'd like to focus on. first semester i cut off my hair, got trendy, got pierced and tattooed and this year has proven to be a never ending surprise. i find myself in predicaments that high school stephanie NEVER thought possible. even summer stephanie took part in activities that high school stephanie didn't think could happen.

i know everyone in their life changes & grows but i particularly feel like a completely different person. i put myself out there, take chances, and i've gained a new sense of confidence and i stopped wishing to see someone else's face everytime i look in the mirror. i obviously can't get into specifics but anyone who knows me knows that highschool stephanie is no longer and may she rest in peace.