self esteem boosters

Thin privilege is a super shitty thing that needs to be acknowledged. But don’t forget that skinny girls are people, too! Even the ones who have been thin for their entire lives. And some of them:

• Have eating disorders even if you think they look naturally thin and not ‘anorexic looking’ or emaciated.
• Spend hours on the treadmill every day desperately trying to maintain their weight.
• Are terrified of gaining a few pounds because they think it will be so obvious on their frame.
• Count every single calorie they eat and every single calorie they burn.
• Obsess over their food.
• Think of nothing but their size.
• Are paralyzed by the fear of going up a size in their jeans.
• Are constantly wondering how much smaller they can get before people start to worry.

Anyone can have an eating disorder or be riddle with self doubt, so treat everyone nicely! We’re all fighting a battle.

Never feel guilty for eating. You are not a failure for giving your body what it needs.

Things that aren’t okay: Diet programs linking pro-ana and thinspo images on tumblr to their ‘diet’ website as a way to target their clients. By target I mean trigger. And by clients I mean teenage girls.

So not reblogging anything that links back to ‘how to lose weight fast’ (a diet website and not someone’s tumblr who is just desperate for followers) would be awesome!

Anonymous asked: a year ago i changed my eating habits because i was overweight. i ended up losing 54 pounds in a year. but the beginning of september 2011, i had a fear that anything i ate would make me gain my weight back. i went to a therapist and nutrrionest all year to get over my paranoia of food. ive gotten better. last night i had a piece of cake at my dads birthday party for the first time in 6 months & i feel so guilty and fat. i dont know how i can stop feeling like this:( i try and try :/

This is the problem with losing weight in a destructive manner, with a negative perspective of ourselves. You’ll never love yourself thin if you don’t love yourself fat (or chubby, or rail-thin, or obese, or sick, or scarred). Conquering your bad relationship with food relies on loving yourself and reinventing your view of your self. Is it easy? Absolutely not, but you have to persevere. Every single day you have to wake up, look at yourself in the mirror before even brushing your hair or washing your face, and pointing out two things you like about your body and three you like about your personality. Even if you don’t believe it at first, it’ll get easier to find things as you go along. I can now happily say I’m compassionate, kind, and giving, and that my hair looks nice this short and I really like my legs. And I mean those things now. I can promise that I haven’t always.

Anonymous asked: I gained a bit of weight over this past year and I'm trying to lose it by exercising and making healthier eating choices. I've been in recovery for an eating disorder for over a year. I'm having a really difficult time coping with the fact that I can lose weight and still eat. I've never lost weight the healthy way. Any suggestions on dealing with this? Thank you!

One, I’m really proud of you and you should be too! That’s awesome. The key statement there is making healthy choices. Don’t focus on losing weight, don’t focus on getting smaller clothes, don’t do the ‘when I’m thin’ thing. Get healthy. Don’t count calories. Replace white bread with whole wheat, diet soda with water and eat lots of lean protein and complex carbs. Even though I’ve never had an eating disorder, I’ve always thought less food will make me thinner too, especially less carbs. I stopped doing Jamie Eason’s livefit because I hated low carb so much, and started doing Body For Life. It’s a 40% protein 40% carbs, 20% fat to make up your daily diet. You don’t count calories. I was terrified but I’ve made huge gains. I feel happier. I’m not exhausted even though the workouts are intense. In four weeks I’ve gained tons of muscle and lost tons of fat and the scale hasn’t moved at all. Don’t believe the scale. It lies to you. It’s effected by water weight, what you ate that day, what food is still in your belly etc etc. No one can see the number on the scale or in your pants. Do it to feel healthy and happy and strong. Never ever workout or change your eating plan to look thinner. Who cares about that? Following a free workout and eating plan will probably work well for you, like Body for Life or one of the many on bodybuilding.com.

Anonymous asked: Hi, do you feel that the general public assumes fat people cannot have eating disorders? If thin people participated in The Biggest Loser (6 hour workouts and immense dietary restrictions) it would be an eating disorder, but it's okay to abuse fat people in our society. It hurts me because I'm a fat girl, and people come up to me in public to tell me diet tips to 'save' me, and due to my disordered eating past it is triggering.

Yeah, I think the general public definitely assumes that, as they aren’t educated correctly, and unless you do the research on your own, you won’t understand. I remember watching an anorexia PSA in 6th grade staring a skeletal girl who wouldn’t eat until her father literally force fed her peanut butter sandwiches. It was incredibly weird and disturbing. I believe there was also the implication that anorexia led her down a road of drugs and partying and rape and she was like a zombie. Every kids science book or health class just shows these sad, bony girls hunched over toilets or counting calories and it’s showing a margin of anorexia.

I think the public generally assumes that fat people can have over-eating disorders, but that’s it. I watch The Biggest Loser, and while I don’t consider it abuse, I think it’s unrealistic and gives the public unrealistic ideas about weight loss. They barely touch on nutrition, just noting that you have to burn/cut 3500 calories to lose a pound. They don’t discuss how many calories you should eat when you’re working out 6 hours a day. Another issue is that they do 6 hour cardio workouts. No one with a job or without a personal trainer can do that and they’ve always kind of hinted that they’re working out for that long, but only showing us a few HIIT workouts. People think they can lose 200 pounds in 16 weeks, but unless your ass is on the treadmill 6 hours a day, it isn’t happening. There are also claims of dehydration and extreme calorie cutting before weigh ins. Whether that’s true, I don’t know, but I do know that the entire program is impossible to maintain. I get that the point is to get the weight off, then later maintain it, but it still has to be a huge shock to go back to real life.

While I believe in getting healthy, the public needs to know that not all fat people are unhealthy and not all thin people are healthy. I am disturbed by the amount of kids sitting around playing video games and going online all day, but that’s because I think kids should be having more social lives. If you want to go sit on the lawn and talk to your friends all day and not move once, go ahead!

America needs to get healthier, that’s true, but they don’t need to get thinner.

I get asked a lot of I think fitspo can be harmful. The short version is yes, absolutely. If you’re obsessive and addicted to thinspo, turning that obsession onto fit ladies/men is just as dangerous. There’s still an obsessive need to be something other than yourself and the idea that your body isn’t good enough. Addictive personalities will transfer over, like alcoholics turning to cigarettes or food when they quit drinking.

Do I think fitspo in general is harmful and should be eradicated? No. Pictures of fit women and men can be super motivating, as long as you’re thinking, ‘I can do that,’ not, ‘Why don’t I look like that? I’m fat.’

So when is it healthy and when is it disorded?

Calorie counting

• Healthy: Making sure you eat enough calories to gain muscle or that your macros are in order. Going over your caloric limit and shrugging it off, reminding yourself that maybe 6 bowls of mac and cheese is too much.
• Unhealthy: Obsessively counting every calorie to make sure it equals an arbitrary number like 1200 calories. Being excited that you fell far below your calorie count. Punishing yourself with exercise and a negative attitude for going over your limit or not adding in exercise to get a net count.

Exercise

• Healthy: Studying plans and workouts on websites like Bodybuilding and Bodyrock to educate yourself. Working hard with a positive attitude. Patting yourself on the back after a hard workout even if you can’t see the results yet. Missing a workout and either letting it go or planning to make it up the next day, but never ever punishing yourself or getting down on yourself for it.
• Unhealthy: Pushing yourself so hard that you feel sick or faint. Blowing off important events to workout. Working out so much that you end up in a total caloric deficit. Beating yourself up psychically or mentally because you can’t see a change in your body right away.

The scale

• Healthy: Weighing yourself at the beginning of a workout plan, then not stepping on the scale again until it’s over. Laughing that you weighed 120 before your workout but later, you’re 122 from the bottle of water you drank during it. Remembering that the number doesn’t define you.
• Unhealthy: Weighing yourself daily and panicking every time your weight jumps. Assuming water weight is failure. Assuming weight gain from muscle is failure. Desperately trying to reach a number that no one else in the world is ever going to know.

Anonymous asked: My friend is trying to lose weight but she's doing it unhealthily by only eating one small meal a day, ive tryed to tell her that its not even gonna work like that but she wont listen because shes already lost about 10 kilos, will she continue to lose weight like that? how do i show her how unhealthy it really is?

She’ll drop, then gain, then lose, binge. It’s a terrible cycle. There’s lots of info about anorexia on the internet, but some major complications are:

. Heart problems including slow heart rate, palpitations, low blood pressure, mitral valve relapse, abnormal heart rhythms and general heart failure

. Anemia and other blood problems

. Bone density loss which may increase the susceptibility to fractures and osteoporosis in later years

. Swollen joints and weak muscles

. Hormonal imbalance which may cause the absence of a period or succeeding periods, growth problems or fertility problems

. Lung problems

. Decreased testosterone levels in males

. Gastrointestinal problems which may include constipation and bloating

. Electrolyte imbalances in the body fluids which may include low potassium, magnesium, sodium and chloride

. Kidney problems (kidney stones and kidney failure)

Plus there are great documentaries like THIN. Of course, you can’t make her do anything, but you can attempt to inform her. If she doesn’t listen, you’ll need to speak to an adult that you trust.

Anonymous asked: Sometimes, I expel a small amount of food after I've eaten. I don't like to say it's vomiting because I've been sick before from a legitimate physical illness and what I do feels nowhere near like that. I only ever use slight force to bring it up and on occasion taste acid. So is this normal? I admit that I have issues with food involving not eating enough but that is getting better. So since this isn't really vomiting, this is okay, right? I feel like a lot of people do this.

It’s never healthy to purge, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Even unintentionally you’d need to see your primary because that isn’t healthy. It could be anything from heartburn (that’s that burning sensation) to a gallbladder issue. If you’re doing it intentionally, you should still see your primary and he/she can refer you to a therapist. If you’re already having issues with food, this is just as escalation and definitely needs to be dealt with. You need to figure out where this is coming from and what’s making you do it, consciously or subconsciously.

Anonymous asked: I have had social anxiety for forever, but this year, my anxiety is really taking a toll on my health. Since October, I've been skipping lunch and heading to the library to avoid being seen eating alone. I've lost a lot of weight, and I've missed 3-4 periods. I'm down to one meal a day, and I feel pathetic. The only thing worse than starving myself is having people know I'm starving myself. This is silly, but I feel really trapped.

It’s not silly at all. It’s serious and scary. You really, really need to talk to someone professional (even if it’s just your parents or a school nurse at first) so you can get help with your anxiety. If not eating is your way of coping with the anxiety, that needs to be worked on first and the triggers for that need to be found and worked on. If the compulsion of only having one meal helps calm you, you need to learn to break that and realize that eating more than once won’t change everything. I know it’s scary, but try sitting down next to someone else who seems shy in one of your classes. You don’t even really have to talk, but I’m positive that there’s at least one other person there (or hiding in the library) who could use someone to sit with too. My mother works in the guidance office at my old high school and there are always kids who come in at lunch because they don’t want to sit alone. They let them hang out and eat and talk to them about changes they can make so they can eventually get into the lunch room. There’s undoubtedly at least one adult in that school who would help you (think nurses, librarians, guidance counselors, secretaries, or your favorite teacher).