It really all started when I began noticing I had fat around my stomach.
At 13, comparing myself in a bathing suit to a friend of mine, her stomach was flat and mine was, well, not.
My bathing suit sides would make my hip fat stick out, and when I sat down, I would have those dreaded rolls.
My friends and I, after having stayed up for 24 hours, decided to dress up as hippies at 6:00 o’clock in the morning, sit in bean bag chairs in the front driveway, and dance around, waking up the neighbors. A picture was snapped of me in a halter top, sitting, hunched over. The acne on my face was embarrassing, my frizzy hair was ugly, but my rolls is what topped the cake — my rolls. My disgusting, unacceptable rolls.
And there began my quest to have a flat stomach, especially when it was popular to wear shirts that showed off your navel. Crunches, crunches, and more crunches. Deciding to only eat when you are hungry. Checking in the mirror every morning to see if you have a flat stomach yet.
And even now, 11 years later, it’s still the one thing I’ve done every morning, even in recovery: check to see if my stomach is flat or not.
I told people in residential treatment that I would be happy to gain weight as long as my stomach stayed flat.
The rolls I had as a 13-year-old are no longer there. I’ve dieted, starved, and fasted them away for the past 11 years and I never want them back. Even in recovery, although I was 30 pounds heavier than I am now, I still had a somewhat flat stomach. Not concave by any means, but flat.
It’s the one thing I’m most insecure over, which is interesting given that nobody sees it. You’ll never catch me in a bathing suit. But it’s my own personal thing. My own personal thing I have to look at, checking every morning, to make sure it didn’t balloon over night and turn me into the 13-year-old girl I was with acne, frizzy hair, and rolls…
I often wonder how I am going to cope with ever getting pregnant.
It really all started when I began noticing I had fat around my stomach.
At 13, comparing myself in a bathing suit to a friend of mine, her stomach was flat and mine was, well, not.
My bathing suit sides would make my hip fat stick out, and when I sat down, I would have those dreaded rolls.
My friends and I, after having stayed up for 24 hours, decided to dress up as hippies at 6:00 o’clock in the morning, sit in bean bag chairs in the front driveway, and dance around, waking up the neighbors. A picture was snapped of me in a halter top, sitting, hunched over. The acne on my face was embarrassing, my frizzy hair was ugly, but my rolls is what topped the cake — my rolls. My disgusting, unacceptable rolls.
And there began my quest to have a flat stomach, especially when it was popular to wear shirts that showed off your navel. Crunches, crunches, and more crunches. Deciding to only eat when you are hungry. Checking in the mirror every morning to see if you have a flat stomach yet.
And even now, 11 years later, it’s still the one thing I’ve done every morning, even in recovery: check to see if my stomach is flat or not.
I told people in residential treatment that I would be happy to gain weight as long as my stomach stayed flat.
The rolls I had as a 13-year-old are no longer there. I’ve dieted, starved, and fasted them away for the past 11 years and I never want them back. Even in recovery, although I was 30 pounds heavier than I am now, I still had a somewhat flat stomach. Not concave by any means, but flat.
It’s the one thing I’m most insecure over, which is interesting given that nobody sees it. You’ll never catch me in a bathing suit. But it’s my own personal thing. My own personal thing I have to look at, checking every morning, to make sure it didn’t balloon over night and turn me into the 13-year-old girl I was with acne, frizzy hair, and rolls…
I often wonder how I am going to cope with ever getting pregnant.