Body issues
I suppose they’re not unusual, women for years have been having issues with their body and the media’s constant focus on how its important to be a size 0, american sizes or to be super skinny its hardly surprising. I’m not immune to the influence of the media or of the people around me. For years, I was able to avoid all talk of diets and size and was happy with what I eat and never analysed what I had for breakfast or dinner. I eat what I wanted and excercised regurarly. Which is the way its supposed to be. But in the last year or so I think the constant ruminations of my work colleagues have started to rub off on me. I work with some people who border on the wrong side of skinny. Their definition of a large person is someone who is size 12. This should give you an indication of what they are like. Don’t get me wrong they’re not nasty people, they just have different definitions of size. So going
to lunch with them is sometimes an ordeal. For example I would have salad sandwiches, I nearly always make my own lunch, and a packet of crisps and they’d sit in front of me with some coleslaw and chicken commenting on what calories certain food has and so on. On the day I would be training I’d sometimes get a dinner, ie potatos and ver or chips and salad. This would be greeted with “God you’re eating an awful lot today” or some other exclamation. It takes a strong skin to consistently allow those comments to flow off your back. Even when I am training twice to 3 times a week it didn’t matter. I began to look critically at my body and wasn’t happy with it. Then again when are people happy with it?
I adapted Mammy2’s plan of eating healthily but not being silly about it. For example if I am training in the evening I can’t survive on a bowl of soup. There’s no way I’d have enough energy. Thankfully since we’ve moved to our new buildings lunch involves more people and people who do actually eat proper food so I’m less likely to glare my sandwich into the plate. I hang around with a group of guys and one of the guys is very into body image, he talks a lot about other peoples bodies and how they look and so on, not in a negative way but more in an observation way. Yet I let this get to me and start looking at my body again and thinking I am a heffalump. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suddenly thinking I have a problem with food or suddenly going to think Atkins diet is the way to go. I guess it annoys me that I can allow peoples comments about other people to reflect back on me and to think that the way I train or diet is wrong and not having an effect.
