Nourishment

[soos_mite_ah]

1/1/2021 Food Diary 

Lunch: 

Gluten free Margherita Flatbread: I got this flat bread from Schlotzsky's. It had mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce on a thin crust and was topped with roasted tomatoes, basil, and balsamic glaze. I got this because I was craving pizza for like 2 weeks now and I didn't feel like going all out and getting a loaded pizza.  I really liked it. My favorite part was the roasted tomatoes paired with the fresh basil, so much to where I went home and later that day learned to make some on my own so that I can use them as salad or pasta toppers. I just love cooked tomatoes in general and how sweet they can get. The balsamic glaze gave the flatbread some sweetness and a little bit of sourness which I really liked. I was ok with the mozzarella. Normally I'm a huge fan of cheese but ever since I addressed my cheese cravings, they kinda became alright. It felt refreshingly different having mozzarella cheese again after a long time but it wasn't like this OMFG I missed this so much feeling. The flat bread was a little greasy but it wasn't a big deal, I was still caught up with the basil and the tomatoes. My cravings felt satisfied after half of my flatbread but I went ahead and ate the whole thing because left over flat bread just isn't it. That's what I notice about my cravings lately. I don't get cravings that often but when I do they aren't as intense and they require smaller portions in order to be satisfied. 

While I don't have all of the ingredients used to make this, I did find the nutritional information on Schlotzsky's website. Granted I got the gluten free version so some of the values might be off. The flatbread I got is on the bottom line of the chart:

 

Snack: 

Banana with peanut butter and cinnamon: My go to snack when I want something sweet. As I was eating this I was thinking how when I have this snack, I don't crave chocolate as much. I guess it's because the sweetness from the banana scratches that sweet tooth itch. And because I love/crave chocolate, whenever that sweet tooth itch comes up, the first idea I get is chocolate. I think ever since I cut out a lot of sugar in my diet, I don't have that much sweetness in my diet. I know I have talked about vegetables tasting sweeter in previous posts but still. This also reminds me of this one video I saw about bento lunches in Japan and how they incorporate a large variety of flavors in small amounts. Like one small thing might be sweet, another side might be savory, another might be sour, and another might be salty therefore as a result, people don't get a lot of cravings because all of the flavors and their desires have been met. Maybe incorporating more sweetness in my diet can be an answer for my chocolate cravings. I was thinking about mainly in the form of fruit since fresh fruit doesn't have added flavors and because I tend to prefer chocolate that has fruity elements to them. 

Dinner: 

Grilled shrimp: I made this by grilling some shrimp and seasoning them with some Italian seasoning, red chili powder, and garlic powder. I also added some red bell peppers, onions, and garlic. I loved this because the shrimp was super fresh and I could taste it when I ate it for dinner

Cauliflower fried rice: I made more cauliflower fried rice in bulk today and added some carrots, green onions, and red bell peppers to the mix and fried all of that in olive oil. 

Grilled brussel sprouts: I cut each sprout in half and added red chili powder, garlic powder, and basil along with a little bit of olive oil and then grilled them. I really liked this and I can see myself eating it more often. 

Edited January 2, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Counting Calories

When I searched up how many calories was in the flatbread for my last post, I was shocked by how many calories there were (730 calories). I don't usually count calories because I tend to get carried away but I know I have this habit where whenever I go to a restaurant or fast food place, I tend to check the calories and get an option based on that, usually in the 450-650 calorie range. I know this has to do with the time when I restricted calories a lot and to a certain extend, I'm nervous about eating too many calories because I'm afraid that is going to mess up my weight. But it's like, if someone ate 730 calories for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they would have eaten 2190 calories which is average for a lot of adults. I guess part of me is conditioned by diet culture to not eat more than 1400-1600 calories per day just to maintain my weight. I know this isn't the healthiest mindset because the amount of calories you need can be determined by a lot of factors. But even then, 1400-1600 calories isn't enough for most people if they aren't trying to lose weight. I guess again because of conditioning, I have been conditioned to think that if I ate that much I will be huge and as a result my metabolism adapted accordingly. I have  linked videos regarding this phenomenon earlier in this journal but I will be including them again because they are soo sooo sooooo applicable to this post in particular. 

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

1/2/2021 Food Diary 

I was greeted with a nice juicy pimple this morning from the flatbread I had yesterday. That type of thing definitely gives me negative reinforcement  for my unhealthy habits pretty instantaneously. 

Breakfast: 

1 egg with avocado on a gluten free toast with some flax seeds: I was thinking of finishing the egg muffins I had but I really wanted something that tasted fresher so I made a fresh egg, over hard as usual, this morning. I also mashed up some avocados, mixed it with some balsamic vinegar and basil, and put that on a gluten free toast. I feel like I haven't had this breakfast in a while. I'm thinking of eventually doing without the toast in the future, but I'm just trying to use up whatever is in my fridge for now. 

Lunch: 

Chicken curry and cauliflower rice: This was the same curry my mom made a week ago or so. I had some cauliflower rice with it which was previously stir fried with bell peppers and onions.  I still need to learn how to make this from my mom but I do know that she uses good whole ingredients. Over all, pretty satisfying. 

Dinner: 

Zucchini noodles: These zucchini noodles are accompanied by broccoli, shredded carrots, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and bell peppers. I sautéed them in olive oil and added red pepper powder as well as some onion powder. I also added a couple spoonfuls of flaxseeds for an extra crunch. 

[soos_mite_ah]

Small Appetite

I am looking at my food diary entry for today and some entries from other days and idk why but it doesn't seem like a lot of food to me. I'm pretty full throughout the day and my portion sizes aren't necessarily huge but part of me wonders, am I eating enough? I guess one of the reasons why I might feel this way is because I don't feel bloated anymore after I eat. I remember before I would feel really full after 2 slices of regular bread to where I felt like I had a food baby, but ever since I cut out gluten, I don't get that reaction anymore. Once I cut out gluten, after my meals I felt full and satisfied but my stomach didn't feel cartoonishly huge if that makes sense. I had to get used to that full yet not bloated feeling and have an eye out for that in order to stop eating because for the longest time I associated feeling bloated with being full. I think that bloated feeling and how I interpreted it for fullness in the past may be the reason why I in a way accustomed my body to get by on less food and therefore unintentionally train myself to have a smaller appetite  because I was regularly not eating enough thinking I was full. It might also be how I have been conditioned to think that I don't need that much calories to function. Maybe my perception of how much I don't eat is influenced by how often I don't snack anymore? I used to be a huge snacker who craved food constantly before I made these changes. Or maybe I have this perception in my head of how it's normal to eat a lot of food because the portion sizes in the US are so big to where I can't finish them most of the time? Idk I'm a little confused tbh. I'm still figuring all of this out and that's ok. 

Edited January 3, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

God dammit I'm so close. I just want clear skin ???

[soos_mite_ah]

1/3/2020 Food Diary 

Ok so today is a bit of a weird day. My dad wanted to take us on a road trip of sorts because he is tired of being stuck in the house all the time so we spent the day on the road, driving for 8 hours, for a total of 600 miles only to come back home at the end of the night. So as a result we had most of our meals outside the house. While eating out isn't a habit of mine, I guess today's entry will shed light on what my preferences for eating out is like. Since I did a lot of eating outside, I'm going to provide the nutritional information I found on each of the things I ordered from the websites of their respective restaurants.  

Breakfast: 

1 banana with peanut butter and cinnamon: We left in the morning but I wanted to get in a quick but very filling breakfast in so that there is one less meal for me to worry about and because I didn't know when we were going to stop for food. I also added some flax seeds since I was sure that I wouldn't get those in any other way. 

Snack: 

3 jalapeno poppers: I got these at Jack in the Box. My parents went through the drive through so they can get breakfast. They kept insisting I get something so I got these jalapeno poppers. They are basically 3 jalapenos that are deep fried and filled with cheese and served with a side of ranch. I haven't had something fried to this extent in a while so I thought why not. Plus it's only 3 small jalapenos so I thought it couldn't hurt.

(I know the formatting for the nutrition facts are awful on the jack in the box website. The first image is just to show what the colors mean while the second image has the nutrition facts of what I actually got. The 3 jalapenos I got are is the top row on the second image. I highlighted the numbers.) 

 

Lunch: 

Green Goddess Cob Salad: I got this at Panera bread. It was really good. I only used about half of the dressing that I got (given that the nutrition facts on the site may be a little off since it assumes you used all of the dressing). I'm not sure what was in the dressing but it paired well with the salad which had arugula, romaine, kale, 1 hard boiled egg, chicken, pickled red onion, cherry tomatoes, and avocado. I don't know what it is about salads in restaurants, but to me they always taste better. I thought before maybe it's the dressing but this time I didn't use much of the dressing the gave me. Maybe for this particular salad it's the chicken and the pickled onions. I normally don't add meat to salads at home so there is that. The pickled onions was a nice touch tbh. I really enjoyed that. 

Dinner: 

Chipotle Veggie Bowl: On this veggie bowl I got what I normally get from Chipotle which includes a small amount of rice, fresh salsa, guacamole, black beans, fajita vegetables, and a small amount of tomato red chili salsa. This was super filling. This order used to be my go to but if I'm going to be honest, I felt awful after eating this. I felt really bulky, bloated, and lethargic. I felt so tired and sleepy after eating to where I almost didn't write this post. I don't know what it was. I mainly got vegetables. I didn't get a lot of rice but I think that might be the culprit. I haven't had rice in a long time and I guess I always felt this way when I ate rice but I didn't realize it until now because I before I didn't have a period of not eating rice to know better. I had to recheck if rice was gluten free which it is, but I guess I still don't get a good reaction from it. I checked the mirror a couple hours after eating and I immediately broke out so there's that. Over all, probably won't go here for a while.  Also their website has a place where you can create your own bowl and check the nutrition on that so I just reentered everything I got and this is what nutritional information they spit out:  

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Chocolate Haul

I am going to try to get over my chocolate cravings. Upon cleaning up my diet I noticed that my sugar cravings, and really cravings in general really decreased. But do still crave chocolate. It's the only food that I really crave. I thought I had a problem with having too much sugar in my diet and then upon doing these regular food diary entries, I realized that I don't have a sugar problem rather I specifically have a chocolate problem. Most of the time when I have something sweet, there is chocolate involved. So I'm hypothesizing that if I take care of my chocolate cravings, I won't really have any problems with sugar like at all. 

Now, how am I going about this? I did a chocolate haul of sorts where I bought my favorite chocolate and created a small stockpile. When people think of getting over an addiction when it comes to food, people usually think along the lines of getting rid of the food entirely so that it is out of sight and out of mind. In my experience that works in certain circumstances when the reason for the cravings is familiarity. Like in many areas of life, we are attracted to not things that are necessarily healthy for us but things that seem familiar. Therefore once you get rid of the familiarity by distancing yourself from said food, you stop craving it. This method has worked for me in the past with foods like bread, pizza, fried foods, soda, and more. But it didn't work with some foods, namely cheese, chocolate, and ice cream. 

I felt like I was always craving cheese and chocolate. I also found an alternative way to deal with cravings that don't involve cutting out the food in question. This alternative way involves eating the food you crave until you reach a point where you get tired of it, the food loses it's novelty, and you don't crave it because it doesn't feel special to you anymore. Often times in the beginning this seems like self sabotage because it's like you let yourself go all out with the food you're "not supposed to be eating." You end up shaming yourself and feeling bad which then feeds into the novelty of the food even more because it gets branded as a "guilty pleasure" of sorts. But if you keep eating without judging yourself while being mindful of how the food in question affects you physically, eventually, you're naturally going to want to stop without having to force yourself to stop.

That's what I did to cheese and ice cream and now I don't crave them anymore. I still let myself eat these foods every now and then but because the craving aspect isn't there any more, I'm much more in charge of portion sizes because I don't feel this need to binge anymore. I don't feel the need to binge or stockpile anymore because I'm out of the scarcity and restrictive mindset that was creating the novelty factor. I don't judge myself for eating these foods and when I occasionally have a craving, it takes a much smaller amount to satisfy those cravings. Before if I was craving cheese for example, I would have a huge bowl of mac and cheese and if I was craving ice cream for example, I would have a three scoop banana split. Now when I do crave cheese, I'm satisfied with a small square of cheese just to scratch the itch. And when I crave ice cream, I find myself satisfied by eating like half a scoop. 

I'm trying to do the same method with chocolate, hence why I did a whole chocolate haul. Me going on this chocolate haul isn't one big binge. There is a method to this madness lol. I got one of each of these. Here is the stuff I bought: 

 dark chocolate orange: Since the holidays are done, these oranges are like half off so I got one of those. 

Dark chocolate pomegranate: I tried the blueberry version of this last month and I loved it but I also wanted to try this out as well

 

Mounds: These are these coconut candies that are covered in dark chocolate. I haven't had these in like a year so I thought I'd get one bar. Each bar has two pieces. 

Ghirardelli dark chocolate raspberry: These are these dark chocolate squares with raspberry filling. I never had these and I was simply intrigued since I do like raspberry filling and chocolate together. 

So yeah, I'm going to eat these until my chocolate cravings more or less go away. Given the state of my chocolate cravings, it's unlikely I'll go all out and binge on it right away. Even after I bought it, I didn't have this immediate impulse to just dig in which I noted because prior to my diet change I would have really gone all out and ate most of it by now. I can see myself having like a piece or two every day to every other day or so. I know earlier in this journal when I was trying to get rid of regular bread and cream cheese from my diet completely I would have one slice of French bread with a little bit of cream cheese to get rid of the cravings and within a couple weeks or so, those cravings were completely gone. I can see my chocolate cravings following a similar trajectory.   

Edited January 4, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Dark chocolate is my go to when I'm having cravings. I absolutely hate white  chocolate. Milk chocolate is okay imo. I will eat milk chocolate, but to me it's nothing too special. After watching this, now I'm going to only go with dark chocolate. I'm not here for fake chocolate lmaooooo

[soos_mite_ah]

1/4/2020 Food Diary 

Seriously.... I don't know what it was about the Chipotle veggie bowl but I woke up feeling TERRIBLE this morning. It was the same feelings of lethargy, tiredness, bulkiness, and bloating I felt last night. There was a little bit of nausea thrown into the mix as well. I skipped breakfast because I didn't feel good. I wanted to skip lunch but I decided against it because my body still needs some type of food to function throughout the day. I felt much better after having brunch and a bowl movement (sorry I know tmi), but I still felt drowsy and tired throughout the entire day. 

Brunch: 

Spinach and banana smoothie: This has a banana, some unsweetened peanut butter, unsweetened almond milk, a little bit of vanilla extract, and a whole lot of spinach. I didn't feel like eating breakfast or lunch but because I figured I needed something in my body, I decided to opt for a smoothie. That way I could get some food in even though I don't feel like eating solid food. It tasted really sweet despite it not having any sugar because of the banana. Really all you can taste is the banana, the milk, and a little bit of the peanut butter. I added two handfuls of spinach into the mix but in this smoothie, you don't taste the spinach. It just gives it a nice rich green color and some more nutrition. 

Snack: 

Chocolate: I did my chocolate haul that I explained in my last post in this journal. I bought all of the chocolate and had a small amount of each. I had one piece of the Mounds bar (so half of it), a few of the chocolate pomegranates, one chocolate orange slice, and half of a square of the Ghirardelli raspberry chocolate. I was going to have the whole square but I didn't feel like it tbh. The Mounds bar was ok. I normally like coconut in sweet things but with chocolate it wasn't all that. The raspberry chocolate was also alright. I think I like raspberry and chocolate together in a cake rather than in chocolate. The chocolate pomegranates were amazing as was the chocolate orange slice. I really liked those two. 

Dinner: 

Kale Salad: In this salad I had kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, artichoke and spinach hummus, olives, tomatoes, green onion, flax seeds, bell peppers, tahini, avocado, balsamic vinegar, a couple slices of dried tomatoes, and a very small amount of the green goddess dressing I saved from yesterday. I felt much better after having this salad and a little bit like my usual self. I can see myself feeling better and back to normal by tomorrow.  

Snack: 

Egg muffin with spinach, kale, bell peppers, onions, and turkey: I was getting really bad sugar and carb cravings after dinner. It didn't feel like my usual cravings I get now a days when I simply want something sweet. Then I realized that I had no protein today so I popped an egg muffin in the toaster to heat it up and ate that. And as I thought, it helped me satiate my cravings. I noticed that when I get a good amount of fat and proteins, I don't get as many cravings. 

Edited January 5, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

I'm probably going to take a break from doing these food diary entries for like a week. I'm catching myself get nitpicky  on this journey that is intended on improvement over time. Being too rigid and perfectionistic is often a problem for me when it comes to developing a healthy relationship with food. And in order to create healthy habits around food, it's important to go in with the correct mindset as the foundation. 

Edited January 6, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Fruits 

I know in general I don't have a lot of fruits in my diet other than banana and avocado. I don't have anything against fruits. I like a lot of them but I simply don't find myself reaching for them but if its around or someone gives me some, I don't mind having them. The only fruits I really don't like are melons  and unfortunately, they are always there in a fruit salad when I try to buy them somewhere. I'm thinking of increasing the amount of variety of fruits I eat on a regular basis to have a little bit more variety and also get some more vitamins and minerals in. 

Some fruits I instantly thought of that I really like 

• watermelon 
• lychees
• guavas 
• pomegranate 
• strawberries 
• grapes 
• blue berries 
• raspberries and black berries occasionally 
• grape fruit 
• pineapples (especially when paired with meat or something savory) 
• kiwis 
• apples, oranges, and pairs (but not super often, idk why those always feel kind of basic because they seem like they are always there hahahaha) 
• lemons and limes (This is a little weird but I like to eat lemons and limes just straight up. Like if a couple slices are given to me in a dish I could just peel the outer skin and eat it like an orange. Also I really like this in water. I know people pair a lot of fruits with water but to me lemon/ lime water is the only one that does it for me. I don't think it has any special detox properties but it is just really refreshing) 

And my college did this thing in the dining hall where they would always 2 large pitchers of water on the side with some fruits in it. They had different fruits every day but my favorite ones were the lemon water, the orange water, and the melon water (I know I said I don't like melons but this is the only place where I actually do like it). Idk, ever since I had to move back into my parent's house because of COVID, I haven't had fruity water and I think part of me just misses it. 

This is a random note but I also find fruit when they are either in desserts or used as decorations for desserts is so beautiful. To me they make sweets more beautiful (and more appetizing to look at/ taste) than any other elaborate design. And I know they always say that you eat with your eyes first.  For example the right cake looks prettier and more appetizing than the left one. I guess fruits as part of an aesthetic just scratches that primal nutritional itch that is in the cave man part of my brain in a way.

I also went through this phase as a kid where I watched a lot of baking shows where people decorated wedding cakes in really elaborate and over the top ways. Most of those cakes to me were absolutely amazing and too good to eat because they looked like these amazing sculptures and works of art. But for me, if I were to go all out on a cake, I want all the decorations to be fruits and maybe some flowers. Idk to me fruits just look like these pretty little sparkly jewels I guess because of the vibrant colors. But I don't like fruit when it's directly baked into a cake like Christmas fruit cake. I like it more paired with an airy yet squishy sponge cake or a chocolate cake.  Something like the picture below honestly so beautiful to me. I just want to dig in. And I'm not normally like that when it comes to cake. 

And speaking of desserts and fruits, I always wanted to get one of those edible arrangements where they get you a bouquet of fruits. I might just get myself one of these for Valentines day if I get too impatient in waiting for a relationship. But I normally just stick to chocolate covered strawberries since those tend to be less expensive. 

 

I didn't intend for this post to go this direction. I was going to just going to talk about how I want to add more fruits to my every day diet but I got side tracked and I am just having fun at this point. And I think that is very important. I know in a lot of circles that emphasize diet and healthy eating, people harp on this idea of how "food is fuel." I agree with that statement especially when it comes to becoming more mindful of the kinds of foods you eat so you pick options that are more nutrient dense. But as with a lot of things, sometimes I feel that the whole "food is fuel" mentality can go too far in the other direction where people just stop having fun with food. I know I have talked about this elsewhere on my journal but it eventually leads to seeing eating healthy as a chore that you need to do instead of something that can be enjoyed. And in the worst case scenarios, it can lead people to being really strict with themselves and being restrictive to whatever goal they have in mind which isn't sustainable because that can strain a healthy relationship with food and focus too much on the outcome rather than the journey which then in turn can sabotage the creation of healthy habits in the first place. 

[soos_mite_ah]

The Limitations of the Body Part 1: Dealing with Weight and Height

I have had issues with my body image since I would say I was around 10 years old. A lot of the contributing factors had to do with cultural standards of beauty and the way my mom modeled "healthy eating" and her relationship with her body. I remember that in the early 2000s, the ideal look for a woman's body was a lot like Paris Hilton, really tall, really skinny, thin eyebrows, blond hair and blue eyes. As a short chubby brown kid, I was the opposite of all of those things and as a result, I was quickly labeled as the ugly kid growing up by other small children mainly because kids at that age are super impressionable to cultural messages and don't have as much critical thinking or life experience to combat unhealthy messages. My mom was always insecure about her size and frequently went on restrictive diets. Those would trickle down to the rest of the household as  she would nitpick on any food choice my dad or I made. 

As I moved into my preteen years, everyone was getting their growth spurt. I remember being really insecure about my height not because I had a problem with being short but because I had this idea that my weight would be better distributed if I was taller. My mom didn't help. She would say that because I'm chubby, I'm not able to grow as tall as my other friends and that I needed to lose weight. Around this time I went through a phase as a still pretty impressionable 13 year old, I really wanted to look like a model. I wanted to be 5'8" and a 110lbs which doesn't make any sense to me now genetically because my mom is 5'2" and my dad is 5'6." But that didn't stop me from trying. This was also during the time Tumblr was really big and had a bunch of toxic thinspo/ pro ana things circulating around. Like I didn't get fully sucked into that but I remember thigh gaps really being a thing and how it was considered attractive to have bones sticking out specifically your collar bone, your rib cage, and your hip bones.

And that's when I really started restricting my food. I started cutting out more and more foods and started obsessively counting calories. Luckily I snapped out of that relatively quickly, though those mindsets still trickle into my psyche every now and then. The worst part of me starving myself was that I was essentially congratulated for it. When a really skinny girl gets an eating disorder, people get super concerned and get her help. When a thicker girl gets an eating disorder, people ask her what her secret is for weight loss and tell her she needs to keep going. That's why now when people lose weight, I don't congratulate them or comment on their body because I personally don't know whether this person is implementing healthy habits or if the are coming towards weight loss with a healthy mindset. I remember everyone praising me for how skinny I have gotten. I remember people would come up to  me and ask me what I did so they can do the same. I remember when people asked me, I would hesitate because I can't just be like "oh I only eat once a day and limit myself to 500 calories daily, I work out 2 hours a day, and I drink a ton of water so I don't think about my hunger ques." Instead  I resorted to a generic answer like healthy eating and keeping track of portion controls. I had a little bit of shame and cognitive dissonance because I knew what I was doing was wrong and shouldn't be perpetuated.

Even my primary care physician told me I need to continue whatever I was doing because it's working and that I could stand to still lose 10 more pounds. I believe I was 5'0" tall at this time and weighed 105lbs which would put my BMI at 20.6 and if I was 95lbs it would put me at 18.6 which is the borderline between normal weight and underweight. That's when I really started being skeptical of things and started questioning what is healthy for me personally. I knew that what I was doing wasn't ok or sustainable.  

Soon I found out that the BMI system isn't the most indicative to a person's health. It just takes the ratio between your weight and your height and because of that it can't take into consideration things related to body composition like muscle mass, water weight, etc. The measurements given by the BMI can be skewed by height so if you're short, you're more likely to have a higher BMI despite being an average weight while if you are tall you are likely to have a lower BMI and be labeled as underweight even if you are in healthy weight. Muscle mass is also something that effects BMI. A lot of people who are athletic and have a lot of muscle mass maybe characterized as overweight even if they are in a weight that is healthy and functional for them.

I'm personally short and muscular so the BMI screws me over twice. I'm 5'2" and I have a lot of leg muscles without really working out because of the metabolism I inherited from my dad. That man hasn't done leg day since 1982, sits on the couch all day, is in his 60s but still has ripped legs. For me, it doesn't take me a long time before I start gaining muscle whenever I do something like weight training. Often times when I do gain weight, my clothes stay fitting the same way or sometimes my clothes feel looser because either my body composition (fat to muscle ratio) stays to the same or I end up being more muscular. Knowing this, I rely more on measuring myself since fat does take up more space than muscle even if it does weigh the same. For me personally, the scale isn't helpful and can give misinformation in regards to where I'm at with my health. It also can mess with me mentally to where I put too much emphasis on it and try to lose weight by any means possible causing me to working against my body instead of with it. Gaining weight easily but having it be muscle is how my metabolism works. And realizing that has saved me so much headache in terms of agonizing over the number on the scale. 

And speaking of family, I'm not big or anything but regardless of my weight, I always have a little bit of stomach fat. I had that little bit of chub for as long as I can remember and it was still there when I was struggling with an eating disorder and had a 23 in waist. And then one time I realized that literally everyone in my family has the same thing including all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. I have two cousins who have had similar body image issues growing up and still now they work out daily, is basically keto, and tracks macros constantly. But in the end of the day, they agonize over how they don't have a six pack or a flat stomach. I feel that having a flat stomach and wash board abs is not attainable for me genetically because of the way my body stores fat. I still struggle with how insecure I am about my stomach but I try to reassure myself by telling myself that healthy doesn't look the same for everyone. That's a whole other can of worms tbh. But yeah when I catch myself going into a spiral about the way that I look and I get tempted to do something super restrictive, I try to keep in mind my height, metabolism, and the way that my body stores weight.

Edited January 7, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

The Limitations of the Body Part 2: Dealing with Different Body Structures

 

Another thing that I found to be helpful in developing a healthier body image is figuring out what my body type even was. I'm not talking about whether you are apple shape, pear shape, or hourglass. I feel that the whole fruit system that people made up for female body types is too simplistic and talks more about weight distribution and proportions rather than bone structure and muscle structure. I found the Kibbe body type system some time ago on YouTube and I found that this system is more nuanced. The system also underscores that your weight can fluctuate but you will still have the same structure. 

I remember talking to a friend about this particular system. We both have similar body types in terms of proportions but we have very different structures and that didn't make sense to us. I always wrote that off as a height thing but then again she is only 2 inches taller than me so in my head I figured there was more to this story so we both took this body type test. 

This test illuminated a lot of things for me when I first discovered it. It made sense why I always had a rounder, softer appearance regardless of how much I weighed. I am closest to a theatrical romantic body type on this test which means that I have very rounded features but I am slightly narrow. I always thought I looked fat because of how my arms and legs were more rounded out instead of straight and elongated. I can't find any decent diagrams but watching the videos above will make a lot more sense as to what I'm talking about.  At one point I was also self conscious about how rounded my shoulders were (its more like example C/D rather than example A on the figure above).  After taking this test, it made me think "ok maybe I'm not fat but this is just the way that my body naturally contours." And that gave me a lot of peace. 

My friend on the other hand is the opposite of my body type. Instead of more rounded features, her features are more long, broad, and elongated. I remember she was talking to me after this test we took together and she mentioned to me how she always felt like she had to lose weight despite more or less having a flat stomach because her waist was more straight (like example B directly above) instead of curving inward (like example D directly above). Again the Kibbe system doesn't have to do with weight rather it has to do with muscle and bone structure so my friend was telling me that her hopes of getting a smaller waist to get that inward rounded contour isn't realistic for her body because she is simply not built like that.

She also started talking about how she was always a little jealous about the way my legs looked because they had that rounded silhouette but was also really toned and muscular. I basically explained how it is a combination of my metabolism and my body type. Upon that I also mentioned how I liked how much straighter as opposed to rounded her legs and arms were and how I used to strive for that instead and again it boiled down to a combination of metabolism and body type. And after having that conversation we both came to the conclusion that in regards to way our body looks, it is what it is and just because we don't look like a certain ideal or that our healthy weight looks different from another person doesn't mean that we are doing something wrong, that we aren't "disciplined" enough in our diets or exercise regime, or that there is something wrong with us. 

Also, my favorite thing about the Kibbe body type system is that there isn't an ideal and that all of the body types are described in a neutral and positive way. I know with the fruit system, the ideal is being an hourglass and if you were say more pair shaped, you would be given fashion advice in regards to how to look more hourglass. I found more videos on the Kibbe body type system in regards to fashion and what I really liked about it, other than the solid advice, was that the advice on what you should wear centered around what brings out your body type and honors it rather than what you should wear to look like a different body type. And I think that is really important from a body image perspective. It goes back to the concept of understanding what makes your body unique and working with that instead of working against it in order to be what you're not. 

To me it's very important to know where the limits of your body lie. By understanding those limits, you can set yourself free from unrealistic expectation and setting yourself free from unrealistic expectations that you will never reach no matter how hard you try can help you break out a lot of neurosis. Essentially you aren't beating yourself up or getting frustrated trying to smash a square peg into a round hole so to speak. I know that I'll never look like an Kendal Jenner no matter how hard I try. To look like her, I would have to lose 40lbs some how which isn't realistic or healthy considering how easily I gain muscle and how the excess weight I carry isn't body fat. I would also have to remove a rib so that I have a narrower silhouette. I would also have to get a breast reduction since no mater what my weight is my boobs are fairly large. And finally even if I some how managed to do all of that by spending money on plastic surgery and going on a dangerous diet, I would somehow still have to magically grow 8 inches in height. In other words, none of the things I need to do to achieve this look is realistic or feasible and instead of beating myself up for that by going on unhealthy diets, I need to accept the way that I look and try to do what's best for me. 

[soos_mite_ah]

@modmyth I feel like when you're in school, as a woman, you can get screwed over no matter what you look like. We all sit around wanting to look like each other. I definitely went through a phase where I wanted to be tall and I have taller women come up to me and tell me how they wish they were at my height. At it's unhealthiest, it's a bunch of women beating themselves up, seeing each other as competition, and having to deal with constant comparison.  I was in a good group of friends growing up and to an extent this manifested in a healthier way where we hyped each other up for the features we liked in each other even though none of us were necessarily the "ideal" whatever the hell that means. We were all average looking, and I don't mean that in a way to downplay the way they look but I mean to say that you don't have to be considered "exceptionally beautiful" to find beauty in someone or something. To me, having a rigid perception of what beauty is tells more about the person doing judging than the person, place, or thing they are judging. I'm trying to expand my definition of beauty both when it comes to my body image but also in other areas of my life. 

I also really feel the whole skinny fat thing. I'm not super big, often times I feel that way because I'm not perfectly toned all over. Now a days, I would describe my body image as significantly better than when I was younger but I still have little habits and limiting beliefs that trickled into the way I move about the world everyday. Especially when it comes to diet and nutrition, there is so much misinformation out there, dangerous misinformation at that, because we live in a time centered around instant gratifications and where diets are  designed to get you to get skinny regardless of what that might cost. For me, I think now a days the biggest misconceptions I need to tackle is how I have to skip breakfast, and keep cutting calories when in reality I'm probably not eating enough. I'm pretty sure that came about because I put some figures into a calculator to see how many calories I need and it told me I needed like 1400 calories just to maintain my weight and because there is this notion that if you are shorter than average, you can't eat as much as a regular adult without having your health and weight go down the drain.  But there are more extreme forms of misinformation and losing weight fast and at all costs. Like I remember one time a girl I knew got a really bad stomach flu or something and lost a ton of weight in a short period of time and I remember there were people who joked about it and were like "oh I need the same stomach bug so that I can get a six pack lol." I know they weren't serious but it does reflect the attitudes that circulate around health and weight loss. As a result, because there is so much bs out there, it can often be difficult to navigate and find what really works for you

The BMI thing is a very flawed tool of measurement. I get why doctors use it. It's very quick and convenient so when you are having a busy day, it's much easier to but your weight and height into a BMI calculator as opposed to going through the whole process of finding out your body fat percentage and having patients track their habits for a week. Plus, I'm pretty sure it has to do with their training and what they are required to do. From what I understand, the BMI can give you a very rough estimation of your health and because there is too many factors to consider when it comes to health as it relates to weight, the BMI essentially paints people with one broad stroke.

The biggest problem I have with the BMI is when it is treated as an end all be all metric where even if you are 10lbs overweight, you are suddenly a danger to yourself and have to start losing weight immediately. In this area, I agree with a lot of what the body positivity movement has to say when it comes how healthy can look different to different people. Granted there are always people who takes things too far and assume that you can be healthy at 350lbs because your blood work comes out fine, but that's a separate issue (even then, it might not be healthy but fat and sick people still deserve basic respect). For me personally, the only time my BMI went to the normal range was when I had really disordered habits. And even then I didn't have a flat stomach or abs. That weight might be seen as healthy according to that metric, but it was far from it when taken everything else into consideration.

And also doctors saying "just lose weight" as a remedy for all health problems can be dangerous because you can misattribute the reason for a disease to eating too much. Don't get me wrong, too much body fat can be linked to a number of health issues but it is incorrect to say that body fat is the sole factor in every single thing. I can't think of an example off the top of my head but I remember seeing situations where overweight people would go to the doctors office with some type of pain or discomfort and the doctor would write it off as "oh you're just fat, lose some weight and you'll be fine," when in reality that discomfort wasn't even weight related and was for something else like a tumor or horomones etc. There are some horror stories that I remember reading about that really threatened people's health because they didn't get the proper treatment in a timely manner because their health issues were just dismissed as "you're fat". 

I think the doctor that told me that I could still lose some weight despite being at a healthy bmi did so because I was 14 at the time and I wasn't in the 50th percentile weight wise for my height and I was still on the higher end of the spectrum. 

Edited January 10, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Fashion and the Sexualization of Curvier Bodies

One of the many reasons why women are drawn to dieting, losing weight, or may consider wanting to change some aspect of their body is because they want to look good in certain clothes. And I will admit that I am one of those people. One thing that fashion does  not consider at all is people with big boobs (and, well, bigger people in general). Personally, I find it difficult to find clothes that fit me properly. Either a shirt fits me on the chest and is super loose for the rest of my body causing this tent like effect that makes me look like I'm 3 times my actual size or a shirt fits the rest of my body well but it is tight around the chest causing me to look like I'm about to take a seat on the black casting couch. There isn't anything wrong with the later when I'm trying to find clothes for clubbing because well everything looks oversexualized on me but there's one problem, I don't go partying and I don't need clothes like that in my wardrobe for an occasion that very rarely comes.  And I find ill fitting to walk into class or work looking like a big titty anime girl. There is a time and place for those things.  

But why does fashion ignore people with bigger boobs, or hell curvier women in general? I guess to figure that out, it can be helpful to understand why fashion prefers really tall and skinny models.  Well it began as something that was out of convenience. Taller skinnier people are kind of like hangers. When designing clothes, it's easier to make clothes on a more standard neutral body (idk how else to really phrase it) than to have to take into consideration different curves and shapes. While I understand it's out of convenience, to me it also feels like incompetence. That's like a hair stylist saying that they only know how to style straight hair because it is easier to work with. Not only are you excluding a large group of people that may want your services and give you money (more on that and how it relates to fashion later), but you are also showing your lack of versatility and a presence of laziness in your craft. 

Another reason why fashion doesn't want to have curvier models is because they believe that the curves will distract a person from the clothes themselves. I remember reading this one article about how in the 1950s, they wouldn't let Marilyn Monroe model any clothes because they thought that people would be too distracted by her boobs and her butt to pay attention to what she was actually wearing. First of all, that is just plain sexualization. If you're distracted by Marilyn's figure, it's not her problem or the designer's problem, it's yours. Second, the whole beauty with fashion as an art form is that fashion is a functional part of every day life. Key word: functional. So in my opinion, if it doesn't even work for a large portion of people, what does it say about the functionality and again, versatility of the design?  

Finally, fashion ignores curvier women because, well it can and it wants to. It isn't exactly a very inclusive industry. But regardless of what beauty standard you have, it will always exclude the vast majority of women because women are very diverse and there isn't one look that fits a large portion of them. Even if someone like Tess Holiday was the mainstream ideal, most women still wouldn't measure up to that standard. Nevertheless, the fashion industry fixates on tall skinny models, and as a result my next question is, what makes this body type seen as so exclusive and unattainable when you can probably twist any body type as exclusive and unattainable. Why tall and skinny? 

Luckily, I once had to read a 20 page paper for my college sociology class on why that is so. So apparently it's because women without curves communicate this sense of sexual unavailability and purity. Those two things gives an essence of exclusivity and unattainability. Lots of things that pertain to fashion also have elements of elitism, classism, etc. rooted into it. Especially now in the U.S., I can see why skinniness would be held as a status symbol. If you are skinny, it often means that you have the time to work out and take care of yourself by mfor example, cooking at home and the money to afford high quality food. You can easily go to a vending machine and see that water costs $1.75 while a soda costs $0.99 or go to a gas station where you can get 3 donuts for $3.00 but if you want a salad that's going to be around $6.00. 

I also had this experience in college as well. I currently attend a college that is stereotyped for rich kids mainly because a large portion of the student body is represented by upper class white kids. I am going to this school because of scholarship money. In other words, in a way I'm here on a bribe. And being around people who come from a very different background than my own has been a very educational experience for many reasons. While I was expecting a lack of racial diversity when I set foot on campus, one type of lack of diversity  that I wasn't prepared for was the lack of diversity in terms of body types. There are no thic people on campus. Everyone is skinny. If you don't have a six pack you are considered fat. And all of the girls are wearing the same over priced Lululemon leggings and look like they are about to go to the gym for work out. I asked a friend wtf this was all about because I thought I was seeing patterns that weren't there and I thought I was going insane and she explained to me how being as skinny as possible is a huge status symbol among the rich. For a solid semester, I walked around feeling like I was the only one with tits and an ass and eventually that started making me self conscious because I felt like I was a fat cow that stuck out in the crowd. I've even had my really skinny friends get self conscious because of the standards in my university and how whenever there is food present there is always a ton of people talking about dieting and restricting food. Over all this environment hasn't been helpful for me to be more body positive. 

The whole idea skinny tall women being painted as a symbol of grace, sexual unavailability, and purity also made sense because I saw and experienced the exact opposite as someone who is short and curvy. I know that curvier women are often stereotyped as being promiscuous. People assume that you are putting everything out there for everyone to see even if you are just wearing normal clothes and simply, well, existing. I remember one time when I was 14 and my friend and I wanted to match t shirts. We were wearing the exact same shirt but because of the way I was shaped, people made me change immediately because it was "distracting" *sigh*. And while women in general regardless of body type fall prey to being sexualized for simply existing, sometimes I feel that it is worse when you are either curvy or bigger. When you are built that way, you aren't seen in a graceful, or elegant way. It's always sexy. I think the following article does articulate this very well. I know it's from the daily mail and they aren't exactly the best source but this one, they're pretty on point about this topic: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3274206/Ashley-Graham-hits-constant-sexualization-curvy-women-fashion-entertainment.html    

And even though I haven't even had my first kiss yet, I still had people label me as a fat whore solely on the way that I was shaped. Or in some instances I have had people say that they were surprised by my lack of experience because of the way that I was built. I've also had friends who are petite and people assume that they are really innocent when in reality they are far from it, so there is also that. I also know that this phenomenon is worse for women of color who already tend to get fetishized and exoticized and often times part of their exotic appeal is based on the way they are built. A lot of it dates back to colonization and slavery, and like many issues regarding racism, it's usually worse for black women. Here is an article talking about just that: https://www.theroot.com/let-s-be-real-society-finds-black-women-with-curvy-bod-1790856743 

There is a variety of reasons why I wish I was skinnier. I sometimes feel that if I was to lose weight, I wouldn't have to deal with these issues regarding sexualization to the same extent. I also wish that I would have an easier time finding clothes that fit me so that I won't have to shop around in the mall for two hours to find something that is flattering but doesn't make me look like I'm going to go seduce someone. Finally, as much as I want to feel like a free thinking person, sometimes I want to be skinnier simply because there is a social pressure to do so. But I forgive myself because even though these things may seem very petty, they seem petty because they are everywhere and we are very conditioned to accept they are normal to where we don't question it. And paradoxically, they are everywhere because there is a lot that goes into something being ubiquitous, a lot that is the opposite of petty.  In other words, there is A LOT to unpack. 

[soos_mite_ah]

Changing Beauty Standards 

I think it's kind of ridiculous to chase after beauty standards since they are moving target often dependent on where a society is at as well as how it is reacting to the standard coming before it. Even if you do a ton of dieting and plastic surgery to meet an ideal, that ideal can easily change and then you are left behind. I remember once I was watching an early 2000s classic, Mean Girls, and there was a scene where Regina George gained weight and someone said "watch where you're going, fatass" and basically the scene insinuated that Regina was getting too fat as she gained weight on the lower half of her body which is why she can't fit into her regular pants anymore. I know in the early 2000s, the ideal was very skinny, very Paris Hilton like. But my friends and I were watching this in 2016, 12 years after the movie came out,  and we were like "nah but Regina getting thic tho"  as if it's a good thing because in the 2010s people want to have butts and look like a Kardashian. My point is that beauty is subjective and culturally we change a lot about our opinion on what is beautiful. 

I remember in the early 2000s, the idea was basically Paris Hilton and the goal was to get as skinny as possible. And I remember as a kid seeing a bunch of celebrities having to go to the hospital or die because of anorexia from one of those entertainment news networks that is basically televised tabloids (my mom always had the TV on to that channel because she was interested in celebrity gossip). Years later, I see this parallel of people in the public eye going too far. Now, I don't see as many of those cases involving anorexia but I do see cases of influencers who get incredibly botched because of the amount of plastic surgery they got to look like Kylie Jenner and how their butt/ boob implants malfunction causing them to have a medical emergency. Before there were diet pills and even though you can still find those, I would say Fit Tea has taken the center stage. I don't know what is in that tea or how it tastes but I have heard that it is essentially a laxative in tea form. Before photoshop was rampant in making people look impossibly skinny to where you question where a person's organs are at and now we have face tune making people's ass look much bigger than proportionally possible. It's the same structure, just different content. 

As for my personal experience, I remember being bullied for being "thic" growing up but then I got to high school, the Kardashian's took center stage, and suddenly I kept getting complimented on my body. I had a couple of girls tell me that I'm basically the ideal and that so many women would spend a ton of money on plastic surgery to have a body like mine. I know this person didn't mean anything bad given the context of our conversation, she was probably just saying that I was beautiful in an exaggerated way and that I don't need to worry about the insecurities I do have in regards to my size since I fit the standard. But I can't say that this made me feel beautiful. If anything, it a way it made me feel objectified, not sexually, but in the sense that my body is a trend. 

And I think that's messed up. Women's bodies aren't trends and having a particular standard that changes not only creates a moving target which can be a breeding ground for neurotic behavior, but also objectifies women. Human bodies are too complex and diverse to fit into one set mold of what is considered attractive. And as long as there is one set standard, no matter how seemingly realisitc, it will always be out of reach for many women purely on the basis of diversity. I know that a lot of the reasons why the trend now is to have curves is because eventually people started seeing the limitations of being extremely skinny. I remember there is this one music video on YouTube (can't remember what it was), but I remember in 2009 scrolling through the comments and people were talking about how all the girls just need to eat a sandwich because they are too skinny. Fast forward to 2019, that same video was met with comments saying "oh look how natural and achievable their bodies are, goes to show you don't need implants." Changing from the 2000s extremely skinny standard of beauty to the 2010s extremely voluptous standard of beauty didn't do anything to progress our consciousness in this area and they way that we look at beauty standards rather it just swung the pendulum to the opposite direction and took it to the extreme. Again, same structure, just different content. 

So when did this structure of a standardized ideal of a women's body begin? A lot of it began in the early 20th century as more and more clothes began being made in factories as opposed to in the home. At one point it became much more convenient to go out and buy ready made clothes as opposed to making your own. This create a shift from altering your clothes to make the making clothes fit you to altering your body through diet and exercise in order to fit ready made clothes. Consequently, the fashion industry started playing a much larger role in regards to body image. Whatever body type suited the clothes that are currently on trend is the body type that became the ideal. In the early 2000s, it was all about low waisted jeans. And there are people who look amazing in low waisted jeans, particularly really skinny people. Personally, my ass has always been too big  and I would have to pull up low waisted jeans constantly and that just wasn't fun. Also I don't have a perfectly flat stomach or abs so low waisted jeans have always been at the bane of my existence because at least with high waisted things, it sucks you in more.  But then in the 2010s, high waisted jeans came back and suddenly everyone wanted an impossibly thin waist and a big butt. Idk maybe this is just me but some really skinny people, don't look right in high waisted jeans. Like if you don't have a large difference in measurement between your waist and your hips, your butt and your back sort of blend together. And it's like you also need a butt to fill out high waisted jeans especially high waisted shorts, and sometimes it just doesn't work for skinny people. Aint nothing wrong with skinny people, it's just that different trends suit different people and it's also important to accept yourself and find something that works for you instead of forcing yourself to work with what's popular. But yeah, jean styles for example in the early 2000s vs the 2010s do mirror the body ideals from those decades.

I found a lot of other parallels with other decades in the 20th century as well with fashion trends from different decades. I had to study all of this for a semester because I took a class on modern fashion, mainly focusing on the 1910s to the 1950s but I can apply the concepts to the modern day as well. It was probably hands down one of the most interesting classes I took in college and I took it to fill some type of requirement so I wasn't thinking too much about it when I chose the class. I didn't expect much from the class but I was surprised to find that the whole class was set up like this art history type of course and I got to learn about how beauty standards come about and why some fashion trends come and go as well as the historical context for all of that. We talked about history, politics, sociology, psychology, manufacturing, mass media and publishing, gender norms, body image, and of course why Coco Chanel was a bad bitch. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Thought these were interesting videos  

Personally I can't say that I know what men go through when it comes to body image but I can say that I grew up around a lot of guys who didn't have the healthiest outlook towards their bodies and went to extremes to get shredded. I feel that working out automatically has this connotation with being healthy and as a result, when people would look at guys who had horrible body dysmorphia go to the gym all the time, it was seen as them "being healthy." I have this one cousin who works out constantly, weighs himself everyday, and can't even enjoy food anymore because of these standards. It really hurts me to see him in that way and I did try to check up on him but I also know there is only so much I can do and that I couldn't be too confrontational about it especially since I'm not super close to him. And the rest of my family is all like "oh he is so into fitness, he needs to keep doing what he is doing etc" and they completely ignore what's going on mentally. 

There is the notion with fitness always being painted in a healthy light and there is also whole notion of men not being able to have eating disorders but that's a whole nother topic and it greatly has to do with masculinity, needing help, and the stigma around mental illness for men because it isn't seen as manly or strong to have emotions. I believe there needs to be much more awareness around men's issues when it comes to body image because in most of the cases the conversations revolve around women's beauty standards. I get why. Society places much more value on the way a woman looks and women are bombarded with a ton of bs. But completely ignoring the other end of the spectrum with men is also super harmful because being insecure about the way your body looks and going on diets and exercise regimes that can be dangerous to one's health isn't limited to gender. 

I also found a comment under the men's body image video to be pretty interesting. It was basically summing up the way I felt watching the video: 

"It’s funny how many/most people are more attracted to average than to extremes, but media portrays beauty in extremes, i.e., straight women, on average, are attracted to men with “average” bodies, and straight men, on average, are attracted to women with “average” bodies, but media makes us believe that only super skinny women and super ripped men are attractive." 

Yeah and I think part of the reason why these extremes are more pronounced in the media is because there needs to be an element of shock factor that engages a viewers attention so the media take standards that were already present in society and they go above and beyond. There is that, but there is also the obvious culprits of people trying to sell you shit. Like the comment, I agree that most people are still attracted to average. I don't even think being average looking is even an insult tbh. But because of the way that the media exaggerates things and makes things larger than life, it makes it seem that way, as if average isn't good enough. And personally, body type hasn't really been in my mind when I look at a guy and think he is attractive. I have liked chubbier guys, skinny guys, and even guys who work out. I have a whole range tbh. I guess my only preference is when it comes to height where I prefer guys who are 5'6" to 5'9" because I'm a short person and really tall guys low key scare me. But even then I wouldn't reject someone because of height, that's dumb. 

I thought the comment section of the Ugly Duckling video to be gold so I included a few of the comments below: 

"It's interesting how the ugly duckling trope also coincides with the "I'm not like other girls trope" of the 90s and early 2000s. Like on one hand, only girlie girls are considered datable and worthy of getting the guy but then on the other, we praise the "tomboy" or the "nerdy" type and often pit her against the girlie girl and SHE ends up getting the guy in the end. Examples I always think of are "10 things I hate about you" and "a cinderella story". It's almost like women can never win. /s lol Also Mean Girls was ahead of it's time. ALL women are amazing and we are not each other's competition."

"I think the thing I wish these movies did, was portray these glow ups as girls taking care of themselves if they were neglecting themselves before. Girls having the confidence to wear clothes they wanted to wear, not wearing what's on trend. They all transform into one specific type of eurocentric beauty standard woman, instead of actually becoming confident versions of themselves which just sucks."

"Here's the thing. As a woman myself, some DO find empowerment in embracing more 'feminine' traits or 'looking like a sexy bad bitch' or feeling great and powerful in flowy dresses and all of that is fine! What bothers me is how forced it is. If a woman (or man or non-binary) wants to go through a makeover because they decide it could help their sense of confidence, which a makeover is sometimes able to do, I think it's awesome and incredibly empowering. But in all these damn movies, the makeover is FORCED upon them to please OTHERS, not themselves. And most people I know who do makeovers isn't because they were ugly before, it's just they need a change and sometimes a physical change can help in that - which is A okay."

"The worst thing is I think there is definitively room for this "makeover" trope to be used in an actually empowering way. If I think about moments where my style has drastically changed in my own life, it has more to do with gaining confidence, finding new interests i want to echo in my clothes or emancipating from my parents than trying to look good for a boy or whatever. I think presenting a girl or woman having a style change for any of these reasons, basically just because she is evolving, growing, getting bolder, would have way more of an impact and would be more enjoyable to watch (at least to me). Also this way it doesn't have to go from "neglected"/"boyish" to "feminine" automatically which I kind of hate as well haha." 

The Kardashians are a whole mess tbh and there is a lot I could say about them but I will save them for another day. 

Edited January 12, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Migraines, Nausea, Fatigue, and Bloating.... Fun Times 

So for the last few days I have been dealing with these head aches with a little bit of nausea and fatigue mixed in. I thought maybe this is because I'm not eating enough. I tried eating a little bit more despite how I was physically feeling. The fatigue, nausea, and the bloating initially made me not want to eat. After eating I noticed my bloating and my fatigue go away so I'm pretty sure that was the culprit. I get this feeling that because I cut out most grains from my diet that as a result I also cut a lot of calories. Because I cut so many calories, my body basically went into starvation mode. I found it weird that I was getting tired and bloated by not eating because I guess in my mind I associate being tired and bloated from eating too much, you know that overly stuffed wanting to go into food coma situation you fall into after having a large meal. And as a result, when I felt myself getting bloated and tired, because I know it isn't due to any food allergies since I am still going along with being gluten and dairy free, I restricted food even more thinking maybe this is because I'm eating too much. Then my situation got worse and I found out that I was actually feeling tired and getting bloated because I wasn't eating enough. 

As for the nausea and the migraines, I have had to still deal with that. I felt a little better after making myself eat more but I found that the nausea and the migraines were still there. They aren't super bad and rather slight but it is something that is noticeable. Whenever I caught myself feeling nauseated or with a headache, given my issue with not eating enough, my instinct was to eat something, usually like a fruit or a little bit more food when lunch or dinner rolled around. That helped but then I would notice the headache and the nausea come back after a couple hours. Today I felt the headache come in but  not the nausea. I wondered if this was because I wasn't having enough carbs in my diet. This wasn't my first instinct because I believe I have a lot of carbs in my diet because I eat a lot of vegetables (my first instinct was that I wasn't eating enough but then again even after eating I would still have the headache). But I didn't rule it out because I know that I did cut a lot of carbs from my diet by going gluten free and just cutting down on grains because of my PCOS. Apparently after a quick google search, nausea, fatigue, and headaches are common when you do a ketogenic diet because of the drop in carbs. That felt odd because I don't think I was doing anything out of the ordinary. The only thing I can think of was that I was eating chocolate for a couple days and then completely stopped because I ran out and wasn't craving it enough to go buy more. I certainly wasn't trying to go keto either. But nevertheless, I tried to test this out. I got a slice of regular bread, made some garlic butter using garlic powder, parsley, and butter, spread it on the slice of bread, and popped it into the toaster to make garlic bread. After eating the garlic bread, I found myself feeling better. I didn't have a migraine or nausea during the entire day, so I think that did the trick.  

I'm also going to make a point to eat breakfast more frequently and make that into a daily habit. I found that on days where I didn't have breakfast, the symptoms were worse. Also I need to increase the carbs in my diet as well as the calories so that I can ensure that I am eating enough. 

[soos_mite_ah]

1/12/2021 Food Diary 

Ok y'all I'm back from my little food diary break. One thing I realized that for the most part I am able to sustain habits like being gluten and dairy free and reducing the amount of sugar I am having without having to track everything I eat. That's good because to me that means that this is becoming a habit rather than something that I have to constantly track and obsess over. Of course, I have been more lenient with myself such as the time I let myself use some greek yogurt for a zucchini pasta recipe and I have let myself eat chocolate but I think that's good for ensuring that I don't put myself into a restrictive and perfectionistic mindset. 

Breakfast: 

1 slice of gluten free toast with half of an avocado and an egg: Usual breakfast no big deal. I decided that I'm going to make it a point to eat breakfast regularly since I am getting headaches and nausea from not eating enough. Because I often skip breakfast, adding in breakfast will help me get in extra calories. 

Lunch: 

My usual zucchini noodles: I guess I'm not going to go super into detail with what I'm putting into certain dishes because I don't want to be too repetitive that is unless I did so something different. This time I added some chicken to my usual bowl of noodles just to get in some more protein and increase the satiety factor. 

Garlic bread: I took some regular bread and put this garlic butter spread on it which I made by mixing regular butter, garlic powder, and parsley together. Normally I am gluten free but I have noticed myself getting a lot of headaches. At first I thought maybe it had to do with me not eating enough but I found that even after eating I would get these migraines. I then hypothesized that maybe this is because I'm not getting enough carbs so that's why I opted for the regular bread since gluten free bread doesn't have as many carbs. And thankfully, I didn't have a headache for the rest of the day after eating this. 

Snack: 

A handful of peanuts 

Dinner: 

Black Eyed Pea salad: Has cucumbers, tomatoes, red bell peppers, black eyed peas, flax seeds and parsley. I had this with a little bit of ranch that I'm trying to get rid of. 

More of the same zucchini noodles: I made too much for lunch so I decided to have whatever was remaining for dinner. It was still a good amount but paired with the salad, it was filling and I didn't have any problems with feeling hungry afterwards. 

Snack: 

Lemon water: I mentioned in a post that I'm going to try to have more fruits in my diet, specifically more fruits with water because I miss having that. I cut up a couple slices of lemon and put it in some water and drank that. After that I ate the lemon slices and like half of the lemon as if it was an orange by eating everything except the outer skin. I know that's a little strange but I like lemons as a fruit instead of just something to squeeze on to something for extra flavor. I'm the same with limes as well. 

Edited January 13, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

A note to self on things I'm going to try to implement

• Make sure I eat enough calories. I don't like counting calories but I guess I can ensure I get more calories by not shying away from healthy calorie dense foods that are a good source of fat and protein such as meat, nuts, and seeds. This is going to help me get a better metabolism since I did have a history of restrictive eating.
• Incorporate more fruits in my diet. I know some time in this journal before I talked about how I don't get enough natural sweetness in my diet and as a result I crave a lot of chocolate. I also talked about possibly not getting enough carbs and wanting to eat fruits more because they are simply not present in my diet. Incorporating more fruits can deal with all of these. 
• Eat breakfast regularly. This will help me get in more calories, boost me metabolism, and reduce any cravings I might have. It can also prevent me from feeling hangry or sad since sometimes those have a biological explanation which in this case is hunger, even if I don't feel it in my stomach.  Also another thing that will help my metabolism. 
• Try to exercise a little bit more. It doesn't have to be much or be super strenuous. I'm planning on going on walks and doing a workout or two video from YouTube.
• Incorporate foods that help with your iron deficiency. These include: 
  • Dark Green Leafy Vegetables (I personally like eating spinach and kale so I guess I could increase the amount I eat) 
  • Nuts (Eat these on a regular basis as well, usually peanuts but I can diversify with almonds, cashews, and macadamia nuts if I want)
  • Beans & Red Lentils (I like eating these so I guess I can bump up the frequency by incorporating them into more of my meals I already eat)
  • Pumpkin Seeds (also great hormonal balancers for the PCOS)] (might want to try that out) 
  • Broccoli (already in my diet) 
  • Millet, Buckwheat, Amaranth (literally never had these so there is an opportunity to try something new)  
  • Dark Chocolate (My favorite lol. But I still need to consider the quality by ensuring that it is dairy free, low sugar, and high fiber) 

Edited January 13, 2021 by soos_mite_ah