The Last Judgment
by Beth
I would never have classified myself as an “active” kid. While away at summer camp, I spent most of my days in the Arts & Crafts cabin instead of participating in relay races and swimming in the lake. In high school, I opted to spend my gym class as a peer mentor for middle school students instead of playing basketball and soccer with the school’s athletes. When I was in college, my diet consisted of French toast sticks, tater tots, and chicken pot pie at the dining hall. Eating frosted strawberry Pop Tarts kept me awake while looking at slides in Art History class. Egg and cheese bagel sandwiches sustained my breakfast needs once I moved off campus.
At my heaviest, I weighed 180 pounds – not so great for a 5’5” woman with no muscle tone.
The week after I graduated from college I decided I was going to lose weight. I was never happy with how I looked and now that I had a job with a steady income, and no research papers to write or house parties to attend, I had the time.
I started out slow on the exercise front by walking one mile after work about 3 days a week. I knew diet plans like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig wouldn’t work for me, so I began by cutting out food items I knew were not healthy, keeping a diary of my daily caloric intake, and weighing every food item I ate. About a year in, I dropped down to 140 lbs. I was happier with how I looked and definitely felt better, but I wanted more. Dieting and exercising had this weird effect on me – sort of producing some hidden competitive streak. I was always competitive when it came to grades and success in school, but never when it came to physical activity. I thrived within this newfound blood thirst and challenged myself to bring my weight down to 120 lbs. By cutting more calories and increasing my regimen to 5-6 days a week at the gym, I achieved this new goal.
Around this time I met my boyfriend Pat, a doctoral student studying exercise physiology and a competitive weight lifter. It was great to date someone who was physically active and Pat was soon training me on how to correctly squat with a bar on my back, bench press, and deadlift. I was throwing around heavier weight then I could have ever imagined – but was still on the same diet of 1500 calories a day.
I now weighed 105 lbs. You could see my lower ribs when I wore a bikini. My stomach would make terrible noises throughout the day. What I then thought was indigestion, I now know was my body’s way of saying it needed food.
I would have never thought I had an eating disorder. I never purged my food or starved myself of eating. I always had 3-5 meals a day, which always included ice cream for dessert (a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich, of course). Reflecting on it all now, I realize I did. I would be terrified to eat out at restaurants, insisting that we go to a place where I could access the nutritional menu online and pick my meal out before we went. I would place horrible guilt on myself if I ate a chocolate chip cookie at a family party.
It took an abrasive doctor at health services and the realization that I was no longer menstruating for me to finally realize I needed to stop; I did not need to be skinny, I needed to be healthy.
I won’t lie – it has been hard. I’d love to tell you I don’t weigh myself every day – but I do. I’d love to tell you that gaining 15 pounds felt great – but it didn’t. It was terrifying and depressing, but it was also necessary. I know it’s important for me to do this and while I’ve physically adopted the weight, I’m mentally still working through the process.
I continue to exercise every week, but I no longer feel the need to push myself at a high intensity EVERY time. Instead, I use the exercise time to decompress during the day, reflect on the highlights and struggles, and meditate. Meditating during exercise might seem unrealistic, but honestly, it is the ONE time during the day when I’m not thinking about the other things I need to do or worrying about work. I simply just zone out and live in the moment.
I stopped counting calories. I stopped eating diet food – no more “lite” yogurt or low-fat snack bars pumped with chemicals I can’t pronounce. I’ve changed my nutrition by eating whole foods; foods that are natural and delicious. I enjoy meals when I eat out, choosing items that I knew will satisfy my diet both physically and emotionally.
I cringe when I look at both these pictures, as they represent two extreme times in my life when I was unhealthy. It took Michelangelo seven years to finish his fresco, The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel. Today, I, too, am a work in progress, each day taking steps towards happiness, self-fulfillment, and making my own last judgment on my body.
