Current location:	My couch.
Current mood:	okay
Current music:	Zero - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Entry tags:	jess, life, weight

Thoughts on body image.
I've been feeling more confident and at ease with my body lately. I've had problems with body image issues for a long time and it's been a veritable roller coaster ride from high school to present day. I remember having both the energy and body-confidence in high school to dress kick-ass (or as kick-ass as my high school uniform code would allow), do elaborate makeup everyday, and wear tight-fitting, skimpy clothing that flaunted my nubile, jail-bait figure and naval piercing. I was 5'7 and 140 lb. I was cute and I was skinny.

When I entered college my weight stayed the same throughout freshman year, and I got even thinner towards sophomore year. I still dressed pretty much the same, but with less effort all-around. That style and body confidence slowly started to dwindle in junior year when I slowly gained about 20 pounds all the way throughout the end of college. I was a mess, and I didn't look or feel like myself. I wore baggy jeans, basketball shorts, t-shirts, flip flops, and baseball caps to hide my face all the time. It was the most unnattractive and pathetic I've ever felt in my life. When I would run into people I hadn't seen in awhile I could see the initial shock, then the confusion in their expressions asking "Dude, what the fuck happened?" I was crawling in my own skin. And the truth is I don't know what the fuck happened, or how I could let it happen. In reality it was a combination of growing out of my teenage body and gaining the womanly curves and bits of suck, not watching what and how much of what I was eating, and my boyfriend and I starting to fuck leading to me changing my birth control pills.

I realize this is all rather silly considering there are plenty of girls that are much heavier (some of whom I find rather attractive) than I am, and that I wasn't even "fat". I wish I had either owned it, or tried doing something to fix it besides wallowing.

Things got easier after I graduated college, I grew up a little more and I let go of the angst and pining (the psychotic, crazy pining) for my girlish, teenage figure. I donated the baggy jeans and pants, and I put away the t-shirts and basketball shorts. I also started to watch what I ate, but I wasn't exercising yet. My weight started to stabalize just from watching my diet and I didn't feel as low as I had in the previous couple of years.

Now, I can say I'm in an okay place. Not great but okay, because fuck, I still have a sick desire to be model-thin, hell to even be as thin as I was in high school/early college and to fit into a pair of my old jeans.. which is sadly something I think won't ever go away. I'm still not where I'd like to be physically, however I do feel the healthiest and strongest I've felt in a long time. I go to the gym, do yoga and pilates and eat a well and balanced diet for the most part. I figure if I keep going on this track my body will follow to some degree. One can always hope.