I’ve avoided posting my ‘story’ for this long because I wasn’t really sure how to start. Should I start back in December when I began this blog? Should I start a few years ago when I started skipping meals, or the first time I got hungry and ate anyway and tried to make myself throw up? Should I start with volleyball practice in tenth grade, or dance company in eighth, or the first time I read a nutrition label and decided against candy when I was fourth?
I’ve always been on either side of the fence: worried constantly or not caring the slightest bit and eating whatever I wanted. Because I was blessed with some pretty kickin’ genes, I’ve never had to deal with the real side effects of eating unhealthily: being overweight. I have certainly gained weight, but I’ve never had a BMI classifiable as “overweight.”
However, I have definitely felt like it. I’ve had clothes that were too tight make fat bulge out in certain areas. I’ve had barely toned arms and seen my stomach definition disappear under a layer of fat. I’ve gotten short of breath just running up the stairs, and I’ve left the mall because I hated the way my body looked trying on clothes.
I’ve also experienced the downslide that comes with eating unhealthily—the lack of energy and motivation, the decreased immune system efficiency,. the breakouts. I can’t even imagine the detrimental effects a lifetime of eating like I used to would have had on my personal health.
In December 2010 I had a break from school and a little time to think. I knew I wanted to make a big change in my life, but I wasn’t sure how. I happened to stumble upon the world of weight loss blogs hidden away on Tumblr. I made one that night.
What orignally caught my eye was the vast number of girls with eating disorder (ED) tumblrs. Ana blogs, girls who triumphed over eating 400, 200, 50, 0 calories a day. Girls who had “fasting days” together and had “ana sisters.” Not only did the idea of results appeal to me, the wholesisterhood of it did. To starve with a best friend. Or a hundred best friends. Here were thousands of girls all working toward the same goal: to become nothing.
So I made a blog, and I called it Matchstick Molly, Molly obviously because it’s my name but I was also intrigued by being thin as a matchstick (I’m all about alliteration). I weighed around 120 pounds at the time, and wanted to weigh the very-glamorous sounding 100. And I tried, I really did. I went without eating for nearly a whole day, I tried to only eat celery sticks and carrots and the occasional apple. I’d get dizzy every time I stood up and slept a lot, and I did lose a couple pounds pretty quickly.
But I felt worse about myself than I ever had before. I couldn’t fast for even a whole day, something other girls were doing for four, five, six days at time. I lost some weight initially, but I felt powerless and weak.
I gradually started moving toward doing it ‘the healthy way.’ I don’t recall a pinnacle moment where I said “this has to stop” but I was making huge changes every day. I started loving the idea of loving my body, loving the idea of taking care of it the best that I could. I didn’t weigh myself at this point, I knew it would just affect me negatively and bring me back to how I was before, and I didn’t want that. I felt like I gained a few pounds at first, but I’m not sure. I started shopping at all-natural and organic markets, cutting all the processed food out of my life. And very, very quickly, I felt infinitely better.
I joined a gym and started taking every class I could fit into my schedule. I took pilates, yoga, zumba, kickboxing, 30-minute-abs. But what really stuck with me was Yoga.
I was amazed at how much more energy I had during the day, and loved watching myself get more flexible, more balanced, more ready to deal with anything that came along in my life.
It wasn’t an overnight turnaround. I didn’t just wake up one morning and not have any desire to eat junk food. But like I said, I was in love with loving my body. The easiest way to say no to junk food was to say that I was too good to put something that damaging in my body. I wasn’t going to pollute my body with something like that.
I started eating very healthily, but I wasn’t eating enough. I was only eating around 700 calories a day, still scared of eating too much. I was starting to like myself even more, but wasn’t as little as I wanted to be yet. Although I didn’t keep anything close to junk food in my apartment, when I would babysit on the weekends or be out with friends I’d find myself falling apart sometimes, eating everything in sight, stuffing myself. And feeling worse than ever.
One night while tumbling around the internet, I came across the idea of “Intuitive Eating.” It’s the concept of completely rejecting the diet philopophy and getting in tune with your body and what it really wants. It teaches forgetting food “rules” and really listening to your own signals. Ignoring what your body really wants, whether or not its healthy, can’t be satisfying for anyone. It really intrigued me, and I ordered it that night.
When it arrived, I was really excited. I read the entire thing in two days, and since then have come further in my healthy-lifestyle goals than I ever have before. I don’t live by rules anymore, just guidelines for healthy living. I exercise because I like exercising, not because I need to burn off a few hundred calories. I don’t go on crash diets, I don’t fast, I don’t punish myself or cover up my feelings with food/ I have more motivation and determination than ever before. My weight has settled at around 108. I don’t weigh myself nearly as much as I used to, whenever I happen to think of it. The highest I’ve seen since eating intuitively is 111, and the lowest 106. Most often though, my weight sticks at about 108, which I feel the best at—my ideal weight.
My only goal now is to be as healthy and happy as possible, and every day I’m getting stronger.
