almost alex mack.

So I was thinking about my body the last few days (as I do oh, 17646923476% of the time). I was also thinking about hot ladies (as I do a hella lot as well). 

Then I was thinking about how the two are related to each other. Loving my body has truly been one of the hardest struggles I’ve ever been through, and I am nowhere near there yet. 

I’m already rambling. (This all makes a lot more sense in my head.) So basically, I’m a super body positive human. I think all bodies are beautiful. I don’t care what size, shape, colour, or whatever your body is. I don’t care if its cisgender, transgender, genderfluid, agender... It is beautiful. 

BUT. Just like everyone, I have a general type of body that I’m attracted to. The men I’m generally attracted to are usually taller than me, quite skinny, and masculine (hello gorgeous fiancé Gord!). Now while I often find myself feeling large around him (he weighs nearly a hundred pounds less than me, it really doesn’t affect my body image a whole lot. He makes sure I know that he doesn’t give a rats ass how much my body weighs, he’s into it regardless.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky. The women I find myself attracted to are best described as Katherine Moennig (Shane from The L Word). Kristen Stewart. Taylor Freeman from Buzzfeed. Basically, I like my ladies thin and butch. So, I look in the mirror and I see my body. And I think about the lady bodies I find attractive and its so far from what I’m seeing that feel extremely anxious.

Consciously, I don’t want to look like those women. I’m very much femme 99% of the time with a dash of butch thrown in here and there just to remind myself that I’m here and I’m queer (I’ll write another blog post another time about what it means *to me* to be queer and in a permanent relationship with someone of the opposite sex). But when I know what I find attractive, and my body is so far from that... its not so hard to make the jump from “my body isn’t like the ones I find attractive” to “my body isn’t attractive”.

I know I’m rambling but I’m just sort of trying to work out what’s going on in my head. I need to recognize that just because I’m not attracted to my own body type (usually) does NOT mean its not attractive.

Ugh, I don’t know. Feel free to weigh in, no pun intended.

Also more Shane now, just because.

hey. what’s up. also HOW DARE YOU.

lately I’ve been thinking a lot about pivotal moments in my life. moments that after all these years still have an impact on me and still cause me emotional turmoil when I think about them. moments that I carry with me into my current (and forever) relationship, even though it’s completely unfair to my partner.

you guessed it. the moment I’m thinking about today was nearly ten years go. me, in my super cute matching abercrombie and fitch sweats and hoodie combo (I still miss it to this day). we’re eighteen. you’re sitting on the couch. I walk out of my basement bedroom and I climb onto your lap, facing you. I begin to kiss you (you didn’t deserve it). I can feel that you’re not that into it so I pull away. I ask you what’s going on? and then you hit me with it: “I’m not attracted to you anymore”. do you know how hard that shit hurt? I’ve never felt anything like that. I wanted to curl inwards and disappear. I’m sitting on your lap, vulnerable, and you tell me you don’t find me attractive. I felt so small and unwanted in that moment. I defeatedly rise off your lap and move to the other couch and cry, wanting desperately to not let you see how badly you’ve hurt me.

now, in case you’ve forgotten, when we began dating, I weighed 155 pounds (which was very skinny on my frame). I had just survived weeks in the hospital with an unknown disease / virus / infection that almost killed me. I was so weak when I got out of the hospital that a walk around the block made a four-hour nap the necessary next step. we began dating a few months later when I doubt I would have gained any of the weight back. congratulations, you had yourself a a skinny girlfriend! every high school boy’s dream. 

fast forward to fifteen months later on my mom’s couch, I weight about 25 pounds more than I did when we started dating. I’m healthy. and you decide the right moment to tell me you don’t find me attractive is when I’m actively sitting on your lap.

that CRUSHED me. you made it very clear that my weight was the issue. I wasn’t even overweight (not that that would make it okay). I was a bit softer than you were used to. I looked like me again. and here you were, the first boy I ever loved, telling me that I was no longer good enough.

I think about that moment almost every time I’m intimate with my fiancé. he doesn’t deserve that. he is so good to me. he loves me no matter my size, and he loves my soft squishy curves. regardless, I am terrified for the moment that he will tell me that nope, he’s not attracted to me anymore. I know it will never come. but that doesn’t stop the voice in my head telling me that it will. that moment is with me every day. every time I decide which meal to make for myself. every time I decide what kind of physical activity (if any) that I’ll do each day. every time I go shopping. it is always with me.

this week I have been working on finding a happy medium in my life. admittedly, I have skipped the gym all week. my anxiety has been really bad the last few days and I just couldn’t get myself there. I know, I know. the gym would probably help. today instead of the gym, I chose cooking and cleaning to battle my anxiety. I made stuffed peppers with quinoa and turkey and I washed all the floors. 

I had a conversation with my best friend who is also working to try to better herself at the gym and in the kitchen. she has been logging her intake on MyFitnessPal, an app I also use. I used it years ago when I lost about thirty pounds. for me, though, it became addictive, an obsession. I obsessed over whether I had logged the right amount of something -- did I have one extra bite than I estimated? did I log the right brand of something? what if the brand I logged was lower in calories than the one I ate, and consequently I eat too many calories for the day? it was awful. 

I’m having her over for brunch on Sunday (we normally go out and splurge, both financially and calorically) but since we’re both trying to eat healthily and save money, we’re having a girls’ morning at my place. I told her I am planning on making a proscuitto, goat cheese and asparagus frittata, and she asked me a million questions about it. what brand of prosciutto? where did I find the recipe? it was triggering to me and I told her as much. BUT. it made me realize what my happy medium is this time around. I have been logging meals and workouts, but I’ve been estimating everything. I find a food close to what I have eaten and I log it. I’ve managed to do so without getting obsessed.

I also found that last time I logged on MFP I would often go to bed hungry because I was “out of calories” for the day. this time, I have been good at reaching for something healthy if I really need to eat more -- although I’ve been finding that 1510 calories is more than enough if I use them on good, healthy meals.

I’m Alexa. I’m 27, and I’ve struggled my entire life with not only my weight, but with poor body image and disordered eating. I’ve lost significant weight in previous attempts, but always give up because I become obsessed with calories and the number on the scale. I’m attempting to change the way I think about food and fitness this time. I’m still counting calories and watching my macros (though not too closely) but I’m trying to think of this as a lifestyle change. Instead of eating healthily to lose weight, I’m trying to think of it as a way to feel better. Hopefully this tiny mental tweak will help me reach my goals!

I also want this blog to be a safe place to discuss mental health as well. I suffer from anxiety, depression and undiagnosed OCD and disordered eating, and those are just as important as physical health, in my mind.