What the heck? I wrote a whole entry and it appeared to save but then it totally disappeared! Ugh, I hate doing the same post again, it never reads quite the same. And the constant phone calls and interruptions! Grrr.

Jordan copied and posted my “Iris” entry on her blog, and I read it on there through the eyes of people who don’t know me and have never read my blog. And boy, I sound vain and conceited in the I-tie-everything-in-to-my-looks part.

People who don’t know me don’t know that I was anorexic for years in high school. It was all about trying — and failing — to get myself to look a certain way or fit into a certain size. The more I failed, the more I obsessed about getting there. Success and happiness in life became defined by losing a pound; failures in life were gaining 3 pounds. My weight was the end-all to everything. If someone was mean to me, it was because I’m fat. If someone had a crush on me, it was because I’d recently dropped a few pounds. That’s how it was in my head. Pulling on a fat roll frustrated me to the point of tears. I had started defining who I am by my appearances, whether good or bad, and not not based on who I actually was.

Of course I blame my body’s present inability to respond to diet and exercise on anorexia. I have to work 5 times as hard to get a fraction of the results. Any normal person with my workout and diet regimen would be slender, toned, with a six-pack. Instead, I sit here, a chubby girl, always battling battling battling. My metabolism’s ready to switch off at any time and turn into fat-storing mode whenever I skip a meal. It sucks. I have frustrated many a good personal trainer, who have encouraged me to get my thyroid tested (I’m borderline hypothyroidism, too.)

I think it does help to be with a man who thinks I’m beautiful whether I gain or lose 5 pounds (at least, he sounds sincere in expressing his attraction to me), and realizing that over all the obsessing about physique, I value my mind more than I do my physical appearance. Maybe I can never get down to 22% body fat. Maybe I just have to be okay with 30% body fat, as long as I’m healthy. My heart, blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, everything have invariably tested in the “very good” range.

Or maybe I should just get liposuction and let my body maintain its same equilibrium now, just with 10-20 pounds less fat hanging off me.