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5 Thoughts: from getting by on thinness to organization for dummies.

When someone talks to me about their diet

For a period of time I thought I wasn’t authentic because I don’t always speak up about non-diet things in conversations when people talk about the diet they’re on or their weight loss. Now I realize that not every interaction I have is to bring someone over to my belief system. How exhausting would it be to go through your life trying to change everyone.

In order to protect my sanity, now something I ask myself in these non-clinical, just-out-in-the-real-world conversations is, is this person reachable and teachable? And would this help them live a better life? If yes, yes, and yes, I think about what I can say – typically sharing my experience with what the person is saying or asking a question. If no, I protect my energy levels – never praising their weight loss efforts or their compensation through exercise – just kinda nod along until the conversation topic changes. I do try to praise healthful behaviors the person has brought into their life, but weight loss is never one of those since weight loss is a side effect…not a behavior.

Also, because this is what I do for a job, a lot of times, I don’t want to work when I’m not at work or writing a post for the blog, which brings me to the below graphic I saw and laughed at recently…

Getting by on thinness and athleticism

I was thinking the other day about the function of my eating disorder and how I used to think that if I was thin and a runner then I could just hide behind those things and didn’t have to have any substance to me. Being thin and active felt like enough to be accepted. For those who struggle with drug addiction I’ve heard that the age they got addicted to drugs is the mental/emotional age they are when they eventually recover, I feel similar to my ED days. It was something that stunted me (kept me safe and served a purpose for sure), but kept me stagnant. Frozen in okayness. Frozen in just-making-it-through-each-day. Frozen in a false sense of refuge.

As I’ve said before, if my body size is the most interesting thing about myself, I need a hobby. Treating my body size as an important thing isn’t a legacy I wanna leave behind. Being a person who cares for her body regardless of it’s size, now that’s something I’d like to pass along.

A nice things to do for postpartum women

A reader mentioned this idea one time and I thought it was brilliant! A friend of mine is about to have her baby any day and I can not wait to stock her fridge with so many drinks, MTV Cribs style. I love this idea because when nursing Jo I felt such intense thirst. With Ella this presented differently, instead of thirst, if I didn’t drink enough, my eyes would get so dry that I couldn’t even open them in the morning. It’s hard to explain, but they were like glued shut because all my hydration was going to nourish a baby, I guess. I had a hard time keeping up with my hydration needs, so I love the idea of stocking a postpartum mom’s fridge with drinks on drinks on drinks.

 

Keeping our house clean.

Keeping our house tidy is something I’m trying to care more about. I’m not an organized person, so I need super basic ideas, which is why I titled this post, “organization for dummies” haha. Our home looking clean isn’t a motivator to me…clutter doesn’t bother me. There’s an Albert Einstein quote I’ve always used as justification for a cluttered home haha..it goes, “if a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then is an empty desk a sign?” I kid, kind of. But things that do motivate me to keep a clean house are 1) knowing where things are (so I’m not losing my mind looking for one of Jo’s tennis shoes every.singe.day…it adds so much stress) and 2) the house smelling nice.

Lately I’ve added a couple bins and an ottoman that has storage to our home so at the end of the day I can just throw any and all clutter into them and BOOM! the house is tidy. My idea is that once the basket is overflowing I can find time to go through it and throw away/donate/put away things. 

basket filled with the debris of life.
ottoman filled with debris of life.

Finished nursing. 

I stopped nursing recently and it wasn’t this frantic, panicky I-can’t-do-this-anymore-we-have-to-make-a-change thing. Instead I was nursing Ella one morning and I was just like, “this has been so good and we’re done.” I texted Andrew to let him know and that’s that. (also, side note, I always wanted Andrew to put more emoji’s in his texts to me to convey happiness and joy and excitement to be texting with me lol, but he never would so I just added a couple heart emoji’s after his name and now boom! every text from him comes with an emoji.)

In hindsight I really wish I would’ve planned her weaning a bit more thoughtfully since I ended up with some mood shifts that were pretty challenging for me and the week I weaned Andrew had a major work deadline and it could’ve been planned much better. With Jo I didn’t have any depressive symptoms after weaning (I was just rejoicing lol…was so happy to not be nursing anymore), so I was expecting the same situation with weaning Ella, but that wasn’t the case and it would’ve been nice to have a bit more support around. Hindsight is 20/20.

I’m grateful for how easy nursing Ella was, mainly because we utilized formula whenever it made sense. The day I decided to stop nursing I dropped the girls off at daycare and then took myself out to a coffee shop for breakfast / computer work and then got a massage before picking them up. It felt good to do something nice for myself to acknowledge the last several months and to acknowledge the shift in our lives.

Do you have any thoughts on these thoughts?:)

8 comments

  1. Lol that text exchange made me laugh out loud. Your thoughts on asking yourself whether someone is reachable and teachable have been really helpful to me in the past… I often find that I’m too eager to try and fix everyone’s misconceptions about healthy/dieting/body size and often need to remind myself to be patient with them. 

  2. Kylie, as someone in (slow-going) active recovery, I always appreciate your posts. You ARE authentic and help remind me that I am more than just my body – it’s just a vessel. I have to keep that in the forefront of my mind, especially as I put on weight and accept wrinkles and cellulite alike.

    Also, early motherhood is HARD, but it gets more fun as the kids get older and we get better at mothering them.

  3. I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on finishing nursing. I am about to start again when my second is born in April/May and I have so much anxiety about it. I had to supplement with my first and fully expect to again but still put the pressure on myself to nurse as long as possible.
    I hope that I am at peace with my nursing journey the second time around but can’t help but feel some nerves. Thanks for sharing!

  4. Your question of “Is this person reachable and teachable?” is so good. There are so many times that women in my local moms facebook groups will ask tips for losing weight. I just want to send links to awesome IE and HAES people, but I know it wouldn’t make a difference. It makes me so sad to see tons of women jump into the conversation with diets they’re on.

  5. I am glad you mentioned your mood changes after stopping nursing! When I stopped nursing my 1-year old last spring, I experienced some anxiety/depression that I wasn’t expecting since I didn’t have any of that right after his birth. When I asked my doctor about it, they said that I was probably just sad that the nursing stage was over (which wasn’t the case because I felt mostly relieved) which made me wonder even more why I was feeling this way.

    • Crystal Karges has a good post on post weaning depression. I was looking into this after my experience and wanting to understand more. Here’s the link to the entire post: https://www.crystalkarges.com/blog/how-im-weaning-my-toddler-plus-breastfeeding-weaning-tips

      She says, “There are two major hormones that support breastfeeding, including prolactin and oxytocin, or the “feel good love hormone” that supports baby bonding. When breastfeeding decreases and milk production slows, a woman will experience a dip in both of these hormones, which can trigger intense feelings of loss, sadness, and poor mood.

      Estrogen, which generally remains lower while breastfeeding, will slowly begin to rise to pre-pregnancy levels after weaning. For some women, the return to a baseline level of estrogen can happen more slowly. The gradual and shifting increase of estrogen can also be a contributing factor to depression.”

  6. The thing about stopping at the emotional age you started your disorder and finding something besides “oh good, I got through this day”- this is soooo me. Like, I’m 33 and I still notice thought patterns and behaviors that are Characteristic of my 13 year old, pre-disorder self. And I’ve struggled to develop or maintain any real interests or hobbies since that time- I have 3 children so of course they are my priority, but I want to have a personality, too! My question is, do you have any tangible ways that you worked towards figuring out who you were outside of the fitness/body stuff? I believe my identity is in Christ, which is obviously most important, but how do I put that into action and discover how to live that out as the person God made me with unique interests and hobbies and passions? 

  7. Thank you for this beautiful post. That is all!

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