Body Image

I can't say I don't struggle with body image, but I like to think I don't struggle with it as much as I could. I am not thrilled that I carry extra weight, and occasionally I get jealous when I see skinnier girls and hear compliments they get for the outfits they wear (that I feel my body type does not afford me the option to wear). I am more often self-conscious because of my fear of what others think about my body than I am about my own thoughts. I have days where I look down at myself and say, "Wow, these jeans fit well!" or "I look good in this dress/shirt," but all of those wonderful thoughts about myself can go away when I am around others and I start to worry about how THEY think I look.

I am overweight. I don't argue that. Most people I meet are aware that I am overweight, and the ones that aren't away are completely oblivious.

Here's the piece that many people around me don't know-I have PCOS. PCOS is "PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome", which has many symptoms attached to it. When you read (or hear) that name, you might think it's scarier than it is. It's not really a major issue in my life. People with PCOS can live a normal, healthy life. However, some of the symptoms can be incredibly unhealthy and difficult to battle.

One symptom of PCOS is difficulty losing weight. My body chemistry makes it hard for me to lose weight, which means that when I gain weight, I have to work extra hard to get rid of it. I have struggled with weight most of my life, and I have been made fun of for it and "encouraged" to lose weight by family and friends who, despite having great intentions, misunderstood the problem. For many years, I felt like a failure because I could not lose the weight I was carrying around with me. My dad would tell me that I could be so much healthier if I lost weight. He would tell me that he worried about my future because I was heavy. His heart was in the right place, but his words hurt. You see, when I was 12, my dad had a heart attack. In fact, the nurses/doctors told him he had two separate heart attacks in one day. When I was 17, my dad had triple bypass heart surgery (and I was recently told by my sister that he had a heart attack leading up to his surgery-how she knows that and I don't is a mystery, but that's beside the point). When I was 21, my dad had another heart attack. His concern about my weight was valid. Heart disease runs in our family, and being overweight has been shown to be a contributing factor to heart disease. While he meant well and his intent was pure, his words still stung, because I was trying to lose weight. I have continued to try to lose the weight over the years, and while I have had some periods of success, there always seems to be a plateau of weight loss, where I just get stuck.

In addition to weight loss difficulty, another symptom of PCOS is "Pre-diabetes". Now, for those of you that know much about diabetes, this is more in the Type 2 realm of diabetes. I am not diabetic, but my body does not process sugars the way it "should". I put should in quotes, because everyone's body works differently, even though there are generalizations about how our bodies work. Anyway, my understanding of the pre-diabetes is that the cells in my body cannot take in the sugars to be used as fuel like they are supposed to, which means there is extra sugar running around in my bloodstream. When we have extra sugars, our body stores them as fat. So now, I struggle to lose weight, and my body has decided that it is going to add more fat. Talk about a double-whammy.

Why do I explain all of this? Well, lately I've been feeling a little down. Some of you may know that I've been on a couple different online dating sites over the last couple years. I have friends that have met their husbands on these sites, and I have heard many other success stories. I'm not much of a dater, nor do I really meet people easily, so I felt like online dating was worth a shot. Well, I've been feeling down lately, because I haven't been getting many messages/much communication on these sites. I know everyone's experience is different, and I shouldn't compare my experience with my friends', but it's hard not to do just that. I don't feel like many guys initiate conversation with me, and I feel like the ones I initiate conversation with rarely respond. I have begun to feel like I am picky, because I scroll through and find fewer and fewer to contact. However, I try to remind myself that sticking to a basic list of things I'm looking for is not being picky, especially since I had a conversation with a close friend just over a week ago about how picky I am. She told me I'm not as picky as I think. That's good, but I'm still not meeting any guys.

I have a hard time separating my weight from the reasons a guy might not want to communicate with me. I have read, reread, and reread my profile(s) to see how well I am portraying myself. I feel I am doing a pretty good job portraying myself, but I still get little/no communication. I find myself regularly blaming it on how I look and how heavy I am. I know I am beautiful, and I know that God created me just the way I am, but it's still hard to not focus on my weight as a negative thing from time to time.

A wise friend once told me to focus on myself and my relationship with God, and a guy will "join the mix" when I'm not even paying attention. That may be true, but it's hard to be patient and stop thinking about when/if a guy will "join the mix" long enough to focus on myself and God. I do my best, and I'll keep doing my best.