A Necessary Introduction

It's here that you will find my safe haven, my thoughts on private matters and public ones that I daren't share with the people around me. You will find my food diary, my exercise log, and hopefully accompany me to regaining the healthy weight I lose by gaining a whopping 42 pounds (I've lost 12 by now).

I used to be a very active member of the Xanga weight loss community, and was very sad to see it go when it did years ago. I want to preface this by saying that I have always been at a healthy weight, if not overweight (like now), and I intend to stay that way! I may post photos of skinny people from time to time, or have the elusive goal of being very thin, but I don't intend to ever be that thin. That's because I love my body and I cannot fathom doing things to it to make it undernourished, chronically tired, to make its organs weak, and to make it truly suffer. I beg you to shut off this page and talk to a trusted person if you are unhealthy and need help because of Anorexia Nervosa or other eating disorder. Please!

So what is the point of this blog? The short answer is that I don't know, but the long answer is much more complex. I had an indescribable and absolutely necessary control over my life when I was part of the Xanga community. That's where I kept track of what I ate and how much I exercised. It wasn't so much the calories themselves that mattered, but the fact that I could keep track of my size, my intake, my exercise. No matter what went wrong, I had that constant, that one thing that kept me company and kept me grounded when everything else was uncertain.

I need that again.

Some would advise me to find the same feeling elsewhere, but I don't want to and neither do I have to. At a small-framed 5' 6" and a whopping 150 lbs. I am 30 pounds away from my previously healthy weight (I wasn't very small!)

That's a weight I wish to maintain! Whether five pounds more or less is no matter. But I want to be clear that though images of skinny teenagers --many of whom are likely skinny due to the genetics of their childhood-- sometimes represent the elusive idea of total control, of a certain ascetic superiority (as well as beauty!), I only intend to admire them and never to emulate.