As a young, seemingly vibrant, professional, single girl living in the city of Chicago, one of the things that continuously comes up in conversation with what seems like everyone around me is the subject of dating, relationships, and sex. For a while now, I have wanted to dive in to this subject and write about it, as I think I may have some unresolved feelings on the topic that are complicated by the fact that I am and have been (varying degrees of) overweight for my entire adolescent and adult life. I really don't know if I have ever had a healthy perspective on dating, as my body image issues have always been at the forefront of my brain when exploring potential attraction from men.

Now I know what you are thinking, relationships are complicated, no matter what you weigh, what you look like, or what your socioeconomic status is. And you'd be right. Plenty of people are out there finding love and relationships while being overweight, or underweight, or tall, or short, or employed, or unemployed, and the list goes on. But the thing is, is that I don't know what it's like to be in a relationship (or even exploring the possibility of a relationship) without constantly being hyper aware of what my body looks like. To me, it truly is a "grass is always greener" scenario, as I really don't have anything else to compare it to. In my (admittedly not-so-well-informed) brain, being skinny means being able to automatically attract more men. Being skinny means more quantity. For all my dating life, I've always told myself "quality over quantity," but in reality, I would love to feel like for just a short time that the men I want to fall over themselves for me, are the ones that are. Not the rejects that no one else wants.

In high school, I didn't really "date." I went to a small high school and my Junior and Senior years, "hung out" with this guy named Patrick. We were best friends, and I always felt attracted to him. But because of how I felt about my body, I never dared bring up my attraction to him. To the contrary, my immature sense of self actually denied to everyone around me that we were anything but friends. I didn't feel "worthy" of having him see me as beautiful or even attractive, so I never even let myself go there in my head. I sabotaged any potential for a real relationship with him before it could ever become anything. Looking back on some drunk text exchanges in college later, he was attracted to me too, but we never did anything about it, neither in high school nor in college. We never ever went past the friend zone, and I was even comfortable enough to sleep in the same bed with him and not feel threatened or like he was trying to make a move. I trusted him. He was on the O-line for the football team, and always acted my protector, both physically and emotionally. He was a year younger than me, and when he asked another girl to Prom, I was shocked that I was heartbroken. I didn't realize until almost a year later when he drunkenly told me that at the time that he felt like I was pushing him away while talking about all the fun things the Seniors were going to do at Prom, so he decided to ask another Junior instead.

When I found out he had asked another girl, I pretty much stopped eating and started running longer races on the Track team. I was juggling a Spring sport, a Spring musical, working, keeping up my schoolwork, and a little bit of a broken heart and I lost a whole bunch of weight before Prom. I ended up going to my Senior Prom with my best friend's older brother (because his mom asked him to take me so I could go). We all had a great time, and we stayed friends for a while after high school, but the relationship between Patrick and I was never the same after. I went away to college and he started doing things that seemed like he was trying to make me jealous. I couldn't justify feeling jealous, as I never made my feelings for him known so it was unfair to hold him to this double standard. I again pushed him away, and not so long after, he got sucked into enjoying his own Senior year, and I kept enjoying my Freshman year in college.

Eventually I had to let what we had go, and met a much older guy (he was 27, I was 19) who eventually would become the first man I would love. Those 4 years I spent with that man could write its own book, so I'm not going to get into many of the details. To put it lightly, he was a sociopath who manipulated and used me. Somehow, he made me feel at the same time like the most beautiful and brilliant woman on Earth, while also making me feel like I was useless and did not deserve the "love" he was giving me.

In the beginning, our relationship to me was sacred and opened me up to all kinds of new things I had never experienced in my sheltered, suburban upbringing. He was older. He had traveled the world. He was wiser. He knew things about life. He helped me discover who I was as a person. He made me laugh. He made me feel like he could heal even my most innermost and deepest pains. Eventually, I did not want to let him go because our relationship felt safe, as we did most of it long distance. Shortly after we met, he moved from Nashville to Detroit, and I moved back to Chicago from the college-town that I moved to to start school. I didn't have to worry about having a "fat day," as I would only see him periodically. This was before the days of FaceTime and Skype, so even if I did gain a little weight, I would be able to take photos at angles that made me look better while we were apart. When I knew we had a visit coming up, I would start restricting calories and working out like crazy to make sure I looked my best whenever we would see each other. We were on and off for the better part of 4 years, and I realized during my time of healing after we broke up for the final time that he was manipulative and a complete narcissist. He used me: little naive, innocent, and gullible 19 year old me to fill a void in his own self-image. He could control me and my thoughts and actions, and he knew it.

During one of our breaks, I went on what I could only call "Revenge Body Tour 2008" and ended up dropping over 50 pounds in like 2 months (don't ask how I did it, my 21 year old body dropped weight so fast in a completely unhealthy, unbalanced, and quite literally insane way). I've come to realize that this massive and rapid weight loss has caused many of the lingering health issues that I'm still dealing with to this day. During this time, I finally felt a little pretty and kind of physically worthy. I still weighed around the 200 pound mark, so I was in no way skinny, but I felt free-er in my own skin and apparently it showed. I had a few men interested in me physically, and I went a little overboard with the attention. I didn't want to be tied down by one man, so I kept my options very open. Still deep down, I felt like one day I was going to be found out. I was a fat girl masquerading as a fakely-confident, slimmer, but equally damaged version of myself. 

The weight loss was short-lived, the body acceptance went away even faster, and the relationship eventually fell apart completely when I found out he had been leading a double life. I grieved the loss of that relationship for far longer than I ever care to admit, and found myself even further back than square 1. I felt like I was at square negative 24, as I was even more damaged, even less self-aware, and blaming my physical appearance on why he didn't pick me over her. It didn't occur to me that I was not the problem, that this person was an awful, self-indulgent, and dishonest shell of a human being that manipulated me into giving him every last part of me (physically, emotionally, mentally, financially, everything).

I spent the next few years attempting to heal, going to therapy, and eventually decided to try out online dating. I had a few mildly successful, allbeit short-lived, relationships along the way. I can't fully say they were successful, as it always kept circling back to how I felt about my body, and my nonacceptance of it. Even with the men who quite literally acted like and said that they worshipped me physically, I still could not let go of the voice in my head telling me that I am fat and disgusting. This cycle continued for the last few years, and I found myself going deeper and deeper into self-hatred every time I started over.

Since beginning this DietBet, I have finally realized I am finally done starting over. There's no more "Day 1 of my diet starts on Monday" excuses. There's no more "I'll skip the gym today because I'm feeling fat" excuses. There's no more "One cupcake won't hurt anyone" excuses. Every time I start over, it gets harder to shake the internal dialogue. I'm doing something different this time, in that I am being completely transparent with myself in how I am feeling and why. I am putting myself out there in a few different ways, and working past the uncomfortable truths that I have been pushing down deeper and deeper for years. The first step to true healing is admittance, and through this process, I have admitted and accepted many things about myself that I have previously deemed unloveable. I have reconnected with parts of myself that I thought I lost years ago. I have picked up the rug and brought to light all of things that I have been sweeping under there for years. It's not pretty, it's actually quite messy, but it's me and for that reason alone, it deserves love and light.

So here's to week 4. Here's to loving the parts that hurt, moving past the parts that perhaps don't fit in with my perfect life narrative, and forgetting the parts that maybe I didn't love myself as fully as I should. Here's to remembering that my stretch marks on my stomach don't define me, my hard work and perseverance does. My squishy inner thighs don't define me, my dedication does. My jiggly arms don't define me, my discipline does. My love handles and back fat don't define me, my kindness to myself and others does. And most of all, my body doesn't define me, my self-love does.

Cheers!