Every body is different. Thats something that I have to remember. We all gain and lose in different places and the skin we wear is suited to fit each of us perfectly. I say the now as a reassurance because lately I have caught myself thinking more and more about how this recovery looks on me. I have to call it that – Its not weight, its health that I’m regaining. I know, too, that when I look in the mirror, what I see may be the common view but I interpret it differently than others would.

When I look in the mirror I try to point out the good things about where recovery is working its wonders. My waist, for instance. In my eyes it is all settling around my waist there is scads of logic and miles of reasoning to rebuke that. Its a fact that in the refeeding process the initial weight does seem to amass in the abdomen. This is because of a few things such as your stomach, not used to food, is digesting slower. It makes sense. Your body, not knowing when it is going to be deprived of food again, tries to hang on to what it does get for a longer period of time than normal.

Its also a fact that, when a person starving themselves of the nutrients that supply energy, the body takes that energy that it needs from internal things in a certain order. Fat goes first. When it has used that up the energy stored in muscle is the new target. Those get used and limbs start looking gaunt and thin, and so it goes down the line. Eventually the energy needed starts getting taken from some organs to keep other, more vital, ones working. Organ mass is lost and shutdown of different ones can occur as your body does its best to keep the two most crucial, your heart and brain, going as long as it can. Thus, when your body is gaining everything back, it regains first what it last took from and things in your torso get replenished before arms and legs do.

All of this comforts me when my mind starts to wander into the questioning black hole realm and I know that what I see around my middle will disperse through the rest of my body in time. I also know that I am going to gain differently than some of the other girls here by comparison for one very BIG and important (and cute as can be) reason. Reese. I have had a child and most of them have not. My amazing, now 8-year-old, son is the driving force behind so much of my work here and there will never come a day when I would choose a flat stomach over him.

We are all different, in all unique shapes and sizes, and if defined by no other label, I am ME.