Days 6 & 7: Peace with Food and Clothes.

Can everyone forgive me that I forgot to write yesterday. Things were insanely busy.

My relationship with food is complex. It's a love/hate relationship. My sophomore year, I went through a rough patch and basically stopped eating. I lost 30 pounds in less than three months, with one stint of 10 pounds in a week. It wasn't a conscious thing. I was stressed with school and boys and roommates, and just became so anxious that I couldn't eat. Luckily that summer came and I learned to eat in healthy ways again. This healthy appetite was supplemented later by my semester in Europe. There breakfasts were pastries, lunch was baguettes, salami, and brie, and dinner was usually some sort of pasta. I had chocolate and gelato every day, if not multiple times a day. But in Europe it's all about natural ingredients and small portions sizes. The food I ate didn't effect my size at all, in fact I lost weight while there! My time in Europe was maybe a time when I loved my body the most.

Right now I'm trying to love food again. My roommates and I cook dinners together most days of the week. I'm really cooking for the first time in my life. Last Wednesday, I made zucchini linguini all by myself. What I've learned this semester is that coming to peace with food means learning some patience. Patience with myself. Patience with cooking. Patience with eating. Which is why I have loved eating with my room mates so much. This semester has taught me to sit down and appreciate my food, to eat it with patience.

Now clothes!

The past couple of weeks I have been searching for the perfect outfit for a couple different events I have coming up. I was really going for a vintage, full skirt silhouette. I had no such luck. Last week, Linds and I stopped into the new H&M at the mall. I found a dress that hugged my hips. In the dressing room I felt pretty! That doesn't happen often with me and clothes. So I decided to buy it even though it wasn't what I had been looking for. After we returned home, I re-tried it on for one of my roommates. Even though my roommates insisted I looked "hot," I still felt the pangs of buyer's remorse. But, I decided to wear it anyway. Today I wore it to stake conference, not caring how big my hips are.

And you know what, it felt kinda good to put my hips out there for all the world to see. It was one of those, "I am woman, hear me roar" kinda days.