Skinny-fatness Part Deux

This post really deserves a better sequel title, something like The Skinny & The Fat, or 2 Skinny 2 Fat, or better yet- The Skinny & The Fat: Tokyo Drift. (Wow, did you click on that link? How many sequels to The Land Before Time do we need exactly?) Since my last post on skinny-fatness, several people have asked me about the first picture displayed. Yes, that really is me. And to be clear, I wasn’t naturally that skinny. (Does anybody naturally look like a Holocaust victim?)

That body shape resulted from a lot of running and barely eating. If you want to put a label on it, then clearly I was anorexic. Cue up the eating disorder made-for-TV-movie background music! Not to be confused with the bulimia soundtrack- as it’s slightly more haunting and has just a little more cowbell. As a traditionalist, I always considered anorexia the purest form of an eating disorder-unlike bulimia. Picture the Jets vs. Sharks. Those bulimics are first-generation ED victims, while we anorexics are the original ED gang. I myself have faced multiple eating disorder victim rumbles- and I have to hand it to them-bulimics are a scrappy bunch, but they smell and they’re teeth are rotten.

The picture from my original post was taken while I was a member of the Taylor University cross country team during my freshman year. Honestly, I’m not sure how I continued running because I barely had enough energy to climb the stairs in my dorm. During my first cross country meet, my heart was pounding so hard it terrified me. I blacked out for a second, and that was it- I was scared into realizing I needed to get healthy.

After that, I quit the team. I’ve never quit anything before in my life. I was terrified, because I was finally facing struggles I’d dealt with since 6^th grade. It was scary because it wasn’t about food, and most concerned onlookers just wanted to see me eat and feel relieved that I was “cured”. I’d gained the weight back in previous episodes and not been any closer to mental or physical health.

Some aspects of getting well were exciting- for instance, I still remember the Dairy Queen Oreo blizzard of Summer 2001. I hadn’t eaten a Dairy Queen blizzard since elementary school folks. It might sound ridiculous, but it was pretty damn exciting when I ate that entire blizzard without guilt or following it up with a 2 hour run. (“I survived the Blizzard of ’01″ T-shirts are still pending)

Some aspects of getting well were sobering. I had communion for the first time in several years (yes, that’s right, previously I didn’t let myself eat the cracker or juice because of calories). I can’t explain this experience, if you aren’t a spiritual person maybe it doesn’t mean much, but for me this was like coming back to God. Or really it was like meeting God for the first time- because before He had been about rules, laws, the do nots, perfection, guilt and sin. This new God I met balanced all His justice with love, mercy and freedom. Do you know what it does to a person who’s grown up in a Christian home to finally meet a God who loves you and has created everything to glorify himself by making us immeasurably and exceedingly happy in him?

If you’ve ever noticed the tattoo on my left forearm, it says “Freedom”. It’s a reminder that I’ve been set free from a lot of things, and to never let myself be burdened again by those things. The excitement I felt that freshman year at the start of my journey to wellness was captured wonderfully by the character Red in Shawshank Redemption:

I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.

So- I know about skinny fatness. You might never have taken it to that extreme- you might not label yourself (because aren’t ‘eating disorders’ so 1998?), but you might still find yourself attaching food and body image to emotions. You might be trapped by other things not allowing you to experience freedom. Every action you take, every thought you have, every word you speak, every food you eat is leading you somewhere- to more health or less health, to living or dying (physically or spiritually), to freedom or slavery, to love or hate. Either get busy living or get busy dying.

And for goodness sake, watch out for bulimics- they’re smelly pirate hookers (I kid, I kid-you know that’s Ron Burgundy speaking, right?). Stay classy blog readers.

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