Okay, I’m embarrassed to even admit that I do this but my neuroses want to know if they have company in your neuroses.
I read a lot of magazines. It’s a sickness really. But my real weakness is that every time I see one of those weight-loss success stories (I lost 90 lbs in 3 weeks!), I go straight for the numbers. Chicken breast…blah, blah,blah… exercise…blah, blah, blah… alien abduction… blah… height: 5’11”. AHA! I need to find their height, see, because they always post weight or pounds lost at the top next to the “after” shot and taken together I can do a quickie mental calculation and figure out the poor woman’s BMI. Not that that is a measure of health. Not that it should even mean anything to me. Except that it does.
I look at them and think, “Okay, that’s where they are happy, where they are healthy and where society finally tells them they are good.” And then I wonder, “Is that what I look like?” It doesn’t matter how different than me they are – older, smarter, stronger, shorter, alien, whatever – I must compare before I can read any further into the article.
It’s awful, I know. A while back, Leslie of The Weighting Game posted about the phenomenon of “body checking” – the practice of checking things on one’s body that one is particularly insecure about to the point it borders on OCD (I wish I could give you the link but I couldn’t find a search function on her blog). I think this is my twisted permutation of that.
Anyone else do this??
(Sorry, removed the first post to add the attribution.)
I went through a phase of weighing myself first- and last-thing each day. I don’t know if it helped me. It was kind of fun. But I could definitely see how that could be an OCD thing…
Plagiarism warning: I got this idea from Cranky Fitness… Magazines and going to the gym. They are great ideas. You feel better, you are happier… but then you start getting the message of “you need to be thinner, you need to be sexier.” But really… you are getting what you came for. You feel great!
You can’t let that marketing crap get you all screwed up. I like to think that I’m above that. But I feel it once in a while, and it hurts. I hope/wish everyone can/could see through this crap.
Oh boy… I’m rambling. Sorry.
I TOTALLY DO THIS.
all the time.
Ill grab my husband (I only do it to him) when I see a muscular woman and whisper:
am I bigger than she?
which is inevitably followed by the (waitforit. it’s UGLY)
do you think she does steroids?!
M.
I’m with both you, Charlotte, and Mizfit.
I always try to figure out how I compare to the celebrities (does anyone compare? Really? I’d rather eat) and try to find out who is closest to my size.
And, I always as the hubby if I’m bigger/smaller than random people I see in public. It’s not that I’m really that concerned about being bigger, it’s more that I have no idea how I actually look in physical space. I have the same problem with not knowing the actual length of my hair. Strange, I know.
While I don’t do that, my friends and I play a game similiar to Mizfit where we try to find people that have similar body shapes as us and then point them out. I’ll see someone I think looks like me and I’ll ask my friend, “Is that what I look like?” and she usually answers, “No, honey. You’re bigger than that.” It probably isn’t healthy, but since I can’t trust my eyes or my brain, it helps to have an outsiders perspective on the actual size of my ass. The responses my friends give me are both motivating and depressing.
Swerdna – excellent post from Cranky! It’s so true. I guess I thought it wasn’t “media hype” though since these people were “real.” Okay, just typing that sentence made me realize the absolute absurdity of it. Thank you.
MizFit & Gena – Our husbands should start a support group. Mine doesn’t even answer me anymore – just rolls his eyes.
Gena – I totally know what you mean. I seem to have no concept of what I really look like. when I close my eyes, I can’t picture me! Mirrors surprise me on a regular basis. Glad to know I’m not the only one!!
I do the same thing with weight-loss stories, especially in Women’s Health or Oxygen. I check the women’s weight and height, not for BMI, but just for self-comparison. Aargh. Not the healthiest habit.
It’s easy to say,”The true battle is with the self,” but harder to do. I think with karate it finally “kicked” in. I realized I could never be as good as some others, but saw, and took pride in, what I was accomplishing, and realized that if not good, I sure was getting a lot better!
Dr. J
I’m right there with the rest of you. Is it just human nature to constantly compare ourselves to other people? And when we’ve got all of these contradictory images of celebrities and new studies coming out all the time, is it possible to NOT size yourself against other people?
ooh Gena, I WANT to be bigger 🙂
though typically I find the ENORMO genetic anomalies with amazing legs like treetrunks and say:
DO I LOOK THAT BIG?!
my hubby will mutter a NO and run as fast as he can 🙂
M.
Mizfit – I understand where you are coming from on the being bigger aspect. However, years of being nicknamed “Thunder thighs” and called exclusively that by certain people will give a girl a bit of a complex. Even if it has been 10 years since I was last called that, emotional scars last forever.
Sorry to highjack the comments!
MizFit – I do that with my husband to but we have a secret code (secet b/c I’m crazy and he doesn’t need everyone to know what a ridiculous person I am): “AMITAH?” Somehow, this stands for “Am I as tall as her.” B/c I’m 5’11” but don’t really believe it and sometimes I see a girl walk by who’s 6’4 and will say to dan, “Psst! AMITAH?” And he’ll roll his eyes and be, like, “Um, no, she’s an amazon.”
Why he puts up with me, I have no clue.
PS Charlotte, here is the body checking link: http://theweightinggame.ivillage.com/dietfitness/2008/02/body_checking_aint_just_for_ho.html#comments
xo
I’m glad to say I don’t do this anymore. I used to do it ALL THE TIME, but have stopped in the past year. I feel a little saner. (I’ve still got SO MANY other issues, though,lol!)
I get all the magazines and do the same thing. I do most of the body checking items from leslie’s blog, especially pinching my fat all day long. (I do it so much that sometimes I don’t even realize I am doing it, which can be quite embarrassing at the grocery store!)
so now that we know our neuroses are keeping each other company, how do we get them to stop?
Wow, 1 male response, a plethra of female responses. Time to even the count, er sort of. I will admit that I did do that at first, comparing myself to other males and or other male celebrities. But after the weight started to come off I just started to do the ol’ pinch around the waist and flabby areas. I was amazed that the motivation became how much less can I actually pinch! Since I was pinching myself I no longer looked at others for comparison. Ironically, I started to get more looks my way.
Gym Buddy Mike
p.s. I can’t believe you would still compare yourself to others Charlotte, you could be a model yourself in some of those fitness magazines or on the cover of Belvue =P Just teasing!!!
I used to totally be into the stat checking too but started to give up on it because there really is no consistancy. You can have 2 people with the same stats and they can look totally different. This is why I loved what How to Look Good Naked did with their show. They got us to focus on our beauty more by showing us how much our own perception is off. Can’t wait til the show is back.
I would think that most women would think like that – at least those who have been exposed to the marketing of the diet and celebrity industries.
Like Leslie said above, I’m 5’11” and I always look for women who are as tall as me in those articles, in life, or anything really. Plus the women in those articles are rarely tall and so it’s always interesting to see the stats.