International No Diet Day

I Pledge:
• That I will not diet for one day, on May 6, International No Diet Day.
• Instead of trying to change my body to fit someone else's standards, I will accept myself just as I am.
• I will feed myself if I'm hungry.
• I will feel no shame or guilt about my size or about eating.
• I will think about whether dieting has improved my health and well-being or not.
• And I will try to do at least one thing I have been putting off "until I lose weight."
• 

Dieting is something I think about a lot these days. I have a loved one with a severe eating disorder. When I see what she is going through, I want to ban diets and any thoughts of weight loss from this world. But I am conflicted, because I have fallen into the obese (or more) category on any medical chart for nearly ten years, and I have not been happy with myself. Most of the weight came on post children and post moving to the country from NYC (living here has slowed me down significantly). I have taken it for granted that I am fat and that I need to lose weight and that there is something wrong with me for not being able to lose weight. I’ve tried dieting. I’ve been on weight watchers. I’ve counted calories. I lose weight, and then I gain it all back plus more. While dieting, I become obsessed with food and numbers. Thankfully I recognized that tendency in myself and was able to stop each time without it turning into a disorder. I will never do weight watchers or count calories again, because I see how close that mindset is to the mindset of someone with an eating disorder. Some people can do these things without it getting out of hand, but I feel like I’m at risk.
It’s quite possible I would never have started my steady rise upward on the scale if I had never started in the beginning. I really have no idea. And I don’t really know what to do about it now. Perhaps taking for granted that where I am now isn’t healthy is what needs to change. I eat well. I am relatively active. I get clean bills of health from the doctor. Why not learn to be happy where I am and stop letting worrying about my weight affect my life?
The last line in the International No Diet Day pledge struck a chord with me. What have I been putting off until I lose weight? I never thought that through before, but I realize I’ve been putting off a lot. I have put off seeing myself as beautiful. I shrink from certain things because I am afraid of how people will see me. I see myself as worth less. I give up on doing things that are good and healthy for me because I think “what’s the point”? These are big things, and I need to work through them.
One smaller thing I have put off is taking a full-body self-portrait of myself. It’s can be hard to see myself that way, and because most of the people who see my photography are friends I’ve made or reacquainted myself with through the internet, I’ve deluded myself into thinking I can present a different and better side of myself by hiding certain things.  So I decided the full-body portrait was how I would honor the last line of the INDD pledge. I took my camera to a local orchard where I knew I would have some privacy and gave myself what I am coming to look at as a gift. I know I’m off in the distance here, but it’s a big start toward presenting myself as I am. I hope this is the beginning of my loving myself more and showing myself more respect.

What have YOU been putting off until you lose weight or until some other obstacle in your life changes? If you care to share with a photo, I’ve started a flickr group for International No Diet Day. I welcome you to join.

seeing double

This past week's Picture Imagination assignment was Seeing Double. Tracey wasn't looking for a self-portrait, but I figured it was about time. I try to take self-portraits ever few weeks.

Self-portraits are hard for so many reasons. First, they are a challenge to take -- taking a photo without being able to look in the viewfinder is always hard, whether you're holding the camera out, using a tripod and remote, or doing the "10-second dash" (using the timer and running into the photo). Second, I know very few women who are fully content with how they look, and I am no different. I can come up with all sorts of excuses as to why today isn't a good day for a self-portrait, but I don't think there's ever a good day, so I just have to do it. It's extra hard when you have children with their own self-esteem issues and you want to present a happy-with-yourself front to them.

That's a big reason why I do self-portraits -- to present that happy-with-myself front to my children and also to myself. I'm hoping it's infectious. And since I tend to be the one behind the camera most of the time and run away from other cameras, I want to make sure there are a few photos of me for posterity's sake.

This wasn't actually the photo I intended to take. I wanted to get more of me, and I had an idea of how it would look. But I got this first and I liked all the eyes. I bumped up the contrast in the reflection significantly to bring out the reflection. And I resisted my usually-present urge to warm it up.

So, let's try this.

I've been considering giving blogging another try (I've tried a few times in the past but never got very far), and figured now was the time because I am beginning a year-long photography workshop/class with Tracey Clark over at Big Picture Classes. The class is called Picture Inspiration, and it's a spinoff of some other wonderful but shorter classes Tracey's given there and I've had the good fortune to take in the past year. There is still time to join the class, if it interests you. Seems to me that blogging what I do for that class each week will at the very least have me blogging once a week, so it's a perfect way to start. And ideally I'll blog more often than that. I've had things I've wanted to share that don't really fit the flickr or facebook formats.

So on to the Picture Inspiration assignment of the week (Week 1). Tracey asked us to share a self-portrait. I've taken a number of self-portraits over the past year and I find that sometimes they are easier than others. Right now is not one of those times. I am having trouble being happy for the camera, and there's more going on that makes whole dealing with my self-image thing confusing. I tried to hide behind blur and bokeh and creativity, but I finally went with a simple self-portrait, setting my camera across the table from me.