Since my How to Look Good Naked post, I've been thinking more about body image. You see, even though I've worked out the key to strutting your stuff naked in the bedroom in the presence of your loving partner, I've yet to discover how to strut same stuff in the public space. Hence, I won't be taking part in Carly's admirable, you-go-girls, love-your-attitude I Heart My Body campaign over at We Heart Life. Me doing that would be WTMI for sure. The world is not ready.
BUT.
Weirdly, with clothes on, I have always thought I look way skinnier than I actually am. Back in my mid-twenties a girlfriend and I dubbed ourselves Zanorexics. No disrespect meant to suffers of anorexia nervosa, of course. It's just that rather than being unable to see our thinness, we were unable to see our fatness.
Fiona put our Zanorexia down to the fact that we were corporate workers who spent an inordinate amount of time at our computers... and we have skinny wrists. Looking down at our hands as we typed away made us think 'look at those bony wrists, I'm just so skinny'.
I put it down to the fact that I have always been unbelievably optimistic to the point where I am able to block out anything negative in my life. A sort of lah, lah, lah I'm blocking my ears so it doesn't exist type of thing. I've always found that flat out denial works really well for most things, up to a point.
I've since realised that Zanorexia has a genetic link. My Dad (hi Dad, I know you're reading this!) is also overweight and - up to a point - oblivious to the effect on his appearance. Many men are, of course.
Now, my frequent use of 'up to a point' is deliberate. Even a seasoned Zanorexic like me realised a while ago that things weren't looking good after years of chocolate abuse. But I'm talking over 20 kegs overweight before it dawned on me that 'secret' snacking isn't so secret after all. That's the power of denial, right there.
So, while I'm not exactly ready to bare my self-inflicted elephantitis to the blogosphere, I have recently made the enormous step of taking off my rose-coloured glasses long enough to give myself a hard look in a full length mirror naked.
Let's just say that I am miraculously cured of my long-term Zanorexia and will be taking steps to get back on track immediately. If you like, you can follow my track at 40 Skinny Street where I post most Thursdays on how I'm going.
I'm guessing most of my female friends will find Zanorexia rather alien, but how are you with denial in general? Does it help or hinder in your life?
[Image by Frollein.M]