A Healthy Perspective

I was just talking to my sister-in-law this evening, and telling her about my medication induced weight gain, and how uncomfortable I'm feeling in my body, and she began to tell me how she struggled with anorexia in college, which is a really common time for women to begin falling into eating disorders. She said that she gained twenty pounds at the beginning of college, and basically starved herself to lose the weight, and then couldn't stop. She said that training to be a swim instructor was what helped her, but that she still struggles with the excessive worry over gaining weight. She is very active and physically fit, and says that she gets up at 4:15 a.m. just to exercise, making sure that she does 15 minutes worth of sit ups, and that her activity level dictates how much she will eat that day. To me, that still sounds a bit disordered, making me think that most women have eating and body image issues. How do you get around that in this society? There is so much emphasis on being thin, and how do you do that and still maintain a healthy perspective. I seriously wonder if it is even possible. I'm so very unhappy with my weight, and can I lose it without drastically restricting my food intake and exercising in excess? Everyone tells me how healthy I look right now, which in my mind means that they think I'm fat...but besides the poor body image, I physically feel great. Do I give that up, just to be thin, and emulate the ideal body image? Why is that even an option in my mind? It should be a no brainer. I wish that it was.