Hello ladies,

My name is Camila. I am new in this group and will, hopefully, post something every Wednesday
or Friday  I’d like to begin today’s post by telling you all a bit about me. I am 22 years old. I live
in Colombia. I am recovering from binge eating disorder as well as orthorexia. My story is not
uncommon, I grew up surrounded by messages from diet culture and pressured by impossible
standards. Achieving the “perfect” weight became my ultimate wish. Once I moved away from
home to study in college, I became obsessive about what I ate and how much I exercised. I lost a
lot of weight, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to be “perfect” and all of that just lead me
to lose control around food. Eating, which brings me so much joy, became a torment. I am
recovering now, gained a lot of weight and I am still not used to it. So today I’d like to talk to you
about navigating through a negative body image while on recovery.

I had planned a totally different topic to write about, but the last few days have been
particularly hard for me with my body image, so I definitely feel like I want to vent. Even when I
was at lowest weight ever, I never found happiness in my body. There was always something
bad with it, something to fix. Today, at a heavier weight, there are days in which I still find
myself in front of the mirror, highlighting my every imperfection. It all comes from a mean voice
in my head, that same voice that tells me I am not good enough, not pretty enough, not
intelligent enough. The same voice that suggests me to binge whenever I feel sad or
uncomfortable.

There is a difference now: I can eat a piece of cake without freaking out about how many
calories it has and I can skip a day at the gym without beating myself up for it. That, to me,
means everything. I still don’t have every tool in toolbox to fight these negative thoughts. Some
days, I still let myself go. I still have occasional binges (not due to restriction anymore, though,
I’ll talk about it on a different post). And sometimes I still cry about it. But, once I am in a more
positive mindset, I give myself some words of comfort and try to repeat some affirmations.

I’ll write a small list of things I say to myself:

 The mean thoughts in my head are just thoughts, not the ultimate truth.
 Me thinking my body is “ugly” or “unacceptable” because of my weight is just diet
culture talking.
 I love myself in my unaltered state (I found this affirmation on a body positivity video. I’ll
share it here ).
 My weight doesn’t reflect who I am or what I’m worth.
 I thank my body for everything it does for me, for keeping me alive, for allowing me to
feel, experience, taste, learn. My body is incredible as it is.
 There is absolutely nothing wrong with my body.

These are just some examples. Here’s a link of affirmations I found on Pinterest that help me
cope with these uncomfortable feelings: https://sunnythymes.com/67-affirmations-to-make-
peace-with-food-and-your-body/
Today I saw an Instagram post by Demi Lovato and she wrote this in her caption: “Just so
everyone’s clear.. I’m not stoked on my appearance BUT I am appreciative of it and sometimes
that’s the best I can do”. And I think that sums it up pretty well. Let’s try to be gentle with our
bodies, even if there are days in which we struggle with what we see. Let’s appreciate
everything our bodies can do, because they are amazing as they are.

I wish this post was a bit more encouraging. I wish I could tell you I have all the answers and I
don’t suffer from a bad body image anymore. But this is real. And as real as it is, I have hope for
a future in which I don’t pick myself apart and I hope you, in your recovery, do to.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Lots of love,

Camila

(Excuse me if my English is not perfect. I am not a native speaker, but I hope I can get better).

In Latino culture these standards are particularly hard to follow, as the ideal is something along
the lines of Shakira, Sofia Vergara or Jennifer Lopez. We are expected to be curvy but not too
curvy. Skinny, but not too skinny. We are expected to have a big butt and huge boobs and a flat
stomach. Frankenstein much? I was never even close to the ideal: always too fat, too big, too
much of everything. So being skinny became my ultimate goal, until

Latino culture has very particular ways of putting a lot of pressure on women in relation to their
bodies. The standards are almost impossible, with an ideal that oscillates from Shakira to Sofia
Vergara, with beauty queens in between. There is A LOT of diet talk, particularly in smaller
cities, like the one where I was born and raised. Everyone seems fixated on body image and
having a smaller body seems, to many, like a key to success. At least, that’s what I thought
growing up. I was never a thin child, always too big, too fat, too everything to be within norm. I
was a good student in school, but people used to tell me that it was a shame I wasn’t skinny. It
became my ultimate goal, one which would torment me all the way to college. During my senior
year of high school, I was, according to pretty much everyone, overweight and unhealthy. I
started one very popular diet, which consisted in cutting out all carbs. I lost a significant amount
of weight, but then I hit a plateau. A dietitian changed my diet. She gave me a less restrictive
one, but somehow, I learnt to restrict even more. I kept cutting carbs and feared almost every
food group unless it was veggies or protein. As you can imagine, my diet was less than