Shoot Me Like This

Next Friday I am scheduled to show up in San Francisco for a photo shoot for Yoga Journal, and I didn't lose any weight for it. And while they specifically told me not to, I am not sure I was supposed to believe them. And now I am nervous.

I grew up ridiculously self conscious of my appearance. There are pictures of me as a young girl on the beach sucking in my belly to appear thinner. I became a gym junkie early, spending 3 hours a day working out purely for the physical results.

But there are women with more mischievous minds than I. An article in the NYT Magazine this morning titled, "Narrow Minded," tipped me off that whole networks of video, photos and support groups exist online to assist women on their journey to become anorexic. The phrase is "thinspiration". If you type it in Google, a whole slew of such sites will come up. I had no idea.

In college, the practice of yoga allowed me to start to inhabit my body for real. Suddenly my body could do amazing things and it felt so good that to simply judge it based on physical appearance no longer made sense. But the cultural residue remains and this morning while looking in the mirror, turning right and left to check myself out I could sense those old feelings of "I'm fat" self-disgust. But I like to take my demons head on, so look for me in full blossoming yogini form in the September issue.