Body Image and Knitters

I've written on this blog and spoken publicly about the issues surrounding knitters and body image many times. Over the past few years I've experienced more than my usual share of these issues. Due to health reasons, I upped my exercise and improved my diet with the result that I took off enough extra pounds that my blood work went back to the healthy number ranges. 

The first thing I noticed was that I had a period of forgetting that I now looked different. I was surprised when I looked in the mirror and became very aware that the image of myself in my mind did not match up with the reality. I had to actively look at myself everyday for months before my self image started to readjust. It took about six months before I started feeling that I was being consistently realistic.

During this period I got a lot of compliments on the changes. The next thing I noticed was a slip back into the nitpicking mode of pointing out to myself the things I don't like about my own appearance. This realization is frustrating! It does make me understand more about how difficult it is to maintain a positive body image even after a huge improvement in both health and appearance. I hope to stop this negative thought process so I put it on my Google task list to read this whenever I catch myself slipping into this behaviour. If you decide to do the same let me know if it helps you.