My Legs

I've written about my legs a few times (most notably here and here and showing off a lot of leg here), so you probably know that my legs have been the body part I always did everything to conceal. I carried a lot of hatred and resentment for my legs for the majority of my life. And after writing about them last year, I thought about other ways my feelings about my legs and thighs have affected my life on a daily basis:

1- I will not wear anything without pantyhose. At the very least I wear Spanx.

2- As most of you know, I wear heels all the time (yes, I bike in heels. I can't believe a few of you only just realized this. 4" heels. On my bike. Really!). This started around age 22 because I don't like being short and because I hated my legs. The added height makes my legs look longer and better. I always say "heels take 10 pounds off instantly". I stand by that statement.

3- I have not worn shorts since... actually the last memory I have is when I was 8 years old. And I remember my thighs sticking together and not liking that feeling.

4- I don't wear pants. I stopped wearing pants at the time I turned 14 because of the years of emotional torture of trying to find pants that fit my thighs and because even if I did find a pair that was big enough, I hated how I looked in them - they clearly displayed to the world how large my legs were and everyone could watch the horror show of my thighs angrily fighting their way past each other from the knee to the thigh with every step. I was self conscious of every single step and swoosh. It's been skirts and dresses since 1985.

5- I haven't worn a bathing suit in public since I was 11 with only two exceptions:

1) In 2008, I went to Coney Island but wouldn't remove a skirt/coverup I brought with me.

2) In 1996? I went to a beach with a friend. It took more courage than I could possibly tell you for me to wear that bathing suit in public. I sat on the sand and was uncomfortable the whole time. To make matters worse, he later told me he had nicer legs than me. Of course he did, everyone did. But I didn't need to hear it. It devastated me, even if it was a "joke".

6- My nickname when I was in 6th grade (11 years old) was "Stubs" because I had short stubby legs. You can be sure I did NOT give myself this nickname. The other kids did. Even that far back my legs were being scrutinized - and not just by me - but by other people.

7- I mentioned here once or twice that very, very few people have ever seen my legs completely bare. This, to me, is still enormously terrifying - to let someone see my legs with nothing on them (or not through a mirror, in your case, dear readers. Believe me, that mirror image hides a lot of... stuff). It is never, ever easy if the moment comes where I know someone is going to see my legs. And believe it or not, it's what I dread most about the doctor - not the exam, not the procedures, not even the results - the horror of people seeing my bare legs.

8- I used to tell my ex husband that one of my biggest fears was a fire occurring in the middle of the night and me having to leave the apartment - with the neighbors & firemen seeing my legs. I wasn't kidding. The thought of this happening (not the fire, mind you, just having strangers see my legs) mortified and terrified me so much I wondered if I might consider not escaping, just so I didn't have to live through that. I was that embarrassed and ashamed of my legs.

Despite that lifelong history of self hatred toward my legs, in the last year or so, I've been doing what I can to make peace with them. I accept them more now than I ever have, or ever thought possible. And what has helped me do that is reframing - just like I mentioned in my recent body image post - focusing on what my legs can DO instead of what they look like.

The truth is I may never love my legs for what they look like. But I work on my reframing and remind myself of some pretty amazing facts about my legs: They are the same tiny legs I was born with! They are the same legs that used to crawl and eventually learned to walk. They are the same legs that I have relied on for nearly every movement I have made every day for the last 39 years. They are the same legs that, through eating better and moving a little, I've made much smaller and significantly stronger than they used to be. They are the same legs that now walk, cycle, commute, jump, skip, zumba, kick, do yoga, skate. They are the same legs that have now ridden a bike for thousands of miles in NYC. They are the same legs I use to power myself and that bicycle up and over almost every bridge in the NYC area - on a bike with NO GEARS!

They are the same legs that climbed the over 1000 stairs of two landmark NYC skyscrapers!

And they are the same legs that recently began running - something I told myself I "couldn't" do for my whole life - but they are the same legs that completed The Brooklyn Half marathon last month!

And they are the same legs that are going to run a FULL marathon next year!

My legs have never let me down. They have been there for me my whole life serving me in numerous and important ways. How could I hate them when they have done and continue to do so much for me?

So sure, my legs may not be what is considered ideal in my own personal terms of looks. They will never be "perfect" on the outside, but they work, they're strong, they're amazing, and they're mine!

(As a reminder, this is what my legs looked like at 173 pounds. I had lost 35 pounds already, but I have no photo of my legs at a heavier weight)