Breast Kept Secrets: My Perfectly Imperfect Body

Breast Kept Secret #16: Your Body After Cancer is Perfectly Imperfect

I’ve battled many things in my life, as we all have. After all, what would life be without a few uphill fights? One of these battles is not at all uncommon for the female athlete: disordered eating. I ran a lot of miles on minimal calories and suffered injury after injury, denying to myself that my unhealthy eating habits were in any way connected to my cycle of injuries. The below photo was probably me at my worst. I think I weighed in at 100 pounds.

It’s been a few years. I’ve dealt with my demons. But as many people will tell you, it doesn’t take much for that voice to become louder, and you find yourself working hard to keep your old habits in the past, and not the present.

I started chemo at my heaviest weight. I’m 6 feet tall and I was at a healthy 160 pounds. This weight gain was a combination of non-activity for a few months from hip surgery and moving to Bend and becoming acquainted with the 28 craft breweries and restaurants. That 160 pounds felt awful to me. Not because I felt overweight, I just felt really unhealthy.

Over the course of chemo, I lost about 35 pounds. I went into my bilateral mastectomy at 125 pounds. I had shed a lot of fat, but even more muscle. As one of my friends put it, I looked malnourished. I would have to agree with her!

I’m not going to cover up the fact that I felt a little spark of happiness that I had lost weight. Though, I certainly still didn’t feel healthy! When my oncologist told me after chemo he would like to see me gain some weight, I heard that eating disorder voice in my head. It whispered to me, “You’re fine. You look great. You’ve never felt this happy!” I fought hard to tell that voice that I was not happy because of my weight, but rather my new outlook on life.

I’ve also heard that little voice as I reintegrate fitness into my life. I notice myself in the mirror and think that I look more athletic, finally like a runner. I tell myself it’s because of the lack of boobs, but it’s also because of the flat stomach and skinny thighs. I get comments as well. They are all well intended. “You look great!” “You look like an athlete!” “Look how healthy you look!” It’s so easy for my mind to turn these into conditional statements. “You look great…because of your weight.” You look like an athlete…because you’re not carrying extra weight.”

This is all so intertwined with life after cancer. My new body, but old thoughts. My new outlook, but a tricky line to walk. When does eating healthy transition to cutting calories? When does working out transition to working out in order to eat? When does a flat chest and weight loss move into an obsession with keeping the weight off?

If I have my way, these things will never transition into the murky, negative territory of the past. I’m working hard to eat healthy because my body feels better fueled with clean, real food. I’m working hard to work out when I want and rest when I want without feeling guilty. I’m pushing to accept my new body with its scars and tiny, developing muscles. I’m working on loving myself, all perfectly imperfect inch of it.

What I’m also working on accepting is that it took cancer to feel this way. It took cancer for me to work on accepting my body. It took cancer to get me to take care of myself in a healthy way. It took cancer to get me to open a cook book! Sometimes that saddens me that something so drastic had to happen. And sometimes, I count myself lucky that I’m so young and making strides for lots of internal happiness.