Post written to my “therapy” blog just after an IM session with my counselor.

Weight. Gaining it as protection…we’ve talked about that.

How ’bout gaining it as a “test”…to see if someone really likes me or if they like the packaging?

When I met (ex-boyfriend), I was in pretty good shape (I still am, but right now am 10 lbs heavier). He would gripe at himself sometimes about having a little bit of a gut - which, sure, there’s some, but nothing really. I found him attractive. Thing is, I know that I’m in better shape than some of the girls he’s been with before…probably more so than most. But, I think with him, there is so much of an emphasis on appearances, that maybe I’ve put on some weight just to see if he’d drop me because of it? Maybe the “insides” are good enough, when the body is hot too, but lose that, and…well, just not enough?

I’m kind of going stream of consciousness here, as thoughts occur to me, by the way.

Again, another reason that I’ve hated to let go of (other ex-boyfriend), he’s made it clear that even when I weighed the most, he still found me very sexy and very desirable. That goes a long way; I know it’s not about how firm/soft I am, or what size I wear.

To give a little background on that, my mother has always, ALWAYS stressed about her weight. And, in a lot of ways, I think my father has contributed to that. There’s a picture of her - pre-kids - where she’s wearing a bikini. She probably weighed 105? 110? in the picture, but she told me that my dad had told her she should lose weight. What she really needed was to get some muscle, but that’s a different story. Anyway, over the years, Mom has gained weight, to where now she’s not quite 5′2″ yet she weighed close to 190. Now, years later, she’s seeing a nutritionist I recommended to her, and she’s getting her metabolism back together…but I think that her weight worries stuck with me when I was a kid. Mom’s learned to tell Dad to “Can it!” Isaac is tempermentally so similar to my father, I think I was afraid of the same cycle.

But I’m not my mother. And I embraced fitness in my 20s…for life. (I was very inactive in high school, but never fat.)

Back to weight as protection. Here’s a theory:

“If I’m a little pudgy when they fall in love with me, I know they love ME, and not just the packaging.”