She glances up and dances over to me, her thin frame and ethereal manor striking jealousy into my heart at its very core. She inspects the package I am delicately holding as to not damage the trophy inside. Her silence encourages me to continue speaking. "Its my laptop." I offer, "Remember, it had stopped working and so I had to send it back to the manufacturer?" She nods, but still doesn't say anything. "Well, its back now, finally. I'm going to put all my thinspo back on it!"
She smiles, and radiates warmth back into my heart. "Its about time you looked at those pictures again."
I am not sure exactly what she means by the comment, but I don't think too hard about it. The excitement I am feeling overpowers the negative thoughts that begin to creep into my head. "I want to collect some new pictures too!" I tell her.
"Good!" She says as she plugs in the backup memory drive into my computer. "More is better. Maybe It'll help you focus on losing more weight than you have been."
Now I know what she meant. "Why is it that I have been getting skinnier but not losing significant amounts of weight?"
"Well," She says patiently, "Its probably a combination of two factors." It is my turn to silently anticipate what she will say next. "You have gotten taller." She looks me over quickly as a mother evaluates the changing height of her pre-teen. "That means that if you are staying about the same weight, even though you did lose a couple of pounds, but you got taller, your BMI has shifted. It means that you have less fat, because more of your weight is now going into making you bigger vertically, not horizontally."
"And the other factor?" I press for the remaining answer. "What else is making me like this?"
"You have been exercising, and generally burning more calories, but eating a little more because you're burning off more calories." She pauses for her words to sink in a little bit. "Your net calorie intake is about the same, if not a little less." When I don't respond verbally, she continues again. "Your body is converting the fat you have into muscle."
"I don't want to look muscular." I wine. "Maybe I should stop working out so much."
"I wouldn't say THAT." Ana looks at me, "You do still need to exercise so you can burn calories and lose weight. I would just eat less too. Maybe you should change your workouts to more cardio and less toning now that your surgery scars have healed a little more."
"Or maybe just add the cardio without getting rid of the toning?" I suggest hopefully.
"If you think you'll have enough time to do so." She shrugs. "As I recall, you've been spending a lot of time talking to your friends recently."
"That's not a bad thing." I defend myself, "If I were to spend ALL my time working out, people would get worried and notice that I don't eat much either."
"That's true." She relents. "But maybe you should take 10 minutes out of talking to your friends to do workout videos?"
"Or, I could stop 'eating dinner' with them as often." I hear myself saying, "Then I could do a workout video or take a walk or something while they are still eating after I get home from school."
"There you go, love!" Ana says, wrapping her arms around me, "I knew you'd come up with a good compromise."
"Thank you." I say, barely lifting up my tired limbs to support her tiny body.
"Now," She says, releasing me from her surprisingly tight grip, "Do the pictures help with this little reality check you've been having?"
I glance over at the screen, and notice that the pictures are rolling through a slide-show. "Damn." I say, "And I though I was doing so well."
The two of us begin pinching fat all over my body and pointing out all the areas I need to lose weight in. I silently resolve to do much better as the year progresses.
