Searching

Every now and again, I venture into the world of my blog analytics and learn something new.

For example: 33 per cent of my daily audience is reading me via Safari browsers, and Apple products make up the vast majority of the Operating Systems clicking in with iPhones coming a close second at 24 per cent to Macintosh at 25 per cent. 

Why am I telling you this? Because I learned something terrifying the last time I decided to find out who's reading me and how they found me.

Most people make it to my blog by typing in the web address or my new domain (which, by the way, just redirects you here) or by typing my blog address into Google. But as you know, sometimes when you Google something you come across some interesting stuff. And alarmingly, a lot of people are landing on my blog lately by searching "how to be anorexic". 

That makes me incredibly sad. My Accidentally Anorexic post is in my top-five most viewed. 

I'll be the first person to tell you that I've got body image issues. It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that I've got some disordered eating habits. Between stress and work and the stress of work and raising a kid, I often don't have time to realize I'm hungry and with that totally unhealthy habit, I find myself suddenly 11 pounds lighter and feeling like shit. I call it "accidentally anorexic" because I don't mean to let myself go hungry, it just happens and it's unhealthy and I know that. So I often force myself to eat, even if it's just a salad and half a sandwich, a handful of granola or an egg on toast. And we all know about my habit of calling myself this F-word. 

It pains me to think that someone has turned to Google and typed the words "how to be anorexic". I mean, why would they? Are they looking for tips, motivation, support? Are they just trying to understand how someone can be anorexic? I typed it. The first three results broke my heart and I wondered how many beautiful, young girls and boys have typed those words and read those results and become lost in a disease that has the highest death rate of any known mental illness. 

If you're reading this post today because your Google search directed you here, please go back to Google and search Eating Disorder Help and follow those results. Take care of yourself, and be well. 

The other F-Word

I have a potty mouth. Anyone who knows me can attest to that. I swear like a sailor in my daily conversations. Fuck is pretty well-used in my vocabulary. It's kind of like smoking - it's a dirty habit, but I can't help myself and I firmly believe that letting a handful of four-letter words fly from time to time actually keeps me sane so BITE ME.

But, as any parent will tell you, there's a handful of words you just cannot say around the wee ones (and by handful, I really mean truckload). I try really hard to watch my mouth around F because I don't need him dropping F-bombs and other four-letter words around the preschool class he attends. Except, at the top of my list of "bad" words isn't a four-letter word at all. I call it the other F word and it is a three-letter word. 

It's fat and this year, I want to work to erase it from my vocabulary.

Fat itself isn't a bad word, but we've made it a bad word. It's a word I use to berate myself. It's a word I use when I'm displeased with myself, and in the words of a very handsome hockey coach I know, "that's absurd". I am not fat, and if I was it wouldn't make me "bad". But I let it become a bad word, and I watched it rub off on F a few times last year. It's held me back from doing things I want to do. It feeds my self-doubt, but only because I let it. 

I'm not much of one for New Year's Resolutions. I think I used to be but by mid-February, I usually had let go of whatever it was I had decided I'd be doing that year. And that's OK. A year is a long time, which is why I'd be absolutely full of shit to say that I'm going to stop using the word "fat" for a whole year. That's not my goal. My goal is to stop telling myself I'm fat. 

For one month. Starting today. 

And in 30 days, I'll tell you how it went, and maybe (just maybe), if I've got another goal lined up for February. 

Happy New Year friends!