my plan has always been to write an article about body image—just as soon as I had it all figured out. I wanted to sit at my computer knowing that my perfect body, my perfect exercise plan and my perfect diet were ready to share with the world. Unfortunately, I am in no way perfect yet. Unless you count perfectly humbled.
     When I was growing up, I had a very healthy relationship with food. I judged what I put in my mouth by whether or not it would nurture my body. I read books about health. If my pants didn't fit, I bought new pants. I didn't have any tiny outfits that I had to fit into in order to feel good about myself.
     I know exactly when all that changed. When I was 19 years old, I worked on a television series playing the object of a young man's crush. My job was basically to walk across the stage once or twice an episode so that his reaction to me could get a laugh. Judging from the original script, I had expected a much more interesting role, so after the first year, my agent and I asked the show's producers to release me from my contract so that I could be free to do other projects. They didn't release me. Instead, the producers called my agent and told him they weren't writing for me because I had gained weight and no longer looked the part of the love interest.
     Well, I had put on some weight—along the lines of the freshman 10 to 15 that a lot of young girls put on when they first move away from home. Even so, I was by no means too heavy to play someone's love interest. But I was too young to be able to be objective about my body. Whatever their motivation had been in saying that to me, the producers succeeded in shutting me up and, in doing so, pushed a button of insecurity I didn't even know I had. From that moment on, I felt that I had no right to take a stand for myself creatively unless I was sure that my appearance was beyond reproach.
     The health books on my shelf were immediately replaced with books on diet and fitness. The good news is that the experience motivated me to find what has become a lifelong passion for exercise. The bad news is that it also planted the seed for the belief that my body is an object separate from myself, subject to others' opinions and judgments. I created in my mind a specific number: the unattainable weight at which I would be invincible. For the next 13 years, I vacillated between feeling good about my strong, healthy body (during times when my life felt like smooth sailing) and trying a variety of fad diets (during times of change and insecurity) in a misguided attempt to gain a feeling of control over my body—and thus my life.
     Only once did I achieve that "magic" number, and I have never felt worse. What I truly hope was my last diet started about two years ago, during a time in which I was under a lot of pressure: I was newly engaged; I was attending a lot of awards ceremonies where I was dealing with a new level of press attention (not to mention Joan and Melissa Rivers!); and I was working in a very weight-conscious environment. I think I must be meant to confront this issue because I have spent the past eight years of my life on two television series being photographed next to extraordinarily petite female leads—first on Melrose Place and then on Ally McBeal. Apparently, there were only so many times strangers on the street could say to me, "Oh my Gawd, you are so much smaller in person! You just look much bigger on TV!" before my obsession with thinness got triggered. And it did.
     I started to eat less and exercise more. Of course, I was already running 5 miles a day and eating mostly salads and fruit, so I was soon running 8 miles a day and using diet dressing on my salads. Did I lose weight? Yes, and though I felt fatigued and cranky from undereating, I was also quite proud of myself. Unfortunately, I also strained my immune system so severely that I came down with every cold and flu that got within 10 yards of me. In the past, I had fought off viruses very quickly, but during this period, my body was too weak and run-down to recover fully. For over a month, I felt exhausted and had very little appetite, but as sick and tired as I felt, I still got on the scale every day. I ended up losing over 10 pounds (most of it, I'm sure, was precious muscle), and for the first time in my adult life, the number on the scale matched the magic number in my head. Surely I would now be applauded for my self-control and perfect body, right? Wrong.

     the truth is that the only people who were impressed by the new me were fashion stylists—who love to dress people with bodies that don't interfere with the clothes—and women who had their own issues with food. The people in my life who love me were not impressed. They used phrases like "You look gaunt. Are you okay?" I was surprised. Wasn't looking gaunt the point? I have a girlfriend who has been struggling with an eating disorder for many years, and she told me once that when people tell her she looks "healthy" she considers it a euphemism for "fat"! "Gaunt" by that definition meant success, right? So many magazines are filled with skeletal-looking women looking fabulous and confident in all the coolest new clothes. I was finally one of those women who could wear anything. I would go to the photo shoots and breeze through the fittings. Everything hung on me, and for the first time I could wear the spaghetti-strap tops and tight-fitting skirts and jeans that hung on the stylist's wardrobe rod. In other words, my body no longer got in the way of what others wanted from me. I was, for a time, protected from the vulnerability of protecting my vulnerabilities. Yet the media, which I was trying so hard to impress, began including me in articles about actresses who were becoming too thin. I had been an advocate for health and fitness for a long time, so to be included in coverage about how extremely thin actresses are damaging young girls' self-esteem was a real eye-opener. I used to joke with my friends that I wanted to be a role model for healthy body image, but that I wanted to be "really, really thin" while I was doing it. Suddenly, I saw how unfunny that joke was.
     Even more shocking was the fact that although my body finally looked the way I had always thought it should, I wasn't happy in it. I was frail, weary and testy. My body—which, on a spiritual level, I believe really exists so that my soul can travel around, talk to other people, touch and be touched—was capable of little more than sitting on the couch waiting to be admired for being thin. Was it fun to be able to wear absolutely anything? Yes, of course it was. Was it worth feeling ill, isolated and exhausted, lonely and objectified—not just by others, but by myself? No, it wasn't.
     For so long, I realized, I had held the fantasy of my "ideal weight" over my own head: ifI were only strong enough, disciplined enough, not so damned weak, I would reach it. The truth is that I was systematically depleting myself physically by undereating and overexercising in order to prove how invulnerable I was. Objectively, I know that makes no sense. But I also know that I am not alone. The willingness to trade how we feel for how we appear to others is far too common among women. It is also the mortal enemy of our ability to have a positive relationship with our bodies and psyches.
     We all deal daily with countless images of impossibly small bodies that we are supposed to emulate, which at the same time we are bombarded by advertising urging us to "treat ourselves" with candy and junk food. I, for one, am vulnerable to both messages. So what do I do about it? Well, sometimes I give in and eat the damn jelly beans, already! Most of the time, though, if I keep myself well fed with nutritious foods (lean protein, vegetables, etc.), I am better able to bypass temptation. Also, I have availed myself of the help of a good therapist and nutritionist when I've needed guidance and unbiased information. How do you know when you need one or the other? Well, if you feel that you want to lose weight because you have been eating too many potato chips lately, a nutritionist can help you get back to reality. If, however, you feel that you have less value as a person unless the scale reflects a specific number, it's probably time to find a therapist to talk to. I needed both.
     My therapist said something once that I replay in my head every morning when I get dressed. I had been complaining that a certain pair of pants didn't fit me anymore, and she said, "What is this stuff people say about, 'I don't fit into my clothes'? You're not supposed to fit into your clothes. They're supposed to fit you!" In other words, you know those teeny, tiny jeans you bought after that horrible breakup when you couldn't eat anything but an occasional Popsicle for two weeks? Give them to Goodwill so that the 12-year-old girl they were made for can wear them!
     I no longer get to stand serenely in wardrobe fittings while the costumer simply throws clothes onto my perfectly imperfect skinny body. The wardrobe room is once again filled with my all-too-familiar requests: let the waist out, please; lengthen the skirt to my knee; and, finally, yes, I do want to wear a bra! I feel more vulnerable to criticism asking the costumer to locate the clothes that I feel comfortable in, rather than trying to fit myself into whatever clothes are easiest for her to find. But at the same time, I feel proud of trying to set my own standards instead of manipulating my body to fit into someone else's idea of what is acceptable. There will always be those who criticize me no matter what I look like. I can't win that fight, so my goal is to stop listening to them. After all, it's my own body I'm beating up, and why would I want to do that?