Can I Shed Fat and Still Shed Fat Phobia?

I'm getting a little worried about my weight loss. I feel pretty good, pretty healthy. I've noticed a bit of a spring to my step, and I don't mean my booty jiggling. I'm having to yank on my pants afterwards. I worry because what kind of fat advocate will I be if I'm no longer fat? Not that the fifteen pounds I've lost since I accepted that Murray was going to die and the subsequent depression-inspired loss of appetite was in any way intentional. But I have a feeling I'm going to keep dropping a little weight. My appetite has gone way down since Murray's death. Sure, probably a lot of it has to do with my posttraumatic stress disorder and the grief I feel over losing my brother. But it feels freeing to choose whatever body size I'm most comfortable in and to listen to my body's signs of hunger and movement instead of stuffing away my sexual abuse flashbacks with Lay's Sour Cream and Onion chips and cookies and trying to quit transposing the picture in my mind of Murray throwing up when he sees not how fat the chick he had a one night stand with was but how fat I had gotten. Being fat made me feel in control. Like, fuck you. Don't look at me.

But let me tell you a secret. Now that my brother who objectified me is gone, it doesn't seem to matter anyway. I no longer care what anyone thinks of my body. But I worry about what I think of my body.

As a healthy body image skill, my therapist asked me to stand in front of a full length mirror for two minutes each day. Every day for awhile my eyes would go straight to my tummy. Fifteen years ago, when I was 25, they went straight to my saddlebag thighs, 29 years ago they went straight to my flat chest and bony hips and body and I smiled, 31 years ago they didn't look at all but let the grownups measure me with a scale.

What I worry about now is that I'm starting to kind of like the way my body looks naked. I don't want to think it's the fifteen pounds I'm no longer carrying. Maybe I've just gotten more used to it. But I really like it when I turn sideways and suck in my gut.

Is a thinner body really more attractive to me or am I still allowing outside influences determine my aesthetic taste? Oh, man, fat phobia is so hard to shed.