So, today I wanted to write about something that is very personal for me - and that's maintaining self esteem while on a weight loss journey. Throughout my struggle with my weight over the last few years, my self esteem and body image has taken some massive hits. I have had lots of "I look like THAT?" moments, followed by several more "I STILL look like THAT?"
The first time it really hit me how overweight I had gotten was at my son's second birthday party. I put a LOT of work into his Toy Story party and the end result was SO cute. I had gone pinterest-crazy and spent way too much money on a two year old's birthday, but I was SO pleased with the result. So much so that I hired a family friend to come take professional pictures. The pride I had felt in regard to his party quickly dissipated when I saw how I looked in the pictures.
At first glance, all you see in this picture is a young, happy family - but for me, these photos represent how far gone I had let myself get with my eating. It didn't help that my husband had lost about 40 lbs prior to this photo op and made me feel even bigger (GOSH husband! How dare you! 😉). I knew my eating had gotten bad. I knew my lifestyle had gotten lazy. I knew my health wasn't where it should be... but I didn't realize it was quite THAT bad. Self esteem ding number one.
So, I resolved to start exercising and to lose weight. I had not one single clue how I was going to do so, but I knew it was important. The problem was, I wanted quick, instantaneous, immediately tangible results. Never mind that I had spent at least two years putting ON the weight, I was spending way too much time looking at super-fit-never-been-fat people on social media and was obsessed with looking like THAT. Again, never mind that I was more than 100 lbs overweight, I wanted to look like some girl on Instagram with 3% body fat due to her naturally skinny genes. I was so discouraged, but I had done that to myself. I started walking and eating less McDonalds and less dessert. I was appalled to see how out of shape I was and how incredibly exhausting walking one mile was. Self esteem injuries abound. It would get hard, life would get stressful, I would get discouraged, and I would revert to old habits. I held to the mindset that I was being inhumanely deprived of food that I actually enjoyed, and I pitied myself into a place of depression. Over food. So silly! This triggered my vicious cycle of trying every quick fix available: HCG drops, "juicing" (yes, I literally tried to live off of fruit and vegetable juice multiple times), extreme calorie restriction (which actually made me GAIN weight because my stupid metabolism thought I was starving), carb cycling, quitting diet coke, quitting carbs, quitting processed foods, etc. You name it, I'm pretty sure I've tried it.
This cycle continued for a while. I would tell myself that it was SO unfair that I gain weight so fast, that I had to abstain from my favorite things, that maybe I was just meant to be fat, that my thyroid didn't work like normal, healthy thyroids do and help me lose weight, etc. The more I obsessed about what I felt was being afflicted upon me, the more I just roller coastered around - I didn't just fall off the wagon, I jumped off, drug it to an abandoned parking lot, lit it on fire, and used the insurance money to buy pizza.
So, fast forward to about nine months of yo-yoing later, and I was still in about the same place. I had *maybe* lost about 10 lbs. It was progress, but it wasn't healthy progress. I hosted a Valentine's Brunch and was, again, horrified by how bad I still looked. Also, my Dad is thin and I apparently am doomed to living life around thin men. It's my cross to bare. I'm dealing with it. 😉
Within the next couple of years, I worked on some of my issues with food, and I got to a better place with my relationship with food. I no longer tormented myself by thinking about all of the things I couldn't eat. I decided instead to approach this journey as something I was DECIDING to do to make my life better. I wasn't being forced to make good decisions, I was choosing to. How empowering! I still had body image issues though. As the weight was coming off, it wasn't coming off as I expected it to or wished that it would. Whereas I wanted to lose weight from my gut and my bra-fat-area, my body went "Hmm, nope, I think we'll prioritize burning fat from your boobs and your ankles." OH JOY. I was seeing changes personally, and when I looked in the mirror, but then someone would take a picture of me and I would again, be faced with that "Oh geeze, I still look like that?" moment of embarrassment. I felt a deep shame in relation to my body and the way it was reshaping itself as I lost weight. First, shame over the fact that I ever let it get that bad. Second, shame over the fact that I looked disproportionate and weird (seriously, I carry weight in my arms and I am small chested. This yields a my-head-is-too-small-for-my-body effect from straight-on. Don't tell me it's in my imagination). I have FINALLY gotten to a place where I am at peace with how I look, even while I work towards losing the second half of my weight, but I wish I could have saved myself all of the internal strife and shame that I've experienced while getting here.
If this sounds relate-able (maybe not that your head looks too big for your body, but you get the idea), then read on. I have wasted WAY too much time on this emotional roller coaster and I want to save you from doing the same.
1. Hold yourself to a standard of grace, not perfection.
First of all, you are a human being, and whether you are overweight, underweight, in the beginning, middle, or end of a weight loss journey, it's OK. You are doing the best you can do. And before you scoff and say, NO I'm not! Let me just tell you that we are all doing the best we can. Later in life, you may be more capable, be it by mindset, circumstances, or resources, to do better. And when you know better, by all means, do better! But we are all human and we all have limits. We all have tendencies to not take care of ourselves, overeat, eat the wrong things, not exercise, not seek medical guidance, make excuses for ourselves and be our own enablers, but now that you realize that, you know better. Do not shame yourself for doing a human thing. Do not waste time marinating in the fact that you made terrible decisions. Accept it, give yourself grace, and move on. When the results don't look like you expect, or don't come as quickly as you think they should, accept it, give yourself grace, and press on.
2. Do not equate your physical state with your worth
If you are reading this, congratulations! You are an intrinsically valuable person. You have a lot to contribute to the world you live in. You are someone's child, sibling, mother, father, friend, and you mean a lot to those people. The number on the scale and the size clothing you wear is simply a reflection of your numeric relationship with gravity. It will not tell you anything about how kind, giving, selfless, generous, funny, loving, and friendly you are. Do not elevate your physical state to a position of worth, because it's not the most important thing about you! It is important to take care of ourselves and do the best that we can to honor our bodies. However, your weight or measurements never have been and never will be a representation of your worth.
3. Do NOT COMPARE.
Social media is great. It connects us to people we otherwise might not be connected to. It lets us represent ourselves in new and creative ways. The only problem is, what we often see is everyone else's highlight reel. We are living in a series of bloopers, outtakes, and scenes we'd rather cut from the movie of our life entirely, and looking at everyone else's highlight reel. While I was just starting out with my weight loss journey, it was NOT helpful or at all beneficial to me to spend time looking at professionally photographed and edited fitness accounts, or even some real-life-weight loss-journey accounts, because I was comparing my journey to theirs. If I could go back in time and visit my much chubbier self, I would have yanked that phone out of my hand, deactivated my social media accounts and encouraged her to focus on myself and my own personal journey. Now, I am able to feed everything I see on social media through a filter of "this person is a living, breathing, human being with flaws and a messy kitchen too," but not so much a couple of years ago. If you find yourself comparing, or lingering over profiles that make you feel like a less-than human being, hit that "unfollow" button right now. Other people are not "goals" for us, our best version of ourselves should be our goal. Someone else's journey has nothing to do with yours, in the same way that yours has nothing to do with theirs.
4. Focus on the positive
I know this sounds like a cat poster, but if you are on a weight loss journey, it is important to remember that you are CHOOSING to, to make your life better. Nobody can force you, and if you decide to live off of pizza and ice cream and balloon up to 900 lbs, you have that option. You are a human with free will. Weirdly, it helps me to remember that I always have that option, because then, I can remember that it's not an appealing one in the long run. I can feel empowered by the fact that I am choosing my diet, lifestyle, etc. Given the fact that it's my choice, it doesn't make much sense to obsess over everything I'm being deprived of, does it? It would be like choosing to sell your car, and then anguishing over the fact that you no longer had a car. I may not be able to eat a donut whenever I want, but I can eat bacon on Keto! I may not be able to eat a huge piece of pizza when I go to Costco, but I can make a macro-friendly substitution later on. I may not be able to throw back oreos, but I get to work every day at improving my health by losing weight. Furthermore, it helps to remember that none of your favorite foods are going to leave planet Earth anytime soon. And thank goodness, because I am definitely going to find a way to fit sushi into my macros on a weekly basis after I hit my goals.
5. Get some perspective
I missed out on a lot of things in life due to being overweight. However, loose skin and having weird body proportions keeps me from nothing! The biggest downside of living with loose skin and weird proportions is my own attitude about it. Now that I've decided to embrace it and accept it, it doesn't hold me back from anything. When I think about all of the things I sat out of or physically couldn't participate in because of my weight, these things are so minor.
I hope if you are relating to the body image struggle that this helps you. If nothing else, I hope you feel encouraged by the fact that you are NOT alone in your struggle! I found my way and you will too. Be patient, keep doing the best you can do with what you have, and hey, eventually you might not even mind how you look in pictures. 😁
The first time it really hit me how overweight I had gotten was at my son's second birthday party. I put a LOT of work into his Toy Story party and the end result was SO cute. I had gone pinterest-crazy and spent way too much money on a two year old's birthday, but I was SO pleased with the result. So much so that I hired a family friend to come take professional pictures. The pride I had felt in regard to his party quickly dissipated when I saw how I looked in the pictures.
At first glance, all you see in this picture is a young, happy family - but for me, these photos represent how far gone I had let myself get with my eating. It didn't help that my husband had lost about 40 lbs prior to this photo op and made me feel even bigger (GOSH husband! How dare you! 😉). I knew my eating had gotten bad. I knew my lifestyle had gotten lazy. I knew my health wasn't where it should be... but I didn't realize it was quite THAT bad. Self esteem ding number one.
So, I resolved to start exercising and to lose weight. I had not one single clue how I was going to do so, but I knew it was important. The problem was, I wanted quick, instantaneous, immediately tangible results. Never mind that I had spent at least two years putting ON the weight, I was spending way too much time looking at super-fit-never-been-fat people on social media and was obsessed with looking like THAT. Again, never mind that I was more than 100 lbs overweight, I wanted to look like some girl on Instagram with 3% body fat due to her naturally skinny genes. I was so discouraged, but I had done that to myself. I started walking and eating less McDonalds and less dessert. I was appalled to see how out of shape I was and how incredibly exhausting walking one mile was. Self esteem injuries abound. It would get hard, life would get stressful, I would get discouraged, and I would revert to old habits. I held to the mindset that I was being inhumanely deprived of food that I actually enjoyed, and I pitied myself into a place of depression. Over food. So silly! This triggered my vicious cycle of trying every quick fix available: HCG drops, "juicing" (yes, I literally tried to live off of fruit and vegetable juice multiple times), extreme calorie restriction (which actually made me GAIN weight because my stupid metabolism thought I was starving), carb cycling, quitting diet coke, quitting carbs, quitting processed foods, etc. You name it, I'm pretty sure I've tried it.
This cycle continued for a while. I would tell myself that it was SO unfair that I gain weight so fast, that I had to abstain from my favorite things, that maybe I was just meant to be fat, that my thyroid didn't work like normal, healthy thyroids do and help me lose weight, etc. The more I obsessed about what I felt was being afflicted upon me, the more I just roller coastered around - I didn't just fall off the wagon, I jumped off, drug it to an abandoned parking lot, lit it on fire, and used the insurance money to buy pizza.
So, fast forward to about nine months of yo-yoing later, and I was still in about the same place. I had *maybe* lost about 10 lbs. It was progress, but it wasn't healthy progress. I hosted a Valentine's Brunch and was, again, horrified by how bad I still looked. Also, my Dad is thin and I apparently am doomed to living life around thin men. It's my cross to bare. I'm dealing with it. 😉
Within the next couple of years, I worked on some of my issues with food, and I got to a better place with my relationship with food. I no longer tormented myself by thinking about all of the things I couldn't eat. I decided instead to approach this journey as something I was DECIDING to do to make my life better. I wasn't being forced to make good decisions, I was choosing to. How empowering! I still had body image issues though. As the weight was coming off, it wasn't coming off as I expected it to or wished that it would. Whereas I wanted to lose weight from my gut and my bra-fat-area, my body went "Hmm, nope, I think we'll prioritize burning fat from your boobs and your ankles." OH JOY. I was seeing changes personally, and when I looked in the mirror, but then someone would take a picture of me and I would again, be faced with that "Oh geeze, I still look like that?" moment of embarrassment. I felt a deep shame in relation to my body and the way it was reshaping itself as I lost weight. First, shame over the fact that I ever let it get that bad. Second, shame over the fact that I looked disproportionate and weird (seriously, I carry weight in my arms and I am small chested. This yields a my-head-is-too-small-for-my-body effect from straight-on. Don't tell me it's in my imagination). I have FINALLY gotten to a place where I am at peace with how I look, even while I work towards losing the second half of my weight, but I wish I could have saved myself all of the internal strife and shame that I've experienced while getting here.
If this sounds relate-able (maybe not that your head looks too big for your body, but you get the idea), then read on. I have wasted WAY too much time on this emotional roller coaster and I want to save you from doing the same.
1. Hold yourself to a standard of grace, not perfection.
First of all, you are a human being, and whether you are overweight, underweight, in the beginning, middle, or end of a weight loss journey, it's OK. You are doing the best you can do. And before you scoff and say, NO I'm not! Let me just tell you that we are all doing the best we can. Later in life, you may be more capable, be it by mindset, circumstances, or resources, to do better. And when you know better, by all means, do better! But we are all human and we all have limits. We all have tendencies to not take care of ourselves, overeat, eat the wrong things, not exercise, not seek medical guidance, make excuses for ourselves and be our own enablers, but now that you realize that, you know better. Do not shame yourself for doing a human thing. Do not waste time marinating in the fact that you made terrible decisions. Accept it, give yourself grace, and move on. When the results don't look like you expect, or don't come as quickly as you think they should, accept it, give yourself grace, and press on.
2. Do not equate your physical state with your worth
If you are reading this, congratulations! You are an intrinsically valuable person. You have a lot to contribute to the world you live in. You are someone's child, sibling, mother, father, friend, and you mean a lot to those people. The number on the scale and the size clothing you wear is simply a reflection of your numeric relationship with gravity. It will not tell you anything about how kind, giving, selfless, generous, funny, loving, and friendly you are. Do not elevate your physical state to a position of worth, because it's not the most important thing about you! It is important to take care of ourselves and do the best that we can to honor our bodies. However, your weight or measurements never have been and never will be a representation of your worth.
3. Do NOT COMPARE.
Social media is great. It connects us to people we otherwise might not be connected to. It lets us represent ourselves in new and creative ways. The only problem is, what we often see is everyone else's highlight reel. We are living in a series of bloopers, outtakes, and scenes we'd rather cut from the movie of our life entirely, and looking at everyone else's highlight reel. While I was just starting out with my weight loss journey, it was NOT helpful or at all beneficial to me to spend time looking at professionally photographed and edited fitness accounts, or even some real-life-weight loss-journey accounts, because I was comparing my journey to theirs. If I could go back in time and visit my much chubbier self, I would have yanked that phone out of my hand, deactivated my social media accounts and encouraged her to focus on myself and my own personal journey. Now, I am able to feed everything I see on social media through a filter of "this person is a living, breathing, human being with flaws and a messy kitchen too," but not so much a couple of years ago. If you find yourself comparing, or lingering over profiles that make you feel like a less-than human being, hit that "unfollow" button right now. Other people are not "goals" for us, our best version of ourselves should be our goal. Someone else's journey has nothing to do with yours, in the same way that yours has nothing to do with theirs.
4. Focus on the positive
I know this sounds like a cat poster, but if you are on a weight loss journey, it is important to remember that you are CHOOSING to, to make your life better. Nobody can force you, and if you decide to live off of pizza and ice cream and balloon up to 900 lbs, you have that option. You are a human with free will. Weirdly, it helps me to remember that I always have that option, because then, I can remember that it's not an appealing one in the long run. I can feel empowered by the fact that I am choosing my diet, lifestyle, etc. Given the fact that it's my choice, it doesn't make much sense to obsess over everything I'm being deprived of, does it? It would be like choosing to sell your car, and then anguishing over the fact that you no longer had a car. I may not be able to eat a donut whenever I want, but I can eat bacon on Keto! I may not be able to eat a huge piece of pizza when I go to Costco, but I can make a macro-friendly substitution later on. I may not be able to throw back oreos, but I get to work every day at improving my health by losing weight. Furthermore, it helps to remember that none of your favorite foods are going to leave planet Earth anytime soon. And thank goodness, because I am definitely going to find a way to fit sushi into my macros on a weekly basis after I hit my goals.
5. Get some perspective
I missed out on a lot of things in life due to being overweight. However, loose skin and having weird body proportions keeps me from nothing! The biggest downside of living with loose skin and weird proportions is my own attitude about it. Now that I've decided to embrace it and accept it, it doesn't hold me back from anything. When I think about all of the things I sat out of or physically couldn't participate in because of my weight, these things are so minor.
I hope if you are relating to the body image struggle that this helps you. If nothing else, I hope you feel encouraged by the fact that you are NOT alone in your struggle! I found my way and you will too. Be patient, keep doing the best you can do with what you have, and hey, eventually you might not even mind how you look in pictures. 😁
Great pic and thanks for being vulnerable and helpful.
ReplyDeleteGreat article, Rebekah! The "comparing" piece really resonated with me - I find myself struggling most by comparing my "current body" to my "young self body" all the time. I obsess over old photographs where I was thinner (and remember back then how I wasn't happy with my body then.....now I would dream of having that body back!)....anyway that's my "comparing" struggle. Thank you for sharing your story! Very encouraging.
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