It took me a very long time to realize that the shame I felt for being fat didn’t help me lose weight. Shocking. I’d eat something “bad” and then feel upset. I could just think about overeating, and I’d be mad at myself because I should be ashamed of being fat. I didn’t want to be okay with it!! I couldn’t! Because then I’d never lose weight!! As I lost and lost and lost slowly, my anger toward myself was always there. The way I lost weight may seem evolved and like i’m patient, but I wasn’t. I only did it slow and steady because doing it quickly never worked for me or anyone I knew. The weight-loss was slow and steady, but beating myself up was constant, harsh and came on fast right when I woke up, lasted all day until I went to sleep at night.
I wanted to have my cake–to lose the weight slowly by punishing myself–and be thin–love myself— too
After I lost 100 pounds, I didn’t think I should be proud. When someone complimented me, I would smile and hope we’d stop talking about it. I thought I shouldn’t have been fat in the first place so all I had done was be less of a failure. I would say things like this out loud only to my closest friends (which makes me sad to remember that, as I type this). Then something happened! I took a personal growth seminar that was recommended to me. It was their class on Self Esteem that got me. The class defined self esteem as being relative to the options you have in a given area. So, for example, say there is a lawyer who is good at their job, and they know you can get a job at lots of firms– they would have high self-esteem about their work. Conversely, if your work is not that respected in your firm, your boss is always on you about making mistakes– you typically have low self esteem– because you know getting another job won’t be easy. More options, more self-esteem. Less options, less self-esteem. But there are two exceptions to this because your perception could be deeply skewed: 1) you don’t believe you have options. Meaning you don’t believe anyone would hire you even if people respect your work–you know these people– they give themselves no credit and they will deflect any compliments insisting that what they do is nothing. So despite the reality, they have low self-esteem because they think it’s not true. They have self-imposed “stuck-ness”. And 2) is the opposite, they think they are gods gift and their work is actually mediocre–you know these people too– so even though you’re not as employable, you think every law firm would be lucky to have you.
In this class, I saw for the first time, that I was like the lawyer who does great work, and doesn’t think it’s anything special. I had lost 100 pounds at that point – I had accomplished something great. I actually decided to take the class because I was depressed that I didn’t feel happier about it. I always thought “if I could lose 100 pounds, I will be so happy.” But I wasn’t. I was stuck in my head – not with my weight-loss. Something clicked and I shared that I had lost 100 pounds with my group, and for the first time I was proud. This door had opened to seeing how accomplished I was. Not overnight, but pretty soon after, I started to realize that telling people might be inspiring more than embarrassing. Why wasn’t I allowing myself to be proud?
The part I see so clearly now. It’s the beating up on myself that made the weight-loss invalid. I remember driving down the 10 freeway about to get onto the 405 a couple years after that class realizing that morning I got on the scale and felt bad. This is what I always did. Just to be clear – I felt proud for the first time in that class- I still beat myself up. It took a lot of work after (!!) to pull my belief system apart. But I remember right then on the freeway for the first time, truly having a breakthrough, that beating myself up didn’t change the scale – diet and exercise did. You may think this is no big deal but that realization shifted something deep. And there really was less punishment.
If we don’t start acknowledging that when we say/think we are “bad” for eating “too much”, when will we ever actually be able to separate it from the business of losing weight? That’s right. Punishing yourself does not help you lose weight. (This is actually something that I have never convinced anyone to believe when someone asks me advice on losing weight. hahaha. its kind of funny because I totally get it! I couldn’t even consider this as true for 30 years). Losing weight is about Physics. As in things that happen in the physical universe: eating, exercising and most importantly the physics of homeostasis in the body… meaning that the human body has memorized your weight, so even if an external circumstance happens – you go on a diet and drop 30 pounds – your body will always want to go back to “normal” and put the weight back on. My theory is that because i did this so slowly, my body kind of forgot the 300 pounds. My body today would have a much harder time
This was not a very “evolved” way to lose weight. Sure, I had decided that I would lose the weight slowly, which may seem very much like I was buddha on a mountain top but I only did it slowly, because I didn’t see another way out but I wasn’t some buddha on the mountain top about it.
No Comments