I was planning on doing a 90 Day Weight Loss/Transformation Challenge at my gym. It’s a competition and I am supremely competitive. I’ve been getting revved up for it, and becoming more consumed with wanting crazy fast results.
Then I wanted to add Weight Watchers back into the mix because my hunger for skinny was growing stronger.
Then I thought about how I would go into my Weight Loss Warrior mode; I knew I’d be psychotic. All-consuming, chicken- and broccoli-eating, rigid warrior determined to shed weight like excess clothing in a heat spell and be skinny by summer so I could be done with this whole nonsense.
I thought about my best friend who is coming to visit in a few weeks and how I’d be in WLW mode and wouldn’t be able to enjoy a glass (OK, maybe three) of wine with her. Then I thought about another friend who invited me over for snacks and games and how surely there’d be yummies there. Heck, I offered to bring dessert.
What if I messed up? What if I caved? I’d hate myself and be so angry because I was in WLW mode and no sugar or bread or wine would do.
Then I happened upon an article about weight loss by an author I admire, Marianne Williamson. Her quotes moved me, but one rang loudly in my mind.
“In order to lose weight on a permanent basis, you want
a shift in your core belief about who and what you are.”
That is it. Clearly, I haven’t figured it all out. I practice kindness to myself. I even think I love myself. But then I check the scale. I put on my pants that aren’t a size 6 and I become vicious and hateful and my whole existence is tied to numbers and sizes.
My self-worth is back to being validated with a stipulation, it’ll be permissible to love myself when I am 150 pounds. But what about if I’m 175? Is it not OK ? Turns out, no, that won’t do because after the finale of “The Biggest Loser” wrapped, and I did end up getting back up to 175 from 150, I felt loathsome and chubby. Now I wonder, what was so bad about 175?
What was bad about 175 was my mind. And it still plagues me today.
Except for this weekend. Saturday night I went out with my sister and boyfriend. I didn’t feel like it but my hair looked nice and I had a new shirt with horses on it, so I decided not to lay around watching “Harry Potter” and falling asleep at 8:30 at night.
We went out, ran into some fun and adventures, and ended up in a casino in West Virginia. While there, I was using the ladies restroom and upon leaving spotted myself in the mirror. My hips were large, my shirt was a men’s large and yet, I liked myself. I said as much to my sister.
It was like I needed permission to like myself in the here and now. I worried if I didn’t start attempting to like myself all the time, no matter what, that I might not ever be fixed—even if I did achieve the skinny. Isn’t this the whole point of my blog? Of life really? To like yourself. To stop obsessing over the skinny and give in to the healthy way of life, including a healthy self-view?
It’s my mind that needs changing. And God willing, maybe my body gets to where it needs to be at its utmost health at the same time. But until then, I shouldn’t be in Weight Loss Warrior mode because I fear that will only fix the outside, when truly it’s my insides that need a little more attention this time around.
This doesn’t mean I have opted out of the 90 Day Challenge. I’ve amended my priorities and will not become a drill sergeant in my weight-loss efforts, but will rid myself of the scale for the duration of the challenge and see where a little less focus on the numbers gets me. And after 90 days, I shall see how I’ve done.
-Cassandra