Warning: This article discusses disordered eating, restriction, and weight loss.
Last year, I lost thirty pounds.
A thirty-pound loss was quite noticeable on my frame. My mom made distant, concerned comments that perhaps I was getting too skinny, or asking what I had for lunch that day, but I dismissed them. After all, I was totally in control. I knew better than anyone exactly how many inches my waist was, how many pounds I weighed to the tenth, how many hours had passed since my last meal. It didn’t seem like much of a problem to me, as I had consciously planned to lose weight and did it over the course of many months, which I felt was a ‘slow and healthy way to lose weight.
Obviously, there are some quite unhealthy things about the above paragraph. For one, I did not need to lose weight. Two, I had an excessive amount of control over my eating. And three, I knew deep down it probably wasn’t the best of methods, but because it worked, I excused it so that it could continue.
And so, I inched closer to my “goal.” It wasn’t always a direct path; it wasn’t always meticulously controlled. If I really wanted to have ice cream, I would have some, and if I really didn’t feel like dieting for a few days, I wouldn’t. So I was fine, right? I had picked up all these “healthy weight loss tips” from online videos and articles guiding me on how to lose weight. They made me feel like I had everything under control, and that what I was doing really wasn’t that bad because I didn’t force myself to strictly stick to it all the time.
But when my results slowed down, I would veer to the extreme to fix them. If I had to spend a week dieting strictly until I saw numbers on the scale decrease, I would. Then, I would go to track the new low on my phone, relieved. This process continued for a few months.
Until one day, I hit my goal weight.
I was elated. I felt so proud of myself. I couldn’t remember a day in my life where I hadn’t wanted to lose weight, and now I had finally done it. Now, I would finally feel better about myself and be happy.
I have a large leaning mirror against one of my walls. I just got it this year, and it is the first mirror I have ever owned that I could see my entire body in. With each pound I dropped, I would admire the thinning figure reflected before me. She was motivating, like some proof that I was achieving ‘skinny,’ and all its accompanying happiness.
As the days passed after my ‘goal’ had been reached and I stopped trying to consciously lose weight, something was still wrong. Since I wasn’t losing weight, I was staring at the same version of myself every day, rather than an obviously shrinking one. I could swear that I was gaining weight back, so I rushed to the bathroom to anxiously check the scale and see—nope, same weight as I have been for the last two weeks. I kept staring at my reflection, trying to figure out what was wrong. She started to look exactly like the person I used to see three months ago. I stared at myself for hours. I knew in my head that I had lost thirty pounds, but I couldn’t tell the difference between my old reflection and now. I saw exactly the same person. Maybe I should just set a lower goal, lose more weight, then I’ll like what I see. For some reason, losing weight hadn’t changed the reflection I saw.
She looked just like she always did: not good enough.
I am a somewhat logical person. I like reasons, cause and effect, correlations, etc. I knew that I must look different, even if I couldn’t see it. My whole life, I have been convinced that if I could lose weight, I would finally feel better. So how was it that I did just that, and it didn’t work? Why hadn’t changing my body fixed the problem?
Unfortunately, changing your body doesn’t change the way you see yourself.
I thought that my body was the problem. But the problem was actually in my head. No matter how skinny or fat or muscular or any way I look, I will always see something that should be changed. I will always feel less than. I will always feel like an unworthy person. Years of media and subliminal messaging had convinced me that being skinny would make me a person of greater worth—a more valuable person than I was when I was overweight. So I became convinced that the change needed to happen physically, not mentally, when all along I needed to recognize that I am just as worthy and valuable a person at any weight. I am good enough exactly as I am, no matter how that looks.
I am enough. And so are you.
Your body is not a problem. It doesn’t need fixing to hold more worth. It is a scientific miracle, a physical culmination of your ancestors and their stories, and it is constantly working its hardest to take care of you, so take care of it back! The best way you can do that is by taking care of yourself first. You are worthy, you are enough exactly as you are, and you deserve to eat and be happy. If you are struggling with your body image, focus instead on your mind. For me, I realized what I actually needed to work on was not feeling good enough, because no matter how much my body changed, I still felt that way. It is an imperfect process, but a very important one. You are deserving of your own love and care. You are valuable.
In the meantime, I’ll appreciate our minds and our bodies for both of us! But I hope you’ll join me :)