Fotografo de Bodas, Santiago

July 25, 2007

When you lose weight, the compliments and the numbers on the scale are so addicting. Every pound shed reaffirms your worth. Every compliment convinces you that you are more valuable to society and to the people around you. Smaller sized jeans make you giddy with happiness. That high is something you don’t want to lose, you become obsessed, and everything about you becomes defined by TRYING TO BE THIN. If someone loves you, you know its not because of who you are…no of course not, they love you because the number on the scale is saying the right thing.

Then the number starts to go up again…because try as you might, you just CANNOT DO IT. You cannot eat like a normal person. Food controls your every thought, and you want to limit yourself and have self control, and you want to exercise and be healthy and be normal. But a demon takes over and all of a sudden you’re not you. While you’re eating you’re someone else, and then as soon as you snap to it and realize all the crimes against your body that you have committed, you hate yourself for it. You LOATHE yourself for it. You feel guilty, you beat yourself up, you promise that tomorrow you will try harder, that you will only eat celery and no carbs. This is going to be the month that you start losing weight again. But when tomorrow comes, you feel so guilty about what happened yesterday, and you feel like its useless, like you already ruined everything by binging yesterday that you go deeper into the depression…and the monster takes over again, and you binge again. Its such a vicious cycle and so hard to break.

But what you don’t realize the entire time that you are yo-yoing up and down the scale, is that most people don’t notice. You don’t realize that the people who love you….they loved you when you were heavier, they loved when you were skinnier…your weight did not affect the way they felt for you! Sometimes its so hard to see beyond the negative.

Think about it this way…when you receive a compliment, how long do you remember it for? A day, maybe a week — or if it was truly an exceptional compliment it will stick in your head for a month or two. But a put-down…of course that stays with you forever. That time your grandma told you you shouldn’t smile for pictures because it makes you have a double chin, or that time when you stayed with a friend’s family and they made you feel ashamed for eating everything on your plate and told you that you shouldn’t be eating so much, you’re already the biggest one out of all your friends, or your cheerleading coach making a huge deal out of the fact that she had to order a bigger skirt for you because you couldn’t fit into any of the “normal” sizes (the special order skirt was only a size 12 for pete’s sake and crying out loud…and I wonder why I developed such crazy issues with my weight). Those memories stick in your mind forever…and in some way, shape or form, carrying those negatives with you, makes you feel like you will forever be the worthless fat girl that those people saw.

Why aren’t we able to purge our mind of the bad and retain only the good? Why is it, that only just now after really sitting and thinking back about that cheerleading coach, after really digging deep in my brain, do I finally remember how my best friend stood up for me? In front of the coach putting on a big show about a size 12 skirt, my friend said, “Well, she’s the strongest one on the team, you can’t expect somebody who’s pure muscle to fit into a size 0!” Why didn’t I appreciate my body for the amazing things it could do, instead of berate it for not complying with my coach’s standard of beauty?

That is my wish for myself and anyone else who has ever struggled with similar problems — that we would all be able to let go of the bad rotting inside our heads, making us incapable of accepting ourselves. If we can get beyond the bad, try to retain more of the good, maybe then we will be able to believe that yes, we are worthy of being loved no matter what the number on the scale says, no matter what our outward appearance shows.

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11 Comments

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Comment by Rachel — July 25, 2007 @ 8:57 am

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Beautiful post!

Comment by ordinarygirl — July 26, 2007 @ 6:30 am

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hey! i’m going to cali this weekend and won’t be back until september…here is the website i was talking about where i made extra summer cash. Later! the website is here

Comment by knicksgrl0917 — July 26, 2007 @ 6:51 am

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To me, good hard exercise makes me feel great about my body, no matter what the scale reads.

I know what you mean though, about the mind games the numbers can play. I recently cut the size out of a pair of pants because it wasn’t my “perfect” size.

Comment by Maurey Pierce — July 26, 2007 @ 9:52 am

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so true here. this post is beautiful. thank you for your honestly…purely refreshing.

i dont remember any of the good stuff either…just the bad. only the bad. and it replays in my dark hours..and makes me feel huge and ugly and it sucks.

thankfully, i have many who love me unconditionally. and this has made so much of a difference to me lately.

Comment by Lady T — July 26, 2007 @ 12:24 pm

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This post totally hits close to home. I’ve found that when I stopped caring about really loving myself, and trying so hard to not care what the scale said, that only then was I able to finally start to love who I am. I think that as I’ve trained, and seen the scale go down, it’s been great, but more so than loosing pounds, I’ve also lost that sense that my weight must validate and control all parts of my life. I’ve gotten away from the crutch of my weight.

It’s an amazing thing to finally feel. I share the same wish with you, that we can all love ourselves, no matter what the scales says.

Awesome post, and thanks for checking out my site and leaving such a nice comment!

Comment by Lisa — July 27, 2007 @ 12:06 am

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Deeeeeeeeeeeeep girl!

For some reason it is ALWAYS easier to believe and REMEMBER the negative comments.

For me both negative and positive comments are my motivation. If anything, I think I am probably my own worse enemy.

One of my wishes/promises is to stop the negative thoughts that I have gotten into the habit of thinking about myself.

Comment by BigLoser — July 27, 2007 @ 4:05 pm

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Whatever. I like us better when we're fat! Screw exercising. Let's eat ice cream together!

Comment by Suzy Darko — July 28, 2007 @ 2:57 pm

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great post. can i send you a check for the therapy session? i have the same general feeling, about losing weight, 2 years ago, i lost 10-15 pounds, and have kept it off thanks to positive comments (which i try to remember and repeat).

that line about how your BF stood up for you, oh- so sweet. what a good friend. (PS a 12? that coach was whack)

Comment by feistyMNgirl — July 29, 2007 @ 9:46 am

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I love this post. It something I can really relate to. After losing about 25 pound after my freshman year in college I became bulimic for nearly 6 months. I felt completely out of control then, so worried that I would never be accepted unless I was THIN. Now I’m trying to achieve a happy medium, losing weight so that I feel good about me, regardless of what those around me think (or what the scale says).

Comment by shauna — July 30, 2007 @ 6:33 am

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Let me tell you something . . . All women have issues with their weight, even the really skinny girls. In one way or another when the topic of “food” comes along there will always be an intense and insightful conversation.

Everything is perception. Standards of beauty change over the years. Believe me I can relate to you in some way even though our situations and body types are different. When my great-aunts see me they always comment on how much more “bigger” I seen to be. Whereas my mum was much more smaller than me at my age. After years of fighting with myself I realized that people are bigger than generations past due to the chemicals placed in foods and different eating habits.

Comment by An — August 19, 2007 @ 8:03 pm

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