Disclaimer: This post is not for sympathy, “I’m sorry”, or exercise advice. It is a simple post about vulnerabilities that can often times spiral out of control. Pictures, are for dramatic effect 😊
The type of therapist I am is equivalent to hard truths, facts and some nonsensical musings, ha-ha. I wouldn’t be a therapist worth my salt if I didn’t touch on the basic humanistic feelings that we ALL feel from time to time. It is absolutely no secret that I had gastric sleeve surgery in 2021. I dropped a total of 150 lbs. Over the last year, I’ve had some regain, however I exactly WHY that happened, but we are not here to discuss that today.
Today I wanted to talk about fixating on areas of our bodies that we may not ‘like’. Yes, every single human walking this planet, confident or not, has those problem areas they wish were toner, leaner, thinner, thicker, smaller, bigger, etc. (YES! there are thin people who want to be bigger and bigger people who want to be thinner). We wouldn’t be human if we felt otherwise. We may not share these inner musings outside of our own mind, but they are there.
What do we do about it? Some people develop a workout regimen that will target those areas and tone them, others diet and work it out that way. At the end of the day no matter how tone, fit, lean, fat, you are, your body is your own and learning to love it perfect, imperfect, or otherwise can be a HUGE cluster fuck of emotions. In my family I was maybe 1 of 2 obese people I knew. The story was always the same, no matter how well meaning and how loved I was, the focus on my weight grew into its own monster. Now, no one other than myself can be blamed for the constant weight gain, I’ve said it before, my emotional eating issues were my own, I succumbed to those patterns for over 20 years! I often tried and succeeded in losing weight BUT I would return to those same eating patterns.
Fast forward to weight loss. My body carried me at 371lbs, and it’s carrying me at 250. While I am actively still working on myself, when I look in the mirror my back fat and my arms have been torture (in my mind), excess, giggly skin is unpleasing to the eye, doesn’t matter that it is my own body. Trying on cute clothes I never thought I’d sit in, was fun for a while. But now, the reality is that I may or may never love those parts of me, BUT I love myself whereas before I didn’t care if I lived or died (this is no longer the case). Somethings don’t fit right because my arms still hold a lot of skin and fat, I could take care of that via surgery if I truly wanted to be ‘perfect’ but reality is, that life isn’t perfect. Those who love and care about support me either way. My arms and back fat don’t define me, they don’t speak for me, so why should I let the negative feelings I hold rent space in my head?
I am 100x more active than I was 3 years ago. I am healthier than I was 3 years ago. I’ve experienced things I decided long ago I never because of my weight, and I am living my life.
So, I say all this to tell you THAT, things may never be perfect. BUT you can still find happiness. If working out brings you joy, DO IT! If surgery to remove excess skin will bring you joy, DO IT! If just learning how to LOVE yourself is what you want, then DO IT!
CHANGE YOUR MINDSET, CHANGE YOUR LIFE.