None told me that losing weight was not going to fix my issues with my body……..
When I first started my weight loss journey, I was sorely mistaken in thinking that losing weight would somehow fix all of my problems. I thought that being “skinny” would magically make all of my body insecurities disappear and I would wake up as a confident queen ready to take on the world rocking bikinis every day. Boy was I wrong!
None told me that losing weight was not going to make me a more confident person! None told me that being smaller would not fix any of my negative thoughts about my body! I felt lied to by social media and magazines that told me that the secret to feeling body positive was working towards and achieving a conventionally desirable body size.
Losing 30 pounds, to my surprise, did not alleviate any of my body insecurities. If anything, losing weight made me feel even more insecure about my body! I constantly felt like I was not good enough, not fit enough, even after losing a significant amount of weight and drastically changing my body composition. And eventually I realized that the only way to feel more confident and secure in my body was to heal my negative mindset and work towards freeing myself from negative self-talk.
I realized that showing up for myself and doing the inner work to dismantle my long held and learned beliefs about my body and diet culture was the only way to get past my body anxiety. I had become so socialized and numb to the negative way I spoke about my body that I hardly realized that it was happening. We learn a lot about body image and diet culture from a young age and are so inundated with messages that we barely realize the way they shape and mold our views about own bodies.
Slowly I started to reject diet culture the negative mindset it spreads about bodies that do not fit the traditional, western standard of beauty. I started to embrace the idea that all bodies are good and worthy bodies, regardless of size, shape, and weight. I began praising my body for all of the amazing things it can do and started to live in a space of body acceptance.
Instead of wishing my body looked like someone else I started accepting my body for what it is and where it is at in my journey towards a sustainable and healthy lifestyle. I stopped telling myself I would take photos and wear certain things when I was x size or x weight and started living in the moment. When I am 90 years old, I am not going to remember what size my pants were in July of 2019, so I decided to start focusing more on living my life and fueling and treating my body with love and kindness than trying to change it for short term gratification.
Letting go of my rigid mindset about my body has allowed me to live my life to the fullest and has forced me to stop waiting for unrealistic body goals to validate my happiness. Happiness is not a goal weight or a pant size, it is living a free and body positive life, filled with love and memories!
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