So you want to lose weight. Great!
Let me ask you, why?
And what’s underneath that why?
And how would it make you feel to lose weight?
Have you lost weight before? If so, did you feel all of those things?
And what’s been the benefit to holding onto your weight? (there’s always something here)
There’s a reason I’m asking you these questions. It’s because these are the questions I had to ask myself to really begin understanding if my desire to lose weight was coming from a place of love or from a place of hate (or dislike/desire to be different). This is really important to identify, especially for those of you who’ve tried losing weight for years and haven’t had success or have yo-yo’d.
Just to give you an example. Being heavy from a young age, I’ve had a deep deep desire to lose weight since childhood. My mom would do diets with me. Another family member offered to get me liposuction when I turned 16. I know they had the best of intentions and love for me, but what I needed wasn’t a quick fix. I was the odd one out in the family, having 4 siblings, all skinny kids who ate whatever they wanted and I was the one in adult clothing getting it all hemmed and altered to work for me. It seemed as if a lot of people around me felt bad for me. My 11 year old self began thinking chubby must = bad. It means outcast. Until I lose weight, I’ll never fit in. That’s the mindset I took on.
Fast forward 15 years, many weight struggles, crazy diets, yo-yoing weight, and never feeling good in my body, I decided to go deep with this. To uncover what was behind this desire to be thin.
So I asked myself these questions. My goal was to lose weight. What was under that was to feel good in my body (I thought). But then I looked back to a time when I was extremely thin and realized even then, I didn’t feel good in my body. In fact, I was more of a mess when I was thin than when I was overweight because all I did was worry about what was going in my mouth, and filled with so much fear that I was going to gain the weight back. I was certainly not feeling good in my body.
So I had to go deeper. How did I think it would feel if I lost weight? My words were free, confident, sexy, beautiful, ease, and shoot I’d even be more outgoing!
And looking back again to the time I was thin, did I feel these things? NO- FAR FROM IT- THE EXACT OPPOSITE!
That’s when I realized weight loss wasn’t really what I desired. What I really desired were those words that I wrote out. I wanted to feel more confident, I wanted to feel beautiful, to feel feminine, to stop fighting and stop that self- critic. To live with more ease, and to show up for life, to speak my truth, and to feel the joy in my life.
And I had to find these things outside of weight loss. I had to find them within myself. And these are the things we need the most, and ironically, also fear the most…
And my last question, “what was the benefit to holding onto the weight”? So simple. To stop me from being what I truely desired because I was too scared.
I didn’t want to show up for life- until I lose weight, or until I lost more weight.
I didn’t want to be sexy- until I lost weight.
I didn’t want to speak up and speak my truth- because I’d rather hide out at home and focus on my “health”. (aka weight loss)
I didn’t want to live with ease- because then I would be giving up on myself and my “health”. (aka weight loss)
This was such an interesting exercise for me and I encourage you to really think about this- journal it out- and understand yourself. Understand where your desires are coming from. You can do this with any goal, especially when you are really struggling to achieve it. See how you’re really blocking yourself.
Once I started to work through my fears and becoming these things I desired, my health began to shift. I began coming from a place of nournishment rather than punishment. The beautiful thing is that my weight hasn’t yet shifted, but I’m ok with that. I feel like a completely different person in my body- and that’s worth more than any weight loss!
