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It wasn't until halfway through high school that I began to receive more attention from guys. I would not have dated anyone if they did like me but it was nice to know that someone liked me. I attributed this attention to joining the tennis team and being the thinnest I had been in years. I maintained this weight throughout college and into my graduate years.
Fast forward to now, my weight is still on my mind, every day. I had a baby and 5 months later I am still 20 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight. I know it's a part of the process and these things take time, but I can't help but feel like I'm failing. Even with diet and exercise, weight loss is slow and difficult. Despite the outpouring of love and support I receive from my loved ones about how I am beautiful and not fat, deep inside I don't believe it.
I wonder why it is so hard for me to separate the idea that the only way to be beautiful is to be thin. I am afraid that even if I do become 'thin,' it still won't be good enough. Maybe constant exposure to an over-sexualized society growing up has something to do with it. Or maybe it's the beauty standards set by the fashion/cosmetic industry. I don't know. But I do know this mindset is not healthy.
Many New Year resolutions often involve some kind of weight loss. My resolve is always to lose weight throughout the whole year, not just a renewal of this resolution once a year. I have come to realize that this obsession with weight is unhealthy and has negative consequences on myself and those close to me.
I would like to work on seeing myself in a more positive light. I would like to redefine beauty to mean contentment with who I am, what I look like and peace that emanates from within. I would like to make my relationship with food and exercise to be on based on pursuit of health, and not pursuit of a number on a scale. I remember reading somewhere that we would never berate and degrade a friend the way we do this to ourselves. So my goal is to treat myself with more patience, love, and respect. In the end, if I feed myself positivity, this will recycle itself back to my environment. So here's to wishing myself and others a happy, successful, peaceful New Year!
Hi, Aunt Maha here. Yes, you are beautiful, so you'll have to take my word for it along with everyone else's. As for weight loss, it's difficult after having a baby, and 5 months is still pretty early in the game. I didn't really work at it until the youngest was 4 years old! So stop beating yourself up over it.
ReplyDeleteSecond, you know what I learned through all the years of counting calories and watching what I ate? I hated my life during that time. Of course it's great being thin, and it is fun to wear cute clothes, but I was hungry a lot of the time and was ALWAYS thinking about food and worrying I'd wake up during the night hungry. Or worry that I’d be too hungry at a some particular part of the day and there would be no food and I would gorge on the most unhealthy thing available. And if I did anything with cream in it, I felt so horribly guilty, I couldn’t even enjoy it!
So last year I threw in the towel. I stopped exercising like mad, I stopped counting calories. But I did retain some of the habits I learned over 20 years of watching my weight. As a result I've hit a stable weight. Yes, I had to buy clothes slightly larger, but it wasn't the end of the world. And I started to view my body differently and appreciate it more than I ever did before.
I now focus on the features that are more appealing (to me, anyway) and I've been happier. I haven't weighed myself in a year. If I start to get down on myself, I think about the things I do like about myself, and they are not necessarily appearance related. This has been really helpful for me.
I like food, and I accept that. I do not want to be on my deathbed wishing I'd enjoyed life more where food was related because I was worried about the size of my thighs. Instead, I eat everything in moderation. If I want a donut, I eat it and ENJOY it. I will go through phases of wanting to eat a donut every day for a week. Then I'm sick of it and it will be months before I do that again. And I'm so okay with doing that, because overall, the healthy habits I do have outweigh the not so great ones, and I think that's why my weight has stabilized. There are other things I retained: portion control and listening to when my body is hungry or full/satisfied.
Furthermore, as I’m sure you’ve heard, eating a low fat diet is actually counterproductive. Eating healthy food/fat makes your body feel more satisfied so you don’t feel like you need to eat more. I’ve noticed this in myself and I like it.
The one thing I do miss though is some of the exercising. I did like how my body felt when I was exercising, and even though I take the stairs most of the time at work, and park my car further away from the store, it’s not enough. So, I’m slowly working some exercise back into my routine, especially where my core is concerned.
So, don’t worry about your weight, worry about your health. And taking that approach will teach your young one how to have a healthy self-view as time goes by. If you are always worrying about your weight, your child will too, since you are the role model.
Dear Aunt Maha,
DeleteThanks for the wise words o advice. I think your approach to health is positive and more productive long term than a temporary diet that has to be repeated multiple times as has been the case with me. You haven't weighed for a year! That's impossible for me right now I weigh everyday but am trying to cut it down to once per week and hopefully less after that. It's gonna take time to make my not so healthy habits more positive.