Today on the podcast and blog, I’m asking the question, “Can You Love Yourself Through Weight Loss?”
I’ve tried every single diet you can think of. Deal-a-meal, South Beach, Phentermine RX, The 6 Week Diet, Weight Watchers, and so many more. With each diet, I thought “This is it. This is going to be the thing that fixes me and makes me perfect.”
I held my happiness hostage for when I would get to goal weight. I attached all of my future happiness and success to the day I got the perfect body…the day I got to goal.
Well…
I’m not at my goal weight and I’ve never been there.
I was going on diet after diet, doing the yo-yo diet game, losing some weight, and then falling off the wagon. All the starting and stopping made me feel like a failure. I was convinced that something was wrong with me. I didn’t have the willpower to stick with it when shit got tough.
There was a big missing piece of the puzzle.
All those times I went on a ‘diet’, I did it from a place of hate. Hating my body. Hating what my weight represented. The hate of being the forever fat girl.
I would go on a diet and tell myself “this is the last time. Once I get to goal weight, then I’ll <fill in the blank.>”
This went on for YEARS!
So, what was that missing piece?
I never got to the heart of WHY I had a weight problem or an issue with binge eating in the first place.
Sure, I was carrying around extra weight that everyone in the world can see. You can’t hide that from the world. But that amount of weight paled in comparison to the hundreds of pounds of emotional weight I had to lose.
Emotional weight is the heaviest. It’s the shit that you’ve buried somewhere deep within your subconscious mind. It’s the bullshit excuses that you tell yourself. It’s the inner bitch talk that you do to yourself.
Emotional eating and binge eating doesn’t come from a place of love. Dieting and extreme exercise doesn’t come from a place of love either.
They come from self-hatred. They come from wanting to be something your not. Thinking that the weight defines you and that once you lose it, you’ll become a new person.
Well, sure. You’ll look different. You’ll fit into those skinny jeans and that dress you’ve been eyeing at the mall.
You will feel better physically. You’ll get a ton of compliments. But all of that will be just like a high. The most euphoric high of your life. Just like any other high, it’s temporary and it’s going to come down. The letdown will be like nothing you’ve ever felt before.
When the next traumatic event happens, the next death, the next layoff, the next illness, the next thing that life throws at you that socks you in the gut and sucks the wind right out of you. What will you do? You’ll have a cheat meal. Maybe a bag of chocolate or an entire cake. That cheat meal will turn into another and another. Just this one day will turn into weeks and months of binge eating and weight gain.
You’ll gain back all of the weight and then some.
The same self hatred that helped you get the weight off will be the EXACT SAME self-hatred that will put the weight right back where it was. Right back where it’s safe and warm on your body. It’s happy place. Where it thinks it belongs.
You think this is what you deserve. Right? Because you’re nothing but a big fat failure. You always have been and always will be.
At least that’s what you’ve convinced yourself is true. You don’t know how to be any other way. If you aren’t focusing on the weight, then what will you focus on? You mean, you’ll have to deal with all the other shit in your life? Weight will no longer be that wet blanket that feels miserable but yet oh so comforting so long as you don’t move?
So, you go on the cycle over and over and over again.
Until you get a wake up call…like reading this blog that wakes you up to the concept of losing the emotional weight.
Did you even know emotional weight was a thing?
How could you possibly love your body when it makes you sick to touch your own fat rolls? You can’t even look yourself in the eyes naked in the mirror. How could you love this damaged, stretch mark covered, fat, flabby body? “I will never love this body until I’m thin.” you think.
No, my friend. That’s where you’re wrong. That’s where you’ve been wrong your entire life.
So, can you love yourself though weight loss?
Hell yes! And you should only be going through a weight journey because you love yourself. I would say that it’s the ONLY way to go through this journey.
Losing weight because you hate yourself is never going to change anything. What has hating your body done for you so far? If you don’t work on yourself and shed the “inner fat girl”, none of the physical weight loss will ever be permanent. Even if it is, you will still be carrying around tons of emotional weight and a ton of self-hatred.
I promise you that the only way to make this journey for life is to love yourself now and not wait for the weight.
Your worth isn’t attached to some bullshit number on the scale. It’s not attached to a clothing size. You have worth and value because you’re a human being. There’s no pre-requisite for that.
In Closing…
I don’t want you to wait for the weight. I don’t want you to sit on the sidelines of life while you deprive yourself of your favorite foods and punishing yourself with hours at the gym doing things you hate.
I want you to feed your body healthy foods that actually taste good. I want you to find activities that feed your soul and don’t feel like medieval torture. I want you to know you can look and feel irresistible right now…not 50 lbs from now. I want you to hold your head up high, put on your makeup, do your hair, strut in those heels, and show the world who the fuck you are. AT ANY SIZE!
If anyone else has a problem with your weight, they are the ones with body image issues. Not you. You might feel broken. You might feel like your confidence is shattered into a million pieces…and it might be. But you are not broken. You are worthy of loving yourself. You deserve to live the life you crave…and deserve. You probably have no idea where to begin. It’s ok. I’m here with you now. I’m on this journey with you. Stick around, my friend. A great place to begin is by requesting to join my free Facebook Group called Irresistible You.
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Hi! I’m Aimee with 2 E’s. I'm a confidence coach that empowers women to love themselves by breaking down body image issues, so that they can lose the emotional weight and gain the confidence to look and feel irresistible...at any size.