It's Weighing Less On My Mind

Forgive the pun, but weight has been weighing less on my mind these days. It’s this amazing shift that has been happening in the last week or so. I can’t even begin to tell you how surprising this is to someone whose earliest memories are tied up in having an overweight mother and being an overweight child.

As I’ve stated prior, my mother put me on a diet around the age of six or seven. It was humiliating. I didn’t understand why I, and only I, couldn’t eat dessert at night or how eating yogurt instead of cookies was better for me. I was six or seven! I just knew that there was junk food in the house and I wanted to eat it.

But what I did understand, on an emotional level though not yet a mental one, was isolation, criticism, and shame. Instead of instituting a familial shift around playing and moving more, eating more fruits and vegetables, and not having soda in the house whatsoever, my mother unintentionally taught me that a) I was fat, b) I was fundamentally WRONG for being that way, and c) it was something I had caused and something in my control to undo.

At a young age, it is not within a child’s control what foods are brought into the house or what parameters there are around television watching. But I am 26 years old now and everything is within my control.

So, guess what? I, casually, came to the realization that I don’t care as much, anymore, about losing weight. I’ve still got fourteen to nineteen pounds to lose before reaching my ideal goal and I’m not saying that being at a healthy weight for one’s body isn’t important. On the contrary, it’s crucial to living long and living well. It’s also something I plan to help others achieve in my future health counseling career.

But there has been a mental shift, a MONUMENTAL shift, in my attitude toward my own weight loss. My ENTIRE life I have either been on a diet or thinking about starting a diet next week, on Monday, after the holiday... As I’ve been making these lifestyle changes in the last 4.5 months or so, the ultimate focus has still been weight loss.

That mentality has become increasingly antiquated for me. I have made change upon change and I feel like a different person, a person who truly prioritizes health, not just talks about it. Yet I was still criticizing myself and feeling angry and stuck when the numbers on the scale weren’t dropping like I wanted them to.

Not to toot my own horn, but I am the healthiest person I know. I prioritize exercise, I experiment with a variety of healthy fats, proteins, greens, nuts, foods I never would have dreamed of incorporating into my daily diet a year ago. I’ve cut out dairy 100%. I consume a lot more water than I ever used to. I don’t eat very much in the evening, which was a difficult transition for me. I almost never eat processed foods.

What I’m trying to showcase here, besides the fact that I am pretty awesome and dedicated (I jest! I jest!), is that I am damn healthy. I am prioritizing my life, my whole self, in a way that I never have. So what, I’m 164 pounds. I’m 164 pounds and healthy. I’m tuning in to what I need on a holistic level. I’ve got more energy and a more regulated mood than I had before. I look at my arms in the mirror and they are looking so strong. I see my stomach and I don’t hate it as much, anymore. I see it soft and youthful and beautiful, even if it’s not totally flat.

I still want to see 145 to 150 pounds on the scale, I’m not going to lie. It’ll feel unbelievable to be able to walk out of the mall with a pair of size twelve or even size ten jeans. That’s not something I’ve ever experienced in my adult life. But if I push myself to get up at 5:00 a.m. to go to the gym or I actually look forward to my sauteed kale with garlic at lunch because it tastes good (and, oh yeah, it’s chock FULL of nutrients), I’d rather do it for the sake of doing it. Because it increases my energy, because it makes me feel full of vitality and vibrance, because I know I’m contributing to a healthier environment by choosing organic, whole foods. Just because that’s what I do now. I am a healthy person. Someday I know I’ll hit that mark on the scale. Until then, so what? I don’t think that I will ever again operate with weight loss as my dangling carrot.