Body Image

I hate my body as it is right now.  Yet, I'm still quite a few (about 65) pounds lower than my highest ever weight.  I didn't hate my body at that higher weight.  I didn't lament about it. So I had a belly.  SO my thighs jiggled.  Big whop.  It didn't bother me.    I was comfortable in my own skin. I knew I was overweight but I was comfortable.  My self worth was secure.  I liked me for me.  I liked myself and I was confident in saying, "To hell with anyone that doesn't like me because I'm fat, I wouldn't want friends like that anyway."

I started losing weight simply because I wanted to.  And I found a whole new world.  I found a deeper level of confidence.  I found energy.  I found really cute clothes.  I was in my glory.  But was I happy?  No, for the first time ever I looked in the mirror and I saw a fat body.  Really?   I looked in the mirror at 315 pounds and I was at peace, yet when I looked in the mirror at 180 I saw a fat hog?  What came over me?  How could I not see it?    I will back up and say that I did see it in pictures.  There was  notable time when I was looking at a picture and I actually started questioning my husband about a thin woman in his studio and why in the world he had his arm around her.  Uhhhhh yeah, the girl was me.  So I could see that the girl in the picture was a skinny mini (I was and NEVER will be rail thin...but 315 to 180 is SKINNY)   Why could I not see it when I looked at myself?   My self confidence in myself was strong but my happiness with my body had wavered.

I maintained that lower weight for a while.  I was happy.  I loved the clothes I as able to wear and was amused to see that my style is totally different than I always thought it would be.   Fun stuff.  However, remember my happiness with my body had wavered and things were not copacetic within me.   I hadn't learned the proper life lessons needed to maintain my loss.   Looking back, it should have come as no shock that I gained weight.  I gained  lot of weight. I've got another mountain to climb to get back into my cute clothes.  65 pounds, give or take.  It's not pretty.  As my weight has increased so has my dissatisfaction with my  body.  My previous satisfaction with where I was and comfortable in my own skin when I was at that much higher weight did NOT return.   I honestly didn't expect it to.  I tasted what skinny feels like and I liked that taste.  I want that back.

As I lose the weight this time I don't know how I will combat this tendency that I displayed about not seeing myself as a thin person.  I don't have the answers.  However, I do now realize that fat is not the happy place of my earlier life.   

Fat is not for me any longer.  I'm choosing to live thin.  If I look in the mirror and see a fat chick,well so be it.  I like the energy, the confidence and the feeling of good health that swirled about me.  Body image is just that.....it's an IMAGE that my mind has conceived.  It is not a real thing...it's a perception.  I'm no longer going to be constrained to those perceptions! 

I've been really struggling with my new lifestyle. I won't lie. I wish I could go back and live the existance of not worrying about what I'm eating. Just living life to the fullest (eating wise). Oh yeah, I know that the results of the newer me is soo much more important and actually adds so much more to my life, but I sometimes can't help buy mourn the loss of my old friend...food.

That said......I needed what is coming next....

Oh wow......I just did this test to find out my expected life age. I did it plugging in my current "new" lifestyle. There were definitely things that I can do to help my life expectancy but my life expectancy with my current lifestyle (eating healthy foods for snacks, no red meat, my current exercise levels...all of it) is 95 years old. SOOOOO just for shits and giggles I decided to go back to the start and answer the questions in the manner that I would have answered just a few short years ago.....answers that parallel what I've been crying about and wishing that I could go back to. Are you ready for my life expectancy with THOSE answers????? 74 years old. That is a difference of 21 years!!! TWENTY ONE CRAZY years????

THAT is food for thought!