What We Gain

Of course, I had to do a play on words for this because I love a good pun.

I was thinking a lot about why I constantly was on a lose-regain cycle of weight loss over the years.

I did a quick calculation. The difference between my highest weight and my lowest weight was 40 pounds, but I’ve lost 110 pounds total! How is that possible? LOL

I lost weight, felt really good, gained it back. Over and over….and over.

It wasn’t my body. It wasn’t the food. It was my mind.

I would be so absorbed in the ‘project’ of losing weight that it kept me distracted enough from all the negative emotion I was feeling.

It was like the ‘weight loss process’ was my distraction. It was my buffer. I would get so focused on what to eat, not to eat, and exercise, that I wasn’t paying attention to how I was feeling about myself or anything else.

So I’d get to goal weight and then ……crickets. What was I going to distract myself with now? I still didn’t love myself or my body. I still felt like I was fat.

Initiate vicious cycle.

I’d go right back to overeating, except now I was so embarrassed that others would see me gain the weight back. I was so mad at myself and felt powerless and weak.

To avoid those feelings, I would buffer my emotions away with food (tons of pasta and wine) and hide inside my house (i.e. no physical activity).

This is when I figured I was just a person who couldn’t maintain. I’d always repeat this cycle.

Then someone introduced me to my coach. She was so straight forward about what I was thinking and basically told me my story before I even said anything.

She taught me to look at something I had NEVER knew was there my entire life.

My thoughts – more specifically – my thoughts about myself.

I was blown away. I had never taken a step back to look at what I was saying to myself and thinking of myself.

I didn’t think I was good enough until I reached some number on the scale. I was chasing after something I could never catch with weight loss.

That was the ability to care for myself, really see my worth, and not use any outside thing to make me better because nothing outside me could ever do that anyway.

I’ll tell you this: you can have tons of people that care about you, telling you how valuable you are, loving you so hard, and hoping you see it, but it means nothing until YOU believe it yourself.

The funny thing about all of that is even if no one supported me, I could still see those things in myself. That’s super empowering to know now.

But I didn’t understand what that really meant until I learned what I was thinking and deciding to change that.

It’s something that effects every other area of my life outside of weight and food. In fact, once you learn this skill (it takes practice for sure), food and weight are the last things you’re thinking of.

It’s like a vail and pressure of all that garbage is gone, and you can start doing things you enjoy and love yourself in the process.

I’m so thankful that we were created with these amazing brains. They are such a gift. Now that I know how to use it, I can’t help but appreciate everything even more.

It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve lost and gained weight. It doesn’t matter what the total pounds were. It doesn’t matter what the number says on the scale. It means nothing about you.

None of that could EVER effect your worth. You are worth it. Right now. You CAN do anything. You ARE already amazing.

Imagine yourself at your goal. Have fun with it. Take time to picture yourself. Are you smiling? I see you. I know it’s as good as done. What would you be thinking? What would you be feeling? What would you be doing?

You can think and feel all of those things now. What do you really want to do? You absolutely can, and you’ll GAIN in a completely different way. But don’t do it because you ‘have’ to. Do it because you ‘want’ to.

You are already worthy.