Out of Love

It’s difficult when you feel like you’re doing all the “right” things and the scale just doesn’t move, or even worse, it moves in the wrong direction. In the past, this is what has led me to give up. I feel like I try so hard and I don’t get the results I want, or the results I think I should be getting. This time has to be different. I know I can’t keep doing the same things and expecting a different outcome.

I’ve tried many different diet plans, many different apps, many different nutritionists, personal trainers, coaches, and exercise regimens. Simply changing the food plan, or the exercise plan, or the person I work with, is not enough of a change. To get the outcome I want, and I have wanted for so long, I have to really do something different.

I thought about it for a while. I know how to eat healthy. I know how to food prep, work out, drink water, etc., but there was something preventing me from reaching my goals. Yes, I have been diagnosed with an eating disorder. Yes, there is a huge emotional component to the way I eat and binge. But, with all of the knowledge and awareness that I have around the eating disorder, emotional eating, and food, I can’t continue to use that as a reason why I’m not where I want to be.

For a good part of my adult life, I’ve lived a very sedentary life and I’ve always justified that by how hard I work.

“I deserve to rest because I work so hard.”

“I deserve this piece of cake because I had a tough day.”

“I deserve to order takeout and sit on the couch and watch TV all night because of the day I had.”

“I deserve to scroll social media for hours and not cook, do laundry, or clean because I put in so many hours this week.”

Let me make something clear. Of course I deserve to rest. Yes, I work really hard and my body needs rest to rejuvenate and re-energize itself. That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m saying is I can no longer justify living a sedentary life by making excuses. Eating that piece of cake, sitting on the couch for hours, not cleaning my house, scrolling social media all evening– all of that is not taking care of myself, even though I’ve convinced myself for many years that it was.

Even though I had a long day, I can come home and cook dinner. I’m not talking about the occasional takeout night. That’s fine. What I’m talking about is getting home at 3:30 in the afternoon and then sitting there for hours under the guise of having worked too hard that day. That’s not taking care of myself.

Truly taking care of myself would mean maybe I rest for a little bit when I get home at 3:30, but then I get up and I cook myself and my family a nutritious dinner. That is what it means to take care of myself and my body. Sitting on that couch all night and eating takeout is not.

Sitting on the recliner for hours because my ankle hurts and is swollen is not taking care of myself. Maybe I sit for a while, ice it, and instead of going for a walk because that will hurt my ankle more, I do a different exercise that won’t put pressure on my ankle like ride my recumbent bike.

I have used how hard I work and the physical pain that I experience as an excuse for way too long. I tried to tell myself and others that was how I took care of myself, but I realize now that I was not taking care of myself. I was actually hurting myself and justifying it every single time. That nutritious, home-cooked meal is what would have helped me take care of myself. That 15 minutes on the stationary bike would have been taking care of myself. Making sure I have a clean house and clean clothes is taking care of myself. The sedentary life I was living was actually contributing to my demise.

So how is it different this time? It’s still hard for me to get up and do things. I’m still in pain. I still work hard. But something has got to change. Now that I see that all these years I haven’t really been taking care of myself, loving myself, I can’t unsee it. Now that I know it, I have to change it. Otherwise I’m just going to keep getting the same results as I’ve always gotten.

I realized a lot of the things I was doing under the guise of taking care of myself were really hurting me. I started to question some of the other narratives I told myself. I wanted to change my body, change my appearance, because I don’t like the way I look. I have often found myself saying that I hate my body or that I’m so disgusting. I wanted to lose weight because I didn’t like myself or how I looked, so I was attempting to make positive changes to my health, my body, and my appearance out of hatred and disgust. And maybe that was the problem. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to achieve success with weight loss. I keep trying to lose weight because I hate my body and I recently realized that I can’t take care of myself and lose the weight if I hate myself. I have to love myself in order to want to take care of myself. And that’s what I’m doing differently this time. I am going to make these changes because I love myself, not because I hate myself.

As much as I’m not happy with the way my body looks, I love myself enough to want to take care of my body. I don’t want to change my body because I hate it. Instead, I appreciate my body. I am grateful for my body. My body houses my soul. It’s what allows me to walk this Earth. It’s what allowed me to give birth to my beautiful son. It allows me to get up every morning and spend this life with my family. My body allows me to walk, to work, to love. Why would I hate it? How could I hate something that’s keeping me alive and that has allowed me to experience so much love and joy?

This time around, I’m doing this out of love because I love myself. I am grateful for my body and how it sustains me. I am grateful for my body and how it has enabled me to experience true love on so many levels. And because I love my body, I want to take care of it. And so this time, it will be different because I’m making changes out of love, not hate. I want to lose weight to improve my health because I love myself. And that will make all the difference.