Let’s be honest. We’re not supposed to talk about weight loss. It’s so taboo that Facebook won’t take my money to advertise. Spam filters guard the door of your inbox to block me from getting through.
But if I couch it in health and wellness, everyone is happy. Including Facebook.
Everyone except the woman who wants to lose weight.
You see, for years I followed the standard advice. To not to get hung up on losing weight, or care about how our bodies look…that it should all be for a higher purpose, like being an example for your kids or preventing type two diabetes that runs in your family.
Now if that’s your sole truth, fantastic. I mean it.
But I encourage that if you want to feel great in your clothes, if you want to look hot in a dress… then own it. Claim your motivation even if you think you’ll be judged for it, even if you think it’s not good enough, even if you think it’s, heaven-forbid, shallow. Own it.
My clients want to talk about weight loss.
And they want to talk about health and wellness, the higher purpose stuff. I just think we need to stop pretending we don’t want the other.
I understand how we got here. Unrealistic, media-manufactured images of the ideal body. Shaming ourselves. I agree. That’s got to stop.
But that’s not what I’m talking about. You can want to look hot and feel amazing in your clothes without calorie counting, dieting or obsessing about food. Without drugs. And without hating your body.
In fact, you have to love your body in order to lose weight.
Don’t skip over that. You have to love your body in order to lose weight.
Think about the things you take good care of. Maybe a car, a home, a piece of jewelry. You care for things that you love (or at least like a lot). They sparkle like new. And the things you don’t care that much about are probably showing their wear.
Weight loss can be at the expense of your health. But that’s not my thing. And it’s not yours either. (You would have left me long ago if it was 😉.)
When you love and appreciate your body, you take actions that reflect that feeling. And those actions lead you toward greater well-being. Not so coincidentally, they usually lead to weight loss.
If you want to be real with the weight loss discussion, let’s do it. Comment below. Engage in my group. Reach out to me for a Strategy Session.
It’s not often you can “have it all.” With weight loss and health, you can.
I am having trouble loving my body right now, or even liking it. In fact, I just realized that I avoid “making eye contact” with it, you know, really looking at it in the mirror or seeing a photo of myself. I know I am overweight; the scale tells me so, the tightness of my clothes, the shortness of breath when I climb a set of stairs, the roll of fat that doesn’t go anywhere and serves as an obstacle when I try to bend over to reach something that has fallen to the floor. But in my mind, I’m not. I’m just me. Yesterday I was confronted with the brutal truth: all the spots in my exercise class were taken, including my coveted “in front of a wall and not a mirror” spot. So…after discarding the idea of leaving, there I was, in the front of the class, next to the instructor, FACING A MIRROR with nothing between it and me. I mostly managed to look everywhere but at myself. The few times I looked, oops! and saw myself, I was startled, then disgusted, and disappointed. Rather than motivating me, facing how really big I’ve gotten depresses me, and being depressed is no way to make progress. What I AM motivated to do is show up to class 15 minutes early so I get my spot behind the wall!! I know there’s probably a link between body image, self love and being able to lose the weight for good but right now, it’s all I can do to continue the efforts of eating well, avoiding alcohol and working out consistently.
I appreciate your transparency, Becky. A person can’t expect to jump from a place of hating her body to loving her body. Start with finding one thing you genuinely like about your body and practice that thought. When the others come up, gently remind yourself of what you do like. And congratulate yourself on the things you are doing to care for yourself.