Weight, the Real Story
HAVE YOU TRIED TO LOSE WEIGHT?
Maybe you were unsuccessful.
Maybe you lost weight only to regain it, plus more.
How many diets have you been on this year?
How about in your life?
How many things do you love to eat, but feel shame every time you reach for them?
Do you equate your happiness with your weight and/or body?
First, I want to offer my deepest, most heartfelt and sincere apologies. This has likely been an emotional, painful, and difficult part of your life to say the least. Likely a frustrating hamster wheel of disappointment. And you are an absolute warrior for fighting this battle again and again. You have serious determination to change yourself. I’m going to tell you something else: you are worthy of more!
Second, I want to tell you something (and if I could scream it from a mountain top I would!):
WHAT IF WEIGHT ISN’T THE “PROBLEM”?
Now stay with me, I can feel you beginning to explain why weight is the problem and when your weight and body change, everything in your life will also change.
You have been on this rollercoaster long enough, tried a million different things, I encourage you to just listen to one more – I hope it is substantially different from the others!
We have been treating weight like it is the “problem”. We (ourselves, medical doctors and our culture to name just a few) prescribe diets (a lot of different ones too, ones that don’t even agree with each other!), exercise (ones that compete with which is the best too!), medication, surgery (cutting pieces out of our bodies!).
And you know what?! All of them work, for a while, if you do them well. But, the real gut punch, soul kicker is long-term results (weight-loss) are not there. Surgery is the most effective long-term, but it is still not 100 % guaranteed, many still regain a considerable amount of the weight AND it comes with a whole host of other problems that aren’t very well known…. including losing your hair, not to mention the physical pain!
I’M GOING TO QUICKLY SIDEBAR HERE. I JUST WANT TO EXPLICITLY STATE TWO THINGS:
1) I think you are great, independent of whatever number shows up on that scale and I don’t think you NEED to change anything in order to be a badass human being! Phew! I needed to get that off my chest.
2) I think eating nutritious food that you choose (YOU CHOOSE), that makes YOU feel good is great and movement in whatever form YOU CHOOSE is phenomenal.
Some people get a little stuck and think I am putting down “healthy” food (whatever that means) and exercise. Screaming from the mountain top – I AM NOT. I’m just saying it’s not THE SOLUTION.
Back on track.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? YOU WANT TO KNOW THIS RIGHT?
Well, if WEIGHT were the problem and we fixed it through, diet, exercise, medication, and surgery why in the hell doesn't it keep not being “solved”?!
You may already know this, felt it, been waiting for someone to say it, quietly been longing for it: WEIGHT IS NOT THE PROBLEM AND LOSING WEIGHT IS NOT THE SOLUTION. Sure, for some people they may eventually CHOOSE to lose weight or change their body – good for you it is YOUR BODY!
What I am here to say is: we are going about this in the wrong way. What if we looked at weight, bodies, and food issues (and concerns) as a symptom of something totally different?! What if we started thinking about all of the times we have shamed ourselves and NEEDED to lose weight to feel good about ourselves as how SOMETHING ELSE is manifesting?
Something else is manifesting as a war we are sieging on our own bodies. So……… If we figure out what the REAL problem is and we treat that problem maybe some of the symptoms will clear up?! Maybe if we find the culprit, the real thing that is driving this train we will have some more control and CHOICE over how we feel about ourselves, our bodies, feel more agency in our ability to genuinely CHOOSE our foods, CHOOSE to move in ways that make us feel fantastic (instead of exercise punishment to burn off something – ouch that sounds so painful!).
I know that this article sounds really “readable” (at least I hope – because that was the intention). But, there is actual research backing this up! There was a really big and influential study done by this Doctor named Felitti (and his research crew). What he found was that adverse childhood experiences play a big part in obesity in adulthood. If you are interested in this study, it was groundbreaking, it is known as the ACEs study and can be found here: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/about.html
It was also so important that the CDC has it on their website. It was so important that many therapists and doctors use the questionnaire that was developed as part of their intakes! This is something that is well known and infrequently discussed in the realm of bodies and food.
Boooooo! Let’s talk about it! Let’s use it to start healing. To start thriving!
If you made it to the end of this I commend you. This was a bit of a read. You are a warrior and deserve to feel your power, your freedom each and every day! You are worthy.