How Loving Yourself Can be the Answer to Weight Loss

Well, I've already blown it... As I justify eating another cookie. Only heaven has kept count of the previously devoured goodies I suppose. In the back of my mind I feel guilty somehow. My excuse of already "blowing it" doesn't seem to be working. 

I have been dieting and trying to keep track of my weight for a decade now. Which means I was 10 years old when I went on my first diet. I didn't understand that my lack of knowledge concerning health and wellbeing would hurt me more than I could at that time imagine.

Due to my enormous lack of knowledge I ate whatever I wanted so long as I kept track of the calories. I had competitions with my siblings and we rewarded for losing weight. Exercise was synonymous with weight loss... not health. And being healthy meant... well, being skinny. 

Skinny was the ideal. The goal. I became so wrapped up in what I looked like and wanted to look like that it hasn't always mattered how I've gotten there. That means going to bed so hungry it hurts. Not drinking water even when I was parched as can be (for fear of gaining water weight). It looked like me eating pizza and ice cream regularly... but I counted the calories!

Somehow this diet worked. Worked for what? My goals of course. When the only goal is being skinny, you're willing to sacrifice your health for your vanity. And I have paid the price. 

Yes, my diets have worked and I have lost weight. A lot of weight. And then I chillax. I've made it to my goal after all. Don't I deserve some extra treat, some freedom from the regime? I've made it, don't I get to eat however much I want now?

As silly as this sounds, this has been the cycle on "re-peat-peat-peat-peat" for a decade. My tactics worked for weight loss yes, but I've lost my health.

My lowest point was only recently. You can imagine the depression one feels after failing for a decade. You can imagine the feelings of pain and despair. 

There's no use anymore, I'll just fail again.

My ideas of health have been tainted and distorted for years. And one of my biggest weaknesses is when I have exceeded my caloric limit for the day I'll say, I've already blown it. And then I will eat whatever I can get my hands on until I am in disturbing amounts of pain. 

I crave the feeling of being stuffed, the painful, sickening kind of stuffed. I crave all the sugar and all the processed food you can possibly imagine. And when I do get a little bit or even a lot, I'm never satisfied. I always, always, wish I had more. 

If, at this point, you think I need therapy, you are probably correct. 

Now I was playing the harp this evening and very frequently I misplay a note or a whole measure (or more, but you get the idea). As I played the wrong note I realized that I treated that harp with more love than I treat myself with. 

I gave that harp, that music, a second chance... over and over and over again. I loved the music that I was playing so much that there was no way I was going to just "blow it" and purposefully misplay the entire song because I had already played a note wrong. 

There was no way I was going to just stand up and say, There's no use trying, I just always mess it up. I push through and play that celestial instrument in the hope that someday I will at least be a better musician.

I hope to someday be a healthy person in my body as well as mind. I hope to someday not feel those intense cravings for pain. I hope that someday I will not want to gag myself in the hope of puking my dinner because of the shame that I feel.

I hope I can love myself. Be kind to myself. I hope I can always give myself all the second chances that I need. I hope to exercise for the sake of health and not for the sake of weight loss.

I hope to eat well for the sake of a sound mind and spirit. I hope to have the self-control necessary to be, "the captain of my fate [and] the master of my soul".