~How I see me~

Do you know what it’s like to look at yourself in the mirror every day and wish you were someone else? Maybe not someone else but someone skinnier, healthier, more muscular, etc. etc. etc…Blah blah blah. It’s like a broken record. Every day of my life. This is how I have been living. Existing is more like it. I have spent so long wishing I was something else and never loving and appreciating what I have and because of this I have missed out on a lot of things. I have spent a lot of time this year learning to love and appreciate my body. Reading books and blogs and getting in the mindset to change my everyday thinking. I am slowly being able to look in the mirror and not cringe at what I see. I am learning to see the beauty of myself from the outside. I have spent a majority of my life on a diet or weight loss plan of some sort, spending thousands of dollars on that one thing that will help me. Searching for that number on a scale that will magically fix the way I see myself and make me happy. The sad thing is that number doesn’t exist. That number is what I weigh now, what I weighed 6 months ago and what I will weigh a year from now. I need to fix the way I see me in this moment and love every inch of me inside and out. To be happy in the here and now, no matter how much I weigh.

On Facebook I am part of a women’s fitness group. I see so many women that have bodies I have been dreaming about for years but they hate their bodies and pick themselves apart. They wish that some part of them were smaller, more fit, less lumpy, the list goes on and on. One woman’s dream body is hated by another. It’s truly sad to see but I know how they feel. We all do. We all have body issues, some are just deeply rooted more than others.

I think about who I am trying to lose weight for and what life will be like. Most of the time it is for me and wanting to feel and look better but I will admit that I also think I need to lose weight in order to “find someone to love”. I think that if I look a certain way or weigh a certain amount that I will find someone to spend my life with. The honest truth is that I feel like I can only be loved if I lose weight. No one is going to love me in this body. I don’t love me in this body so how can anyone else? It’s thoughts like this that I have come to realize have shaped my life for far too long. When I actually write that down it sounds ridiculous, even to my own ears, but it’s how I feel and have felt for as long as I can remember. It’s time to start realizing my worth not just to myself but to others as well. I have way too much life and love to give.

Who was it that told me I wasn’t good enough as I am? Was it family? My friends? The kids that made fun of me for being fat? The media?  No, it was me. Outside factors definitely influenced the way I think but in the end it is me and always has been. I hold the power to make me feel superior or inferior. It is a choice that each of us has. It’s time to embrace this power and hold myself up with confidence and knowing that I am OK, better than OK, just how I am.  

I guess the point of all this rambling is that I am done. I am done dieting and beating myself up all the time. No more stressing out over what I should and should not eat, how many calories have I consumed or how many hours this week I worked out. It sounds like I am giving myself free reign to just sit on my ass and eat crap and convince myself that I am great. I am not, I'm just cutting myself some slack.  I will and still plan to eat healthy most of the time but if I want pizza and beer I will have it and not feel bad about it. I will still work every day towards getting my 10000 steps and/or 30 minutes a day of exercise. Not because I should but because it makes me feel good when I do.

The change probably won’t look too much different from the outside but the change from the inside is what will matter. I know that when I let go to all of this unhealthy baggage about being healthy that things will really start to take shape in my life. It’s time to throw out my scale and buy more full length mirrors. It’s time to finally see myself as I am and as cliché as it sounds, I am enough.