Winning the Losing Battle
I’m sitting at my desk, facing a window in which I see the reflection of a woman sitting at a computer. She startles me. Sometimes, I have trouble seeing she is me. Yet, I know her quite well. We spent a lifetime together fighting the obesity battle. We were born chubby, unable to shed what my grandmother called a natural propensity for pudginess. We were pleasingly plump, amenable little girls and charmingly chunky teenagers. By the time we completed college, we were spirited and stout young women with a promising counseling career ahead of us, a career that failed to take off.
“I can’t hire you,” were the all-too-familiar words I’d come to expect, but not a single potential employer told me why I wasn’t being hired, probably out of kindness. One day, however, rejection was followed with a life-defining explanation. “You’re a beautiful person with outstanding academic credentials, but your level of obesity indicates you have low self-esteem and emotional issues that’ll diminish your effectiveness as a counselor.”
“How dare him!” I thought. “Low self-esteem? Emotional issues? Me? He doesn’t see me for who I really am. I’m pleasingly plump, but certainly not obese.” His words haunted me, however. So a few days later, I stepped on the bathroom scale, hoping to validate my anger and denial. I stood perfectly still, waiting for the needle to rest. “What? 300 pounds! No Way! This scale must be broken.”
I stepped off the scale and stared at my reflection in the mirror realizing for the first time that I wasn’t pleasingly plump at all. Rather, I was morbidly obese and in dire danger of developing the same health issues my obese mother had—type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis, and cardiovascular disease. That realization stirred something inside me. Suddenly, I was no longer content playing Russian roulette with my health and my life.
No more!” I shouted at my image in the mirror, vowing to conquer my obesity once and for all. Despite my resolve, I didn’t know how to begin undoing a lifetime of poor eating habits and negative thinking about myself. I couldn’t afford to join any weight loss program. In order to lose weight, I realized I’d have to motivate and educate myself and develop some type of workable plan.
I researched and determined a nutritious breakfast that was the right amount of calories for my age, gender, and activity level, one that would keep me satisified until lunchtime. I kept the remainder of the day as normal until that became a routine. Then I changed my lunch to something with the appropriate number of calories, one that sustained me until dinnertime. I kept everything else the same until the new lunch and breakfast were routine. Finally, I changed what I ate for dinner making it routine.
During that time I also began walking, initially for just 15 minutes at a time. Although my arms and legs rubbed together and chafed, I persevered, pushing myself to walk five minutes longer than I did the day before until I walked for an hour then eventually two. While walking, I occupied my mind exploring my own feelings and life experiences, peeling away layer after layer of myself hoping to understand why I was obese.
Over time, I came to understand that I was a frightened adult child whose negative self talk told me I was less than competent, ill-equipped to handle life’s challenges and emotions. I panicked when challenges large or small came into my life, ignoring them whenever possible. Emotions were too high-risk and painful for me, and I avoided them at all cost. I swallowed them instead, pushing them aside and numbing them with food. What started out as an occasional comforting treat mushroomed into a full-fledged, seemingly irreversible habit I used to solve life’s problems or dissuade my negative thoughts and emotions. Nothing hurt so much that it couldn’t be soothed by eating an entire chocolate cake or a whole bag of cookies. In short, I was addicted to food.
Fortuntely, I embraced some life-altering thinking and also developed some lifestyle changes that slowed then eventually stopped the food-addiction cycle. Whenever I felt compelled to overindulge on food, I asked myself, “Will eating actually help solve the problem or alleviate it? How are you feeling? Will eating make your feelings and concerns dissappear? Will you actually feel better? Rather than eating, what can you do instead?” Stopping myself before overly consuming food helped me get in touch with my emotions so I better understood myself and could develop some more positive self-talk and better coping skills.
Also, I no longer said, “I’m on a diet,” saying instead “I’m getting healthy.” That phrase was more positive and affirming than the “D” word which implies restriction and deprivation. I also stopped talking down to myself or about myself. If I ate something I shouldn’t (which invariably all weight losers do), I didn’t engage defeatist negative inner dialoge such as, “I don’t know why I bother, I’ll never lose weight.” I chose instead to be my own cheerleader saying things like “ was a temporary slip. I can do this. I feel good about the changes I’m making. Good for me for caring about my health.” Positive self-talk was empowering and more motivating than trying to whip myself into shape by sheer willpower.
I made a conscious effort to create a positive image of myself by spending a few minutes each day tuning into the mental vision of myself being slender and healthy. I even cut out a picture from a magazine of a vibrant-looking, trim and fit woman about my age and taped a picture of my head in place of hers. I taped it to my refrigerator and spent a few minutes everyday looking at the image and imagining myself slim and healthy.
Thanks to my positive thinking, lifestyle changes, and determination, I slowly lost the weight I wanted to lose. I felt physically better about myself and mentally more positive because I was loving myself enough to take charge of my thinking, my choices, and my life in general.
I pause from writing this essay, once again catching a glimpse of my reflection in my office window. I recognize the thin woman staring back at me. She no longer startles me. I am her; she is me. Together we prevailed, vanquishing many of our hidden doubts and misgivings. Together we found the strength to cut out the negative self-talk and the self-destructive habits that kept us fat. Together we changed our thinking and transformed our lives. We bled together, accepting we couldn’t bandage our broken pieces with food. Together we won the losing battle.
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