If you’ve ever lost any good amount of weight within a short period of time, you probably can relate a lot to what I’m about to talk about. Having large amounts of excess weight adds so much more to our lifestyle than just being labeled “unhealthy”. It takes away from our self-confidence, which in turn, affects almost every aspect of our lives.. personal and work-related. We then start to feel “stuck”, and our self-worth goes down a notch everytime we are reminded we are overweight, can’t fit into cute clothes, or not “the pretty one” or the “good looking one” out of a group of friends. Over the years, this can take it’s toll. Damage is done slowly, but surely.
More weight is added, more rolls appear out of nowhere, our faces become rounder as the shame grows.
We deny it, but it’s there. Depression creeps in, and we start feeling like we just don’t want to be out in public as much. Staying home and feeling ‘comfortable’ is the most enticing option on a Friday night. It becomes habit, life becomes boring, and we become lethargic as we crawl about in our day-to-day lives.
This is the Vicious Cycle of Being Overweight
In addition to actually losing the physical weight, there is SO much work that we also have to do mentally. We have set ourselves on a vicious cycle that we have to learn to break out of. For me, It was feeling like I couldn’t succeed, no matter how hard I tried. Being pudgy affected my confidence in ways that were almost unrelated to being pudgy. I had literally NO social life. I avoided all of my old friends, turned down many good events and decided I was “happy” being that way. I also became highly unmotivated, and I was happy sleeping as much as I could to avoid everyday life.
I know many people don’t have extreme feelings such as mine, but I believe everyone deals in their own way, and getting out of the rut we’ve created for ourselves by being overweight is almost as hard as losing the weight itself.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve made a lot of changes in my life. What’s odd is that these changes came naturally, as my confidence increased. Starting to feel like my former self, I have been more social, done more business, and even felt more comfortable in public situations. I know some of you may be thinking “Why was she so bummed about her weight, I weighed like 100 lbs more than her!” The truth is, I was not huge. While medically considered “obese”, I really just looked thick, and I covered it up pretty well, with just the right clothes. This gave me the biggest complex ever. I felt almost manly, even though I am rather curvacious in shape. My arms were NOT meant to be that thick, and my frame was not even close to being naturally that large looking.
Throughout the last 5 weeks, I learned a lot about what it takes to mentally recover from being overweight. I’m learning that I need to put myself out there more, and grab whatever I want in life, because it’s much too short to sit around fretting about how I can’t lose weight; because I CAN lose the weight, and I am! I am doing the best that I can do get healthy, and from there… the sky’s the limit!
Have you encountered some emotional changes within yourself while losing your weight??
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