in the last few months, i have spent a lot of time thinking about who i really am and what defines me as a person. i have realized that my weight held me back in so many aspects of my life and created boundaries of what i could do. many of my decision were severly limited by my physical appearance. tied in with that was a feeling of deeply being ashamed myself. every aspect of my life was affected by shame.
when i was late i did not run to the bus stop and this had nothing to do with the fact that i was lazy but that i thought people would judge me, firstly, because i would look ridiculous running and secondly, because i would be breathing heavily if i reached the bus in time and people would look at me and think "of course she is almost dying: look at her". i would also never go into fast food restaurants because even if i went there once a year, again, everyone would look at me and think: "obviously that is why she is overweight!". this kind of thinking went as far as that i was even afraid to just say "i am hungry" in public.
i was worried about everything - to an extent someone who was never overweight can never even begin to understand.
will that chair/seat/kanu/sofa/gondola...(insert whatever) be broad enough for me to fit and does it hold up? if i go on a hike, will i make everyone wait and will they hate me for it? if i go snowboarding with friends, how long until my feet and knees hurt and will my friends judge me for it?
and the worst: if i meet people, will they look at me and think "uugh"? if i meet friends of friends, what will they think of my friends for hanging out with someone who is overweight?
i was caught in this way of thinking, and no, there was not one second where i was able to let go of these thoughts. not a second.
while losing weight has been incredibly liberating and i do thorougly enjoy all the things that were simply not possible for me a mere two years ago, losing the negative image of myself and replacing it with a more positive one is so much more difficult than anything else. i still feel bigger than everyone else and it is unbelievably hard to get rid of that feeling. i have to tell myself over and over again that i am not that person anymore and sometimes i look at myself in the mirror and think "hei, is that me?" and i feel great but only to catch myself a few minutes later thinking that i still need to loose more weight just to be "normal", which is - at this point of my journey - ridiculous.
one thing i just recently understood is that it is important that i change how i view the person i was before the weight loss. even though i am caught in old thought patterns the person i am now is so far removed from the person i used to be that it is difficult to connect the two - and as a consequence i am an extremely harsh judge to that person that existed in the past. i have yet to learn to be empathetic and understanding towards that person, i think.
about two or three weeks ago a good friend told me that i have to remind me of the fact that all of my friends -including her - appreciated the person i was well before i changed so many things around in my life and even though i myself changed so much, i am also still the same person in many, many aspects.
this got me thinking. i have been ashamed of myself for a long enough time of my life, i have got to let it go. i have to stop being ashamed of the person i was and i have to stop judging the person i was. i was a good person before i lost the weight and although i have learnt tons of stuff in the last two years and have changed immensly, there is also much that has stayed exactly the same. let's say "the core" of me is still the same but losing all that unnecessary weight has left me somehow unburdened, more cheerful and has given me a positive attitude. and some much needed lightheartedness.
