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Obsessed with body image


Ari.

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I successfully completed my first Whole30 last month. I want to begin a second Whole30 but there has been something in my way.

I have obsessed over my appearance everyday for the last 10 years. I am probably 30 pounds over my "ideal" weight, and the most I have lost in these 10 years is 15 pounds. You'd think for someone who thinks about losing weight and talks about losing weight- at nauseum- would have managed to do it by now.

My Whole30 was the first time I said screw the weight loss thing, I just want to feel better. This time last year, there's no way I would allow myself to stop thinking I need to be skinnier. I have convinced myself that if I just wear sweaters in 90 degree weather and cover myself up as much as possible that no one will notice that I have some extra pounds to lose. But I have recently decided, who cares how you look on the outside if you feel good on the inside? During my first Whole30, I felt amazing without losing any weight. And that's when I realized that maybe my focus should not even be on how my body looks, because who is honestly judging me?

I know the program talks a lot about body image, ditching the scale and not listening to the media. I would like to know if there are any former body-obsessed folks who have successfully become a healthier version of themselves with self acceptance. And if you would care to dispense any wisdom for someone who is just now (kind of) seeing the light?

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Hi Ari, well I've definitely reached the self acceptance stage but it was a long and torturous path :). I'm about 5' 6" and in my late teens weighed about 126 pounds but I still fell for the whole dieting fad. My friends and I started counting calories and keeping them under 1000 a day. Our diet was so unhealthy - our one aim was to eat so little during the day we could have chocolate bars and vodka at night :wacko:. I would lose weight, get fed up with the diet and put even more weight on.

I became the typical yo-yo dieter. Over the years I tried fat-free diets, practically carb-free diets, intermittant fasting, juice fasts, raw food diets - you name it, I've tried it. The only result was that every time I gave up on whatever was the unsustainable diet -du -jour, I kept getting heavier and heavier.

I'd always been a gym freak but about 8 years ago I developed ME and being mostly bedbound couldn't exercise at all so reached my heaviest weight at about 185 pounds.

Then about 5 years ago, I became really ill. It took nearly 2 years to find the culprit was my pancreas and bile duct. During that time I lost way over half my body weight and ended up just over 80 pounds. It was horrendous, not only did I look absolutely awful but I was so thin, that even sitting in the bath was so painful, I could cry.

I no sooner got that fixed and back up to a healthy weight than I discovered I'd breast cancer. I'd to have a radical mastectomy, they'd to remove the breast, the underlying muscles and all the lymph nodes on that side. While vomiting rings round myself with the chemo, I was also getting bloated because of the treatment. I was still undergoing treatment last year when I discovered W30 and I've never looked back. 50 days into it (I did 2 W30s back to back) my oncologist thought I'd never looked better :)

Now, to be totally dispassionately analytical, because of all this, my body is probably in worse shape than at any previous time in my life and yet you know what - I freakin love it :wub: I love the way it never gives up but just seems to keep going no matter what life throws at it. I truly believe that sticking to a W30 way of eating is giving it the best possible chance to be the best it can be, even if that's a tad short of what other people would want their best to be ;).

I also realised in hindsight that, over the years, my family and friends loved me no matter what weight or shape I was. When I was working, I worked with the homeless, and with parents of kids with special needs. None of them cared what I weighed or what I looked like, they had far more important issues in their lives.

The only sad thing is that it took me well into my fifties to reach this level of acceptance. When I think of the decades I wasted, never feeling I was acceptable, always dieting trying to be something different *better*, I just really, really wouldn't want anyone else to go through that. Health is what matters, not weight, not appearance. Today, I couldn't tell you what I weigh, my clothes fit comfortably and that's all that matters.

So be the healthiest you can be and above all love your body because it's yours and love yourself because you truly are worth it.

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Kirsteen, oh how I admire you and where you are now as opposed to letting all of those things that happened to you defeat you! :wub:

I saw this video through FB and I absolutely love it and it goes so well with your post, Ari!

http://www.dove.us/Tips-Topics-And-Tools/Videos/Are-You-Your-Own-Worst-Beauty-Critic.aspx

With today's media, it's hard for anyone to have a really good body image of themselves. Just when I think there are positive changes to what is considered to be healthy, something else comes along to make me feel inadequate. :( I think Whole30 and these forums have really helped me have a better self-image and to be more confident. My weight might not have changed a lot but I am walking taller (as tall as 5' can be! ;) ) and, even better, happier!

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I went from not caring about my body to obsessive trying to "make it better", and then to acceptance. I may be new to self-acceptance, but since you asked here are a few things that helped me.

1) Ditch the scale. I know it's been said over and over, but really just do it if you haven't already. I'll admit it was nice to see my progress when I was dropping the large part of the body fat, or kind of cool to see how much I lost after my first W30, but even then it comes with a whole host of problems:

-It's addictive. I don't fully understand why I am addicted to stepping on a piece of metal and glass, but I know I'm not the only one. Compulsively weighing multiple times a day, or even just daily - it's pointless and not psychologically healthy.

-Even if there isn't a mental issue with the scale, beyond a certain point it doesn't tell you anything. If you're dealing with a lot more extra weight/body fat than you want (meaning a lot more then you mentioned), then I think it does have a certain usefulness then - I was ~70lbs over my current weight, and it was useful for the first 50lbs. Then not so much. I wasn't able to tell from your post how active you are, but if you are active and building muscle (Crossfit, for example), then it becomes even more pointless. A great read on the subject

2) For the most part, other people don't care about it as much as you do. This one took a LONG time for me to come to grips with, but it's true. Sure, there's the occasional judgmental person, but most people have too many problems of their own to worry about your extra body fat.

3) You are doing the best you can health-wise. I assume that you eat right (you're posting on the W30 forum, after all). Maybe you're active, maybe not. In either case, it's my personal experience that diet affects fat loss far more than activity.

4) Your health is what matters the most. Would it be nice not to have excess body fat? Sure. I'd like to see that on me. But health is more important, and this way of living promotes your health.

Hope that helped some!

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Wow thank you guys so much for your responses, they were truly EXACTLY what I was looking for and needed to hear. Kirsteen, your post made me tear up. Thank you for sharing your journey with me, it was extremely eye opening. For the first time in my life I am actually open to hearing and absorbing the concept of self acceptance. I always felt like the only path to true acceptance by myself and others was through weight loss. What a joke. You guys all said it- other people (even myself) have legitimate things to worry about. I have denied myself basic happiness for a long time and it's just not worth it. The whole concept of the Whole30 has been really eye opening and I am so thankful that a random customer suggested ISWF a couple months back.

I have a somewhat active lifestyle, not so much for exercising but because I work on my feet and am running all over a school campus lugging books 4 days a week. I have never really considered exercising to feel better! It's always been -"Well I suppose I'll try for a bit to get this weight loss thing on the road". And then I end up doing exercises I don't even really enjoy. I'm sure incorporating some nature walks and stretching would do wonders for me emotionally and physically. It's been a pleasure reading everyone's input, thanks again :)

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I have never really considered exercising to feel better! It's always been -"Well I suppose I'll try for a bit to get this weight loss thing on the road". And then I end up doing exercises I don't even really enjoy. I'm sure incorporating some nature walks and stretching would do wonders for me emotionally and physically.

This! I have never had much luck losing weight through exercise anyway, it's always been 90% diet. I was on the treadmill for an hour, every single day, for 2-3 months (combo jog/walk). I did this because I didn't want to change my diet...I think I lost like 2 pounds. What exercise has always done for me though is help me sleep better, and oddly I feel more comfortable just sitting and going through normal day-to-day activities when I'm exercising regularly. It doesn't have to be strenuous at first; you might find after you start to get more active/fit you'll be ready to try other things. The important thing is to just get started...pick something you like and you can stick with.

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I just posted in another thread something about this topic, but I'll rehash some of it here...

I have an almost 3 year old and I'm 9 months pregnant with my second. Before I had my first, I worked as a musician and a writer for many years. Being a woman in the music industry, how you look is ridiculously important, unfortunately - and I wasn't even doing what is considered mainstream music.

For most of my life, I absolutely hated my body. Just hated it. Now, I've been fat, unhealthy skinny, fat again and then fit. You know what I saw through all those phases? Fat and ugly. It didn't matter what the scale said. It didn't matter what anyone said.

I was voted best female vocalist in my city by our entertainment magazine. The entire write up was about how hot I was (I suspect that was the reason I won?). I've had so many write ups pertaining to my band, but mentioning how "hot" I was in magazines all over the country, actually. At the time, I had a hobby as an endurance cyclist and I guess it paid off. I didn't think I was attractive at all. I absolutely hated my body. I would refuse to go out with my husband on dates because I felt too fat in clothes. It would be on my mind the entire time I was playing a show, if I was having a particularly bad body day that day. I would actually wear loose shorts on top of my cycling shorts if I knew there would be a lot of riders out on the trail. I was so embarrassed by this body that everyone told me looked great.

So, when I had my first child, it was devastating to look in the mirror and actually see that I was fat, because I kind of was! It took me all the way up to right before I got pregnant again to lose that weight, but in the meantime I gained something way better - I learned how to love myself.

I think having a kid really helped me. I was so proud of myself for going through a hard labor almost completely naturally. I never thought I could do that. So, even though I hated the way I looked afterward, I started finding it really hard to truly hate my body for what it had done. All I had to do was look at my beautiful daughter to know how amazing my body is. My husband likes to say, "Look what you made. You're a great baby-grower." :)

I think the real point was, I finally saw that there was more to my body than a stupid number on a scale or stretch marks from puberty I wasn't fond of. I stopped weighing myself (only my doctor does that anymore). I actually stopped dressing in the mirror except to see if I have cat fur on me. I stopped telling myself I was fat and practiced telling myself all the positive things I knew about myself. For a time, I would write it down. This stuff didn't happen overnight, but with intentional work I changed my mind.

I actually think it's funny when my daughter pokes me in the butt. I know she's noticing I'm kind of squishy, and it is perfectly fine with me.

So now I'm 9 months pregnant and not once in this pregnancy have I had a self-pity party about my body not looking good. Not once have I worried about what my weight is going to be at the next doctor's visit. Not once have I worried about how I'm going to lose the weight when the baby comes - or worse, the fact that I have to go to a wedding only a few weeks after I have this baby and I will no doubt still look pregnant (as in, inflated pregnant). Instead, my body gets to be just what it is. I eat healthy, I am healthy and so I have nothing to worry about. It is very freeing.

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CaseyD, it's really interesting to hear from your perspective. I had a friend when I was just a teenager that I considered beautiful and perfect. I met her after she had lost a lot of weight and one day she told me that nothing changed inside of her even after losing weight, she still hated how she looked. That completely went over my head when I was young and it wasn't until last year that I reflected on what she said. I think that as humans we have a need to choose measurable representations of our goals, obviously. But I think many of us look at weight loss as the only measure of true happiness and self love, maybe because it's something that we do have control over (relative to other things). We don't have much control over the external world, but we can decide that losing body fat will lead to happiness and gaining body fat will lead to misery. But as many of us have come to realize, happiness does not come from how much we weigh. That would mean loving ourselves only conditionally. I hope I can learn to love myself unconditionally and treat my body with respect.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm rereading this thread because I just finished my Whole30 and I feel pretty great: more toned, more comfortable to claim my body as a good thing, and down about a size (.5 to 1.5 sizes, depending on the cut....)...but I'm afraid to get on the scale and learn that I am "wrong" for feeling great.  And that is soooooo warped.

 

And it doesn't help that my son -- who is only 6 -- laughed at my legs today while we were at the pool, calling them short and my calves too wide.  I was too shocked to smack him into next week (joke! -- but I didn't say anything, either, like commenting on my muscles or anything like that.)  And later he called me a big fat bear.  Clearly, someone needs to have a talk with the little man: this is school talk coming home, I think, because he certainly doesn't hear that at home, but still.

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Wow, Kew- thank you for sharing that. It's crazy that even our children can add to our negative body image. And it also really shows how young it actually starts. He is lucky to have a mother that is aware of its negative impact so he can be set straight for the future!

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Aw. Kids just say that stuff without knowing it's hurtful. They are busy sorting out their worlds. But of course it is hurtful. I was looking at my slowly improving psoriasis the other day and my son said, "that rash is horrible, really horrible looking." When he was three I was trying on a dress and trying to decide if it fit and he told me it was too small. But I agree you should say something, in a gentle way.

And I totally get the idea of not wanting the scale to tell you what's up. Don't listen to that scale! It doesn't know jack.

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Oh, kids and their little insults. I am giggling so hard at all the stuff my kids tell me, big fat belly, big fat teddy bear, big fat booty...I see a trend developing. But they also tell me I'm pretty, or smell nice, or look like a princess. And they are just ribbing me sometimes I rib them back, like look at your little chicken arms, what a tiny scrawny you can hardly open the front door and it's all in good fun. They insult each other with things like (my all time favorite) you're a bad tipper, you're a party pooper, and the little ones go-to, poopyheadoody. Clearly all of this means nothing about who we are in the world, it's just words and thoughts and opinions. But srsly, good call staying off the scale. Not even just because it might disappoint but because it really doesn't hold a lot of valuable information anyways.

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