I also wrote this and posted it on my blog, figured I'd share it here to give some helpful advice to anyone else going through the same journey!
Try not to lose who you are, when you lose the weight.
My journey about weight loss, losing your identity, and where confidence truly comes from.
The start of it all:
I was extremely depressed. I was in an extremely abusive relationship and unhappy with my life. I had always been the skinny girl that could eat anything she wanted and not gain a pound. My body changed when I turned 21. Suddenly, I wasn’t able to eat whatever I wanted. Over the course of a year and a had gone from 105 pounds to 170, with my height being 4’11. Food had always been a comfort for me. Even in the worst times of my life, food was there to make things better. In high school I ran cross country and was extremely active. When I got older, I was working a fast food job and a job at a pizza place. Not having enough money to buy groceries of my own, I ate only what I had available to me. Cheeseburgers, pounds upon pounds of fries, and pizza.
When I turned 22, something happened. It clicked how much weight I had gained, when I was going up a flight of stairs and couldn’t catch my breath when I reached the top. I stepped on a scale and couldn’t believe the number I saw. How could I let this happen? It happened so fast? Why were all of my friends not heavier? Why me? I evaluated my life. I was not happy with how I felt about myself. I was in the worst shape in my life, and told by a doctor I could potentially have diabetes. Something needed to change.
I took action. It was as simple as that. It started by forcing myself to go on jogs around the neighborhood. I then got an opportunity to take a free 3 week bootcamp class, where I learned basic military workouts. Mountain climbers, burpees, jumping jacks, suicide sprints. The class was at 5am every weekday for an hour. I made myself get up and go. No excuses. I wanted to be happy and healthy and take my life back. After the class ended I had the knowledge I needed to do all of these things in my own home. I continued this for the next 3 months. I stopped drinking anything but water. I watched my portion sizes and ate things like tuna fish sandwiches on whole wheat with a handful of goldfish. A salad with chicken and fresh veggies with oil and vinegar. I still ate normal things, but took the healthy route and skipped anything unnecessary - mayo, ranch, cheese, …etc. Only the basics.
Keeping up with this for the first month was brutal. And then I stepped on a scale. I had lost over 25 pounds. In one month. Nothing I owned fit me. I realized I was flying up stairs with extra breath leftover. I was becoming more social and happy. I was not letting my abusive ex treat me like crap anymore. Positive things were changing in my life. I thought to myself, if I can do this for one month, what’s another?
And so I did. 3 months had passed and I was on top of the world. I had lost 70 pounds from the day I started. I did it. And with this came a new chapter in my life. I realized what a horrible person my ex was, and left him. I made new friends and actually went out places and enjoyed with my new found confidence. I started doing all of the things in my life I would never have believed possible a year before.
The aftermath:
It’s been 3 years since I went through all of this. I have learned that this truly has been a lifestyle change. I will never allow myself to be the person I was 3 years ago. I also learned that I have a lot of skeletons in my closet. Just because I lost all of the weight, does not mean I was suddenly secure and happy with myself. At first I thought I was - the attention and praise I got from everyone was unbelievable. I felt like a local celebrity. The praise and attention soon ended and I felt very empty. Here I was with this new body and life, but when the celebration of the new me had ended, I found some of my insecurities coming back.
I felt like I needed to dress in the most flattering sexy outfits I could get my hands on, in order to impress people. Low cut V neck shirts, short skirts and shorts. These outfits screamed “Look at me! I want attention for my new hot bod!”. I didn’t realize that these were new people in my life, new people that never saw the old me, they wouldn’t think twice about the way I look. I was focusing on all of the wrong things. Why did I feel like I had to wear skin tight revealing clothing to get acceptance and attention from everyone? When I had first lost all of the weight I ran towards these things because I hadn’t been able to wear them in so long, and the positive reaction I got was reason enough. Something wasn’t right. I looked great but I wasn’t being satisfied by the level of attention I was receiving and started getting more and more insecure. Until eventually I turned into this attention hungry person that threw myself into every conversation, turning it about me, desperate for some kind of social acceptance and praise.
Don’t turn into this person if you are in or have been in my boat and lose a lot of weight. What you look like is not who you are as a person. While It’s an incredible experience to go through, and you gain so many positive things with it - don’t let it devour you. Remember that confidence is the most appealing trait to have. And to have confidence, you have to be okay with who you are on the outside and the inside. Make sure you don’t lose focus of who you are, ever.
So here I am. Proud of my progress, proud of myself for maintaining the weight, and living a healthy active lifestyle. However, I’m not proud of myself for focusing on all of the wrong things after the weight loss. It’s taken me years to finally just now realize that confidence comes within. It doesn’t matter if you make yourself the most attractive person on the planet. You need to feel good about yourself as a whole. This means, frankly, screw what anyone else thinks. Do this for YOU. Do this so you are healthy and live long, so when you present yourself to the table you are confident and happy with yourself. Don’t do it for attention and praise. It will go away, and it will leave you forever hungry for more. It will turn you into someone that I personally let myself become. And trust me when I say, this person no one wants to be around. Would you want to be around someone that constantly tries to one up everything you say? A person that has to be the center of attention in every conversation? No. It’s a turn off, and it comes off desperate and just pushes people away even more.
I have learned through this entire experience that while I may be 70 pounds lighter, I still have a long way to go to get my confidence back. And I am finally finding it through things I never would have expected. I find it through doing art. Going outside for a hike on a beautiful day. Working my butt off and saving for a career. Being there for people when they need me. Doing productive things in my life and in other’s lives.
Confidence will come when you’re happy with who you are as a person. Not from compliments and attention from other people. Don’t let your appearance consume you. You are so much more than what you see in the mirror.
You've done an incredible job and gained amazing insight into who you are as a person. That's something the majority of people never get to experience.
