This morning, Jon and I were watching TV and somehow we started watching an Ad for some new weight loss diet that was guaranteed to change your life and make you loose weight and love your new you.
New YOU?! What on EARTH is wrong with the "Old" you??
It makes me sad to think that in order to love yourself (according to pop culture, weight loss ads and the like) you can't love yourself in your current state. Don't people realize that one of the KEY reasons people are overweight is because they don't LOVE their current self? TRUST ME, if you don't love you in ANY state, no amount of weight loss will change that.
Example: The summer after first year university. I was around the weight I am now (which oddly enough, I'm VERY happy with) and felt like a mammoth. I wasn't happy, felt fat and unappealing. No guy would ever want me (silly I know, but were my true thoughts at the time). So, I joined Weight Watchers (the ONLY thing I did right in this whole charade). I went crazy and ran EVERY day and beat myself up if I didn't run the whole time. That summer the weight literally fell off my body and I was losing 10lbs a month. I was VERY strict with how many points I used (I literally counted the points in GUM for god sake) and reached my goal weight after about 3 months.
You know what? When I looked in the mirror, I still felt the exact same way I felt 30lbs heavier. Why? Because WEIGHT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SELF WORTH! You know what happened? I gained it all back, because I didn't deal with the REAL reason I was eating: I didn't love myself & my body, therefore I didn't treat it the way it should be treated.
Since then, I have gone up and down in weight, but I have come to love myself no matter what my size. It's taken therapy, long talks with good friends & family, an amazing, SUPPORTIVE and loving hubby, self discovery and even some meds to get to where I am right now. Don't get me wrong, I still have fat days (don't we all).
Even still, I couldn't look in the mirror and love my body. I wouldn't HATE it, but I didn't LOVE it. So, a couple of weeks ago, I was out for dinner with a very good friend of mine and she said "Lisa, you need to look yourself in the mirror and say 'Damn girl, you fine'" (Yes, we talk like that). She even gave me a full length mirror so I could do so.
So almost every day since then, I have been doing so. Some days I believe it, and some days I don't, but every time I do it, I'm glad I have. I truly believe we should ALWAYS look at ourselves like Calvin does (because let's face it, everything in life can be related to Calvin & Hobbes).
