Dealing with the Weight of Expectation

Navigating the lonely world of body image and weight loss.

As long as I can remember I was chubby. Never sporty or athletic; in fact terrified of PE in high school which, coupled with poor self esteem continued on well into my twenties. At 19 I moved half way across the world alone and started working full time. By the ripe old age of 25 I spent most of my mornings crying as I dug through my wardrobe trying to find something that looked good on me in time to start work.

Ironically, looking back now, even though I didn’t love my reflection I was also living in a blissfully naive body image bubble and on reflection this was probably the time I was most satisfied with my body image. I knew I needed to lose weight but I didn’t really care enough to commit to actually doing it.

Then one fateful evening that all changed. For some reason as I was cooking dinner a popular weight loss TV show was airing and it grabbed my attention. I felt a sudden surge of motivation to actually lose weight. It was like a light switch flipped and this was now a non negotiable. I was excited, driven and couldn’t wait another second to get started!

So began a journey that would lead me to lose over 30kg (or 66lbs for my imperial friends), something I still get pangs of imposter syndrome saying. Yep, you read that right… I feel like an imposter.

See here’s the thing about weight loss that no one talks about and that I learnt the hard way, changing your body doesn’t improve your body image or relationship with it. I often say that I am far more critical of my body now then I can ever remember, yet, I live in a perfectly healthy and conventionally ‘standard’ body.

Why losing weight didn’t make me happy

I want to preface this with saying that I wouldn’t change anything. I live in a much healthier and functional body and this journey has introduced me to so many of my hobbies as well as my career which both bring so much to my life but I have and do still struggle with my relationship with my body. It’s something I have to work on a lot, but more on how I deal with the more challenging days later.

It feels like the first three years after losing weight were a blur. I was still in my naive bubble, fumbling through my own health and fitness journey and taking life as it comes including a bout of depression and anxiety. It was only then that I started to realise that the bully that lived within my brain before losing weight was still living rent free in there, I was still self conscious, still self critical. I couldn’t understand why. Losing weight was meant to make me happy, why wasn’t I happy yet?

Over the following few years I started to realise that all the things I was self conscious about before losing weight were still there. All my problems were exactly the same. In fact losing weight wasn’t the magic pill I had been looking for because being overweight in the first place was never the issue, it was simply a symptom. A symptom of low self esteem, loneliness, boredom. No wonder losing weight didn’t miraculously make me happy. Addressing these issues were pivotal in helping but we can save that topic for a different post entirely.

Dealing with bad body image days

As I mentioned not only has a rocky relationship with my body image become more clear as time has gone on, so has my ability to deal with it. I feel like slowly my little ‘toolbox’ of actions to work on overcoming these days has been nicely whittled down to some truly tried and tested methods!

1. Avoiding triggers

The first point of call is identifying triggers or behaviours that continue the cycle and avoiding them. The temptation to body check, glancing at your reflection as you walk past that window or mirror or trying on your ‘benchmark’ clothes to see if they still fit the same need to stop. These things have a tendency to become impulsive, so noticing when you do these things and actively not doing them will help more than you could know. I know it’s tempting, almost addictive, like a little dopamine hit but keep your eyes forward, your hands busy and just wear some damn comfy clothes.

2. Pour energy into the things you enjoy

I feel most present, happy and ‘myself’ when I’m hiking in the mountains, socialising with my very best energy giving friends or playing in a calisthenics session at the park covered in mud. Coincidence? I think not! I am engaged in something that I am passionate about, I am distracted, present and fulfilled. It took me a while to find hobbies and people that give me this but putting yourself out there, however uncomfortable it feels, will eventually lead to something that clicks. The other great thing about the great outdoors - no mirrors!

3. Rationalisation

‘This too shall pass’ - a phase I repeat rather often. How is it that you can look at your body and hate the way you look, yet a mere 7 hours of sleep later feel completely different? Our bodies haven’t magically changed over night but our mindset has. I know how pesky our annoyingly powerful brains can be and sometimes we need to put them in their places. When I feel myself falling into the negative thought spiral I like to imagine saying ‘no, not today brain’ and put it into the ‘deal with it tomorrow’ box. Ultimately I know the likelihood is that tomorrow I won’t feel quite as critical.

4. Make a choice

When push comes to shove I present myself with two choices. Option 1 is to indulge the negative thoughts and have myself a little pity party. Option 2 is to do something productive, to do anything that will be of benefit to me that day and will move me in the direction I actually want to go. It’s the simple choice I have to make and although I want to run to the comfort of dwelling in it, with practice option 2 becomes easier to choose.

5. If in doubt roll your eyes and say f*** it

Sometime a little of humour and tough love goes a long way. Simply saying f*** it feels like a weight being lifted off my shoulders and the ability to breathe returns, even if only temporarily, it’s liberating - try i!

The long and short of it

Here’s the thing… remember me saying I feel like an imposter? That is a feeling that is purely self imposed. In fact, all of this is self imposed. If anything I have plenty of evidence to suggest my hyper critical view point is perhaps a little off kilter yet continue to give air time to that voice. We are truly our own harshest critics and it’s worth remembering that the things we are hyper aware of usually go unnoticed by others, or even more so, they seriously just don’t care.

Life really is too short to be constantly tearing ourselves apart. Having my little toolbox for those days where my brain really does get the better of me has been a great sidekick for navigating those bad days but as time has gone on alongside reminding myself to focus on what truly matters I’ve been able to shelve that toolbox for longer and longer periods… who knows maybe even one day I’ll be dusting off the cobwebs.