You decide you want to improve your body and live a healthier lifestyle. You read all the books, gather all the information, map out a nutritional strategy, design your own workout schedule (or have a trainer do it for you), and you embark on the journey to a leaner, more muscular physique…and it starts working! But the minute you begin getting results, you fall off the wagon. You binge, you skip workouts, you cheat. What’s most perplexing (and upsetting) is that you know what you should do… but no matter how hard you try, you can’t get yourself to do it! It’s as if some unseen force is sabotaging you and controlling your behavior like you were a puppet on a string.
Does this sound familiar? Yes?
This morning, I found that interesting article about the notion of self concept and self-sabotage, and I decided it was a good read to share here. Because this is what has happened to me in the past. What is happening to me at this very moment. I am quite close to goal, see? 4 or 5 kilograms-close, perhaps. And it’s not easy to envision myself, even though my scales, my friends and colleagues and the BMI charts tell me I am now part of the NORMAL crowd.
Perhaps things would have been different had I only been overweight for a short time during my adult life, for instance right after a pregnancy, or due to temporary medication. I would have been used to a thinner self no matter what, and not currently wading my way through uncharted territory. But in spite of never having been part of the 200+ lbs group, in spite of probably seeming a ‘featherweight’ to many, even at my heaviest, I’ve been overweight since childhood, and the concept of a thin Kery isn’t something I’m used to. I’ve never even known how it felt to be really normal (and not on the highest range of normal, if this makes sense). Terra incognita, as I said. And it’s frightening.
Nowadays, I am struggling with this idea, the idea that I can and deserve to be thin, the idea that ‘fat’ isn’t a word that should define me. Boy, is it hard! Some days, I am so okay with the new me, the me who’s embarked on that journey, that new me in the making. And some days, there must be something in me that suddenly bubbles up to the surface and makes me go on the rampage to get cookies and cold cereals directly from the box and other crap to eat until I’m feeling seriously at unease. The good news is that it never lasts–one day at the most, and I can easily get back on my feet and undo the damage starting the day after. The bad news is that it happens, and not only does it happen, it also hampers my weight loss, those pesky last 10 pounds that aren’t vanity pounds, but fat I could really do without to feel and look better.
“I am fat”: no matter how I like myself and appreciate my body now despite its lumps and cellulite, I realize that in my mind, I’m very likely still fat. The fat girl. Who was the fat girl in elementary school, in junior high, in high school, and lost some weight afterwards, then regained it, and was fat through all this all the same, just not always as fat as before.
Yeah, alright, I get it.
So now, I suppose I need to make my mind learn and acknowledge that I am not fat anymore, that I am getting to a normal weight. My self-image has to change. My self-concept has to change. I can say I am intelligent, have a natural talent for languages, have developed quite decent skills at writing and drawing, am blue-eyed, have fair skin and naturally dark-blonde hair. This is me. Not fat. Fat is just something that happened along the road, and earlier than it did for other people. But it is not ME. It does not have to be. I don’t have to let it define ME!
Granted, I am not totally depressed about this. For the first time in my life, I am able, most of the time, to look at myself naked and think “I am pretty, and that cellulite and stretch marks aren’t even that noticeable to start with”. I am never tempted any more to hide myself in clothes that are too large, like I would do three years ago, at my heaviest weight. I wear what I want, when I want, I buy what I like, and the hell with that slight muffin top if I want that pair of jeans. Why should I be ashamed of myself? I’ve seen thinner people not give a flip about whether they displayed that same muffin top, so why should I? I’m on the road to ‘healing’, if I may say so–but I’m not there yet, and a relapse is still very much possible. That I have to remain very careful of.
I will never be waif-thin, unless I get seriously ill, which I sure don’t hope. But I also don’t have to go on seeing myself as a blimp who still can’t completely fit in a seat on the bus or whatever else. And this image I have of myself is a flawed one, that I must get rid of if I don’t want to see it come back in my face sooner or later to make me trip and fall again.
After all, things change, people change too. Why couldn’t my self-perception change as well–and for the best?
- Kery, trying to understand her own self
August 3rd, 2007 at 19:58
Great post. Sometimes I think we all self-sabotage a little. But I absolutely believe that people and their self-perceptions can change.
August 5th, 2007 at 09:59
First, welcome to this blog.
And I’m inclined to think we as a whole indeed have this tendency to ’self-sabotage’, at least sometimes: given the amount of people I’ve seen, see and will likely see talking about the problem, it can’t be that scarce…
August 6th, 2007 at 05:39
Really interesting post! And it’s great that you’re on top of this and trying to figure out how not to be defeated by it.
I wonder, if if you tried to trace it back, if you have any particular triggers for this sort of self-sabotage? It might be intersting to figure out what’s exactly going on for you when you find yourself wanting to retreat to the old view of yourself. Who knows, it may be something weirdly specific that seems threatening about achieving your goals that you can challenge yourself on.
August 6th, 2007 at 15:16
Well, being defeated would very likely mean inflating to my highest weight again, or worse, so I told myself once and for all that is was not an option.
I’m wondering about a particular trigger as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was one, but it doesn’t seem to me like it would be an easy one to find out. At some point, I was looking on the family side (when I was younger, my father’s family would always make nasty comparisons between I and “your sister who is soooo skinny”), but I’m not so sure anymore. So I go on searching…