Maybe someone else will get suckered into loving themselves too
I’m on the cover of Woman’s World magazine this week. I’m in the top right corner. It’s exciting!
Mostly.
Actually I have had a lot of thoughts about it. Mixed feelings. Because over the past 20 years of quitting sugar and having my eating under control, I have learned to separate my feelings about my body from my feelings about food. I have learned to love my body for all that it is and does. And to be able to love it and call it beautiful on my own terms. And to also know simultaneously that there are foods that I am addicted to. That when I eat grains and processed sugars and even some high sugar and starch whole foods, my body craves more. And those cravings are painfully intense. And that even if I don’t have to hate being fat, I can hate the way those foods make me feel.
I think all the time about how I got basically suckered into getting my eating under control. 20 years ago I had a life coach who told me I just had to get 90 days and then I would prove that I was not a food addict. (HA!) And then I thought it was going to keep me skinny. (HA HA!) I mean it did for years. But even having my eating under control, when I quit smoking almost 14 years ago, I gained weight seemingly indiscriminately. Weighing all of my food. Cutting my portions. Gaining weight anyway.
And I still kept my eating under control. Because even though I was terrified to gain weight again, and be fat again, I was more afraid of the insanity of eating compulsively.
I had to learn to honor my body at any weight.
But magazines don’t sell that. It’s hard to get a before and after shot of joy. Or freedom. It’s hard to get a before and after shot of “I hated myself here, and here I love myself.”
But an extreme weight loss? That is an easy thing to show.
And I should remember that I started doing what I do with food exclusively to lose weight. And it was only a series of (un)fortunate events that led me to loving my body unconditionally, and keeping my eating boundaries in all circumstances. Not to be thin, but to be grounded, nourished, and sane.
So if Woman’s World selling weight loss through me lets someone find a solution to their eating problems, that’s another person who may get suckered into loving themselves unconditionally too.
onceafatgirl 