157 to 252. Looking at pictures of me BG (before gain) used to make me want to crawl into a hole and die. I wasn’t in the best shape but I was small. I could wear clothes without spilling out of them. I could walk around my life without a persistent ache in my knees and back. I wasn’t prediabetic and didn’t have PCOS and sleep apnea the way I am and do now.
I was small. I was depressed, I was bulimic, I was alone, but I was small. I was small I was small I was small.
I used to get really hung up on that and find myself romanticizing that period of my life. But I wasn’t happy back then and my relationship with food was toxic—only in that body it wasn’t readily apparent. In that body, I could hide. I could blend in with the normal eaters, the people who didn’t obsess over food and their weight. I could walk into a room without people automatically assuming things about my lifestyle and eating habits and them using those assumptions to judge or be disgusted by me. My disordered eating was all neatly tucked away in my thinness, and I think that made it easier to deny it was as bad as it was.
Obviously, I still have food/weight-related issues to confront but there has been progress, and not just physical. I used to weigh myself constantly—before and after everything I ate, before and after using the bathroom. I denied myself water out of fear the scale would change. I lied in bed at night pressing my fingers into my hips to make sure I was still thin enough to feel the bone. I never had a moment’s peace. I am nowhere near that state of mind anymore.
For those of us who were once at a normal weight and are now struggling with obesity, it’s easy to romanticize that "past self" and make efforts to convince yourself that you would automatically be happier if you could just go back in time and step into their shoes again, to get so caught up on it that it inhibits you. But would you? Would you automatically be happier? Would being in a smaller body solve everything?
I reached 100 pounds of weight gain a few years ago, and I’ve finally realized that I was unable to commit to getting it off until now because my mindset was all wrong. I was angry at myself for gaining the weight and I thought I could hate myself into losing it. But the progress I’ve made, as tiny as it is, has only come since forgiving myself and letting go of the old me. Instead of punishing myself by sitting at home alone, spending hours swiping through six-year-old pictures and loathing myself for “letting myself go”, I’ve been going out into the world. Going dancing, spending time with people who love me, finding clothes that look nice on the body I’m in right now, learning to love myself as I am right now. And instead of being discouraged by all the weight I have to lose, I’ve become excited by the idea of doing something out of love for myself, not punishment. And as long as I keep trying, I know I'll get there.
I think I’m going to start a weight loss diary on instagram to help keep myself accountable and hopefully build community. @ sixsharpe. Maybe you’ll join me.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/rdqolj/no_these_pictures_arent_backwards_i_spent_the/
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