I am 25 and I have only been slightly overweight one time in my life, right after puberty. Being 25 I haven't had much time to fluctuate, I also work out and eat organic homemade food, but those things mean nothing after you have had a baby. At first I couldn't believe how skinny I looked, which is really not hard after having a baby in you belly then no baby, but then that disbelief wore off and I started to notice the stretch marks. I mean gaining weight is one thing at least you have the opportunity to work it off, but stretch marks? No you are stuck with those the rest of your life and I am not talking about a few here or there, they are everywhere! This was my first pregnancy and I can tell you that I was not quite prepared for the aftermath. I have a tattoo on my side and one down by my hipbone, I was prepared to sacrifice those, I was prepared to wear long shirts and in the summer wear tankini. I did not get stretch marks on my belly though, I got them on my thighs and my boobs, yes my boobs. Nobody had ever even told me that you could get stretch marks on your boobs, but there they were, bold red cracks running across my boobs. Stretch marks isn't even a good word for them they honestly look like tears, small little red canyons all over your body. Of course the color fades and eventually they are pretty hard to see, but by the time they had faded, I really began to notice my lack of weight loss. I got down to a certain weight and here I sit. I work out I eat healthy, I watch what I eat, but it doesn't seem to matter my weight stubbornly persists. These things have slowly wore me down and now I look in the mirror and ashamed at what I see. My clothes barely fit and I have bought mostly new ones anyways because I couldn't keep wearing the same 3 outfits that actually fit. I want to cry and sometimes do. I am happy I had my sweet little boy and I am happy to have sacrificed what I did, but that doesn't make me like the way I look. I know in my head that I am being ridiculous, my weight isn't at a dangerous level it really is merely my idea of who I was and how I should look that is the problem. I try to give myself pep talks and meditate on letting go, but it just keeps coming back to the same thing, I am overweight and I hate the way I look. As most women, and I know men too, know this is not an easy thing to remedy. We are fighting a whole culture of expectations about what women "should" look like. I would like to say that this is no big deal to me that I am somehow above this, but I am not. I am right there with everyone else thinking" I should like that women" or "I used to look like that girl." I am not able to love myself for who I am right now. I think this is why I cannot lose the weight because this is an important lesson to learn. If I cannot love myself in my imperfections then how can I love others in theirs? How am I supposed to support and care for those around me when I will be judging them with the same standards I judge myself. If I think overweight, but still very healthy is a problem then I am going to project that onto everyone else. I think that if I was able to truly love who I am right now in this moment whether it be about my weight, my success, my anger, my mistakes, or whatever I am lacking at the moment, that the weight would slowly but surely melt away. Even if it didn't at least I would be happy with who I AM.
We must forgive ourselves for being human. We must forgive ourselves for being imperfect. Because when we judge ourselves we automatically judge others. And what we do to others, we also do to ourselves. The world is a mirror of our internal selves. When we can accept ourselves, and forgive ourselves, we automatically accept and forgive others.
-Debbie Ford, Dark Side of the Light Chasers
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