Since spring is just around the corner, more and more women decide they have to loose weight, so they start dieting, counting their callories and they even feel as a complete failure if they miss only one training from the sport they have chosen to loose weight with, not to mention how they feel if they happen to eat something “forbidden”… But who needs this?
Sometimes I happen to have such thoughts as well: “I need to loose weight urgently no matter the cost!”; “I look horrible, I don’t like myself!” and even: “If I am not slim enough, I will never be able to find a good partner and I will never be happy because of my weight…”. But is this all true? It’s a fact that our outer look does have a specific influence on our potential partners, but what matters is our overall outer look together with our charisma, not kilograms alone. If a person takes a good care of his/her outer look, this shows that the person loves himself/herself. And whether they are slim or kind of hefty doesn’t really matter that much.
I am sure you will argue using the common belief: “Yes, but all men want a slim woman!” In fact, some men like slim women, but let’s have a look around and pay attention what couples we can notice. Me personally, I have noticed that there are many women, including obese women, who do have a partner and this partner loves them with all their kilograms. However, at the same time I have also noticed many slim girls, who stay single for months and even for years… Of course, the opposite can also be true, but we all tend to think that hefty women will stay single and slim women always have happy relationships… However, in order to attract the right person for you and create a fulfilling relationship, it is not necessary for the woman to be slim, because there are other factors that have stronger influence on the relationship.
I want to lose weight, so that I can be happy?! And as long as I haven’t lost this weight, I can’t be happy! But even slim people cry… Even slim people have problems at work and fight with their families… Happiness has nothing to do with weight! Even if you reach the weight you think would be perfect for you and at first you are proud of yourself and happy because you have reached your goal, this feeling of happiness vanishes very quickly. In order for a person to be happy, they need to build the life they want every single day. There is no way for it to happen through a diet every spring.
What is the reason for you to want to loose weight? Answer this question before rushing into the next diet or exhausting sport! Of course, your body needs to be taken care of. But what the body needs is constant care, not sporadic care from spring to spring. Moreover, it needs care because of the right reasons – I eat healthy, because I want to be healthy and I want my body to function well for long time; I practice sports, because I love my body and I know that it needs to be active in order to feel good; I do sports, because sports bring me joy and make me feel good. I starve and exhaust myself from trainings, so that I can fix my low self-esteem, so that I can finally find a man, or start to like my horrible body at least a little bit – well this won’t bring anything good in your life… Be honest with yourself! What do you actually want to achieve? Start eating healthier? Start loving yourself? (Conditions don’t work here – “I will love myself, if I loose weight”, what works is: “I love myself as I am now with all the kilograms I have”). Is your goal to find the right partner for you? (The fact that you haven’t found him so far is most probably due to psychological reasons, not physical ones…) Be happy? ( friends who make you feel good, a hobby you enjoy, more exciting job, new place to live or simply a change in your perspective towards life, could do this way better…).
And what it is exactly that you don’t like about your kilograms? To be honest, it hurts me deeply, when I hear a beautiful slim according to me woman explaining how fat she has become and that she needs to loose weight… As long as your kilograms are within the healthy limits, in which your body functions well, there is no need to put yourself under pressure for loosing weight. And even if your kilograms are above the norm, it is necessary to think about how to make your life healthier, so that you can improve your health, and happier, so that you don’t need to comfort yourself with food, because when your life is healthier and happier, kilograms go away on their own without any extra effort on your side.
If you have already clarified why you want to loose weight, then it is time to answer also the question why you have gained weight in case you have really gained some new kilograms over the last year for example. The answer that we would give automatically, would most probably sound something like: “Well, I ate too much during the holidays and I was too lazy to do sports…” Well, this sounds convenient, but in reality you can’t really gain so much weight only during the holidays. And if this was the case, it would make sense that the moment you start eating normally and doing sports again, the kilograms gained during the holidays would go away, right? However, there are other factors that have stronger influence than the holidays. How do you feel? Are you happy with your life? Are you scared of something? Are there things in your past that you simply want to erase and not remember ever again? Do you believe that you should always be happy and do you try to supress your emotions the moment you feel sad or angry? How is your relationship with your Mom? Do you love yourself? The reason why we get ourselves additional kilograms could be different for each of us, but it is not likely that the gained weight is caused only by us being greedy…
Our body is a perfect system, which provides us with very important messages, as long as we simply do the effort to listen. Gaining weight is the way our body demands us to pay attention towards something important. For each of us this message would be different. But all of us have something in common – when we supress our emotions, our body starts containing the tension from this choice. When we are scared, the body builds a shield in order to protect us. When we don’t love ourselves enough, our body provokes us to take care of this issue. When we gain weight, there is always a deeper reason to it. Even the fact that all of a sudden we started craving more food is quite significant and shows that there is something happening that bothers us.
So love your body as it is. It does have the ability to change constantly – this year we are -5 kilograms, next year we might be +10, then -20, and after that +15. Wrinkles will appear, as well as grey hears, sometimes our skin will be dry, in other moments – beautiful and smooth. But no matter what change happens, this remains my body and it works so hard for me every single day. And in reality it is not of such importance what your weight is. What really matters is whether you love yourself, whether you take a good care of yourself every single day and whether you create the life you want. The numbers on the scale are just a detail.
There are people who love you no matter what your weight is. Love yourself as well, without any conditions!
Photo: Unsplash/Jairo Alzate
