You wake up one day and think, today is the day. I am going to take my weight loss journey seriously. I am going to become un-recognizable and prove all my haters and myself wrong.
You now start your mornings with hot lemon water. Because somewhere in the depths of the internet you learned that the ritual you love the most, one cup of hot coffee with your favorite ounce of creamer, is the reason you are fat.
You cut out carbs, processed sugar, fiber, fruit, your will to live and are now sustained on a diet of lemon water, air crackers and hopes and dreams. Your spends your days fasting but it's worth it because nothing “tastes as good as skinny feels.”
You step on the scale every morning, take progress pictures “so you can look back at your journey and have proof that you won't ever let yourself fall this low again” and celebrate that you are leaving behind the before picture. Fuck that fat bitch, she didn't deserve your love anyways.
You go to dinner with your friends and say things like “I had a big lunch and don't feel that hungry” as you war with yourself about the fresh hot salty chips that were set down in front of you with mouth waveringly fresh salsa. You justify having just a couple by promising yourself that sit-ups will happen when you get home. Missing the days you could pour into the friend across the table while you gab over a marg, rather than warring with yourself about some stupid fucking chips.
You stop baking at home because you can't trust yourself with a temptation like that in the house. Reiterating the narrative that there are “good and bad” foods. Completely forgetting that morality shouldn't exist in this space and ALL food is simply a fuel that burns at different speeds.
You spend your days and hours at the gym chasing the high of feeling externally validated for living in a smaller body. You push off joy and happiness and doing the things that set your soul on fire for when you hit your “goal weight.” THAT person is worthy and deserving of joy, because this person, the person you are right now, doesn't deserve to be happy. How could she?
You believe the narrative that when you hit your goal weight, all your problems will be gone….
Congrats babe…you have become completely unrecognizable. To yourself, to those around you, to the people who love you most. A mere shell of the vibrant human you once were.
You believed that if you hit that goal number on the scale, the finish line would come into focus and life would magically become easy. When in reality, all you find is that the finish line moved. All those sacrifices and you still feel like a total potato in your body. Your hatred is palpable as you pinch extra skin, looking in the mirror, pretending to cut it off.
Let me hold your hand when I say this, until you change the relationship you have with your body, IN YOUR HEAD, no amount of weight loss will satisfy that itch. It's an addiction that you won't ever overcome.
I've lived it. The majority my life. And I know the stories I used to tell people, that “I just wanted to get healthy” while I was actually killing myself. Period stopped, hair was falling out by the handful, living in a cloud of irritability, heart was always racing. I can hear you saying “but Katelyn you don't know my story!” Yes babe, you're right I don't know YOUR intimate story, but I know that the weight loss industry is a cog that makes billions of dollars off our collective distain.
I am not asking you not to workout, lose weight, get into whatever body you want. In fact, just the opposite, become so strong that the patriarchy can't crush you. Be so fucking tough that when they come for us we can kick some collective ass. What I am begging for is that you put as much effort into healing the relationship you have with your body as you do making her smaller. Without that first step, you could lose all the weight you want and still not be able to look yourself in the mirror and see a happy person smiling back at you.
Do the work. Don't run from the hard shit. Stand in the mirror and get comfortable with the human you are. Understand that tolerance is the first step towards liberation. Scrub your news feed. Join communities and voices that encourage you to feel ok in your body. Read the books. Join a masterclass.
It doesn't have to be love, I just need you to understand that there is no bottom in the hell that is a weight loss journey. The devil that lives down there has lied to you, telling you that all your happiness waits with him in the darkness. A gremlin who prays on your weakness.
The joy lies in healing your relationship and then celebrating the ride that is life. Fully knowing that your body is built to change, ebb and flow. You don't have to sacrifice yourself to become the compost that your happiness grows from. You can simply plant a seed in your brain and watch it bloom.
YOU DESERVE TO FEEL AT PEACE IN YOUR BODY. Period. Full stop.
I love you my precious friend,
Katelyn
