You might think my self esteem is shot by the words above but it isn't. Sure as a child then teen it sucked. I hated my nose and my thighs. I realized the other day I haven't thought about my jewish nose or my thunder thighs in years! I guess as I got older I started to accept some parts of my body. (Not like I could change them without lots of money or major surgery anyway) I tend to have tunnel vision and just look at my face/hair and by golly many days I look damn good (to myself). Some days I do not and I just smile a quick smile at myself and move on figuring it is what it is.
Good for (general) you for loving your body but please don't share it with me. I stumbled across a picture on a public blog recently and it literally gave me a nightmare. In my dream my hands were feeling a flat lower ab area but my eyes were seeing this picture I stumbled across with my face. It was seriously weird! I have been kinda skeeved out since then about my own fat. Because if I wore the same outfit my gut would look the same as this picture. Yes I know the whole if you don't like it don't look but dude how about a warning. I could understand if it was a weigh loss blog and they had starting or progress pictures. Those don't bother me at all! This was a flagrant LOOK AT ME! (No I wasn't on a chubby chaser blog. I was on a very popular blog actually)
Anyway you might not agree with me and that is fine. I am just stating my thoughts on my blog.
When I started losing weight, I had to start calling myself fat and obese because I needed to recognize it was a problem (it worked for me). I blogged about how fat I looked in photos, and someone commented that they were so sad that I didn't see how beautiful I was, and I wasn't ugly like I said I was. I was shocked. I said I was fat not ugly.
ReplyDeleteI can like myself and not like the health/shape of my body. I don't get how they equate loving your body with just letting it continue to stay fat or get fatter. That isn't love; it's neglect.
When I was obese, there was NO WAY I could love my body - like you said, I could appreciate it for what it did for me, I could choose not to HATE it, but I couldn't love it, not like that. No amount of people telling me to love the body I had could change it!
ReplyDeleteNow that I am at a lower weight, I love my body more and more - I can work on loving it because I know I worked for this body, imperfections and all.
You know how I feel about the whole body love thing. I completely understand how you feel, too. It's overwhelming to see yourself and really love what you're seeing when you feel that it's not pretty in the eyes of anyone else. It's downright depressing to hate the skin you're in. :(
ReplyDeleteYou know what though? You're doing what you need to do to get healthy and you're DEFINITELY going to start loving your body at some point. It'll be gradual at first and then the pace will pick up. Suddenly, you'll find yourself standing in the shower one morning doing something completely routine (like sloughing off excess water after you turn the water off) and your hands will come in contact with something firmer than before...something smoother than before...and you'll suddenly feel over the moon about your body.
I know this because it happened to me this morning and I'm still a bit shocked by my reaction to it. I felt pretty. I felt shapely. I felt incredible. In that instant, I didn't hate my skin. It's creepy, but cool!
You WILL experience it, too.
The body love will come! Keep on truckin', girl.
I'm on the other end of this spectrum. I love me. That said, I love me ENOUGH to KNOW that this isn't healthy and that I need to change. Im realistic. And I think that that might be the difference.
ReplyDeleteSarah
www.thinfluenced.com
Hmm. Love and accept, interesting! I like what Sarah said about loving herself enough to know she should treat herself better. That's maybe where I am. I don't know that I really understand all the psychology behind the eating because I can't say that I hated myself when I was at my heaviest - I just put other things in front of taking better care of myself, and put not restraint on what went in my mouth. But I don't know if my outer body was a true reflection of my inner self. Like you said - ask me in 50 more pounds down. ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, I know exactly the photograph you mean, Swan.
ReplyDeleteLOVE is a verb. If you LOVE your body, you treat it right. I am always very baffled when someone who's clearly not treating her body correctly claims to "love" her body; is she referring to its appearance? Some of my body parts are downright awful to look at; I am never going to "love" my stretched out, stretch-marked, scarred skin. But I DEMONSTRATE "love" to my body every day by exercising hard and choosing clean, whole foods; by drinking water and getting as much sleep as my dogs and my boyfriend will allow me to. ;) I don't get how someone can claim to love her body when she isn't doing anything to take care of it.