So here's the thing - I've always been overweight. I started out just a little chubby, but over the years my weight slowly crept up until I literally became obese. But even though I have always been fat (and trust me, always FELT fat), most of the time I really don't feel that bad about myself - I'd say most days my self-esteem is pretty good. When I look in the mirror, I don't LOVE what I see but I also don't hate it - and I've never thought that I LOOKED as fat as I really was. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not delusional, when I look in the mirror I definitely see a fat girl, but I never looked in the mirror and thought "wow, I look really OBESE today!". There are really only 2 times that I ever feel really horrible about myself:
1) dress shopping
I have never been a girly girl - I don't like dresses and I don't feel comfortable in them but sometimes they are unavoidable. I LOVE to shop, and while I sometimes get frustrated with sizes I usually don't feel to bad about myself. Enter dress shopping - all of a sudden I feel like the fattest, ugliest person on the planet! Case in point - my senior prom. I didn't have a date (surprise, surprise, high school boys are shallow) but I was fine with that - I was going to go with a bunch of my friends. My mom took me dress shopping and after an entire afternoon of trying on dresses I could barely fit over my ass I ended up in the washroom of the mall in tears. Needless to say I did not end up going to prom! Now that I'm older my dress shopping fears have moved on from prom dresses to brides maids dresses and let me tell you , it still sucks!!
2) photographs
This is actually the one that got me onto this topic today. I was on Facebook looking at friends profiles and I came across an old friend I hadn't seen in a while. While I was checking out her photos to see what she had been up to lately I came across an old album she had posted of our group of friends when we were younger and I almost fell out of my chair. There, in the very first picture was me - looking fatter than I EVER remember being, and I thought wow! Is that really me? That can't be me! But sadly, it was. I have never been a picture lover and always try to keep the lens pointed AWAY from me so thankfully there are not really that many photos of me out there, but the ones that do exist are NOT GOOD! I have lost a bit of weight so far (around 25lbs) so at least I can feel good about the fact that I'm not THAT fat anymore but I still hate having my picture taken. It's funny how you can look in the mirror and see one thing, but take a look at a photo and you become almost unrecognizable to yourself! I honestly didn't think I looked like that, or looked that fat, until I saw the pictures and it makes me feel HORRIBLE about myself! So needless to say I will be avoiding cameras for a little while longer!
As painful as these realizations can be, they can also be very good motivation. Photographs are how we capture the memories of our lives, and no one wants to be left out of the memories of their own life. I remember crying when I looked at a snapshot a friend had taken of me at my heaviest and realized how bad I looked; and then I resolved to do something about it. Now I use that photo as my marker, and take periodic photos to keep referring back to it as my before and after. And THAT's a confidence boost!
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