One week ago my little sister got married. It was a wedding that was beautiful beyond belief. Everything turned out perfectly. We had the perfect venue, food, lights, flowers, happiness...everything. The one hard thing that was difficult for me was the fact that I had not lost the weight I anticipated that I would lose.
When she was engaged last December, I did a mental calculation of the amount of weight I could healthily lose and the awesome dress I could potentially fit into. I bought the dress, made some goals, and was on my way. I have, as many of you perhaps, done this a lot! I plan my life according to how much weight I could lose, if I would really stick to it, by a certain event--that event could be a wedding, summer time, the new school year, Christmas, a party, and on and on.
It was hard for me to realize that I only accomplished a small fraction of what I set out to do. And, yet, it left me deflated that, yet again, I wasn't where I wanted to be. Two weeks before the wedding I started to just not eat so I could lose weight, but then I would be emotionally drained and I would go to bingeing. It was a bad cycle that I got pulled into and wasn't sure how to pull myself out of. I logically know that this is not productive, but sometimes--where food is concerned--the logical brain loses to the emotional brain.
On top of that, it was hard to have to try and find a dress, four days before the wedding, that would actually fit me because the one I bought would not. It was hard, as the Maid of Honor, to have everyone take so many photos of the two of us and to realize that I didn't want to see or own any of those photos because of how I looked. I felt pretty ugly and bad most of the day (partly because I got these horrific bangs cut, too, that just didn't look so great--but that's another story). I felt like a bad version of myself on a day that should be pretty darn important.
That was a big event and I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a certain way.
It was nice, today, to have the realization that I have no major event coming up, nothing to try and starve myself for, nothing to rush or stress about. I have each day to get up and try and do my best. Each day to take one day at a time and see those days add up eventually. I have time. I can be gentle and patient with myself and that's exactly what each of us needs to be, isn't it?
How are you gentle and patient with yourself when you wish you were accomplishing things faster than you are?
5 comments:
It's tough. Out with my family always wanting to be more. Like I should right more, make more money, be smarter than I am, be a better speller. Oh I have to throw in no more run on sentences. Oh I got another run on sentence I promise to be easier on my self because your blog helped.
I think many of us understand this very well. There was a day I wouldn't have understood as much as I do now. One year ago I was a size 7 and in 3 months I doubled in size. I was eating between 1200-1500 calories a day and sometimes less then that...I was working out an hour every morning and worked out in the pool for at least an hour 5 days a week still I gained all this weight. Even though I got diagnoised with hypothyroid and thyroiditis and started on meds which has at least stopped the gaining it has done nothing for trying to lose it.
I feel the worst I'v ever felt about myself. I am trying with everything in me to not cry when I look in the mirror or try to find something to wear. I had a wedding at the beginning of September and I sobbed in my bedroom over finding something that would look nice enough for a wedding.
I am trying to be gentle and patient with myself but honestly I really don't know how. Here's to one day at a time. XX
hip hip hooray!
Oh wow, do I know this. My mother is getting married right after Christmas in Salt Lake and I am the heaviest I have ever been. Some people say that I have a good excuse with 2 babies recently produced, but then there are all the people that still believe that EVERY woman loses weight breastfeeding.
I eat so healthy and exercise and it doesn't do a damn bit of good when I'm at this stage postpartum. So I'm trying to accept what I can't change and be happy with myself as is right now, but I just cry some nights when I catch myself in the mirror and can't reconcile the image with what is in my head.
I don't want to have a perfect body, just one that works with the fashions I love and that moves without effort. I would especially like to lose the weight in my face. Depressing. I know how you feel.
For what it's worth, I saw the pics of your sister's wedding on FB and I thought you were gorgeous. I'm not just saying that. Having never really seen many pictures of you before, I didn't know what you normally look like, and I saw a confidently beautiful woman who knows herself and her "sexuality" ( I know what you mean by that now! :) It made me feel hope that people don't just see me as overweight but as everything else too.
cc--I firmly believe that we are never-endingly gentle with others and never ourselves. I hope I can change that :)
Thanks for reading. It means a lot :)
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