If you are like me, you have a story of a time in your life when you were thinner and happier. Your body wore the clothes you bought it, and your body processed the food you ate, metabolized it, and off you went. Where did you go? Who were you with? Take a second to make that memory home again in your brain.
Sure, your body was lighter then. What else was lighter? Were your responsibilities lighter? Were your worries lighter? Were you fears and anxieties lighter? Were your relationships lighter, easier?
When we feel light, things often ARE light. When we feel heavy, things often ARE heavy.
Sure our body size might have something to do with it, but is it the whole picture?
And so, as we get wildly whisked out of our 20s into our 30s, 40s, and 50s changes take place. We know these changes are not just about our bodies. They are about us beginning to worry about finances, our parent’s health, our sibling’s divorce, our partner’s drinking, our child’s speech, whether or not we should leave or career to spend more time with our child….and on it goes.
And in our list of worries, we add our growing, changing body. And because our body is the only thing that we feel like we might possibly be able to fully control, we try to control it. Everything else feels too big, too complicated, too impossible. We take our need for control out on our bodies.
A friend emails us the Serenity Prayer and it becomes our mantra. We must accept the things we cannot change. It makes sense.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; The courage to change the things that I can; And the wisdom to know the difference.
But when we pray this prayer, we don’t think about our bodies. We think bigger- our relationships, our families, our career, our partners, our children, etc. We don’t believe that we need to accept that we cannot change our weight- of course we can.
The problem is we most definitely cannot change our bodies. Our genetic blueprint will hit the nail on the head every time. There is a weight and height your body wants to be and dammit, no matter what you do, you are gonna land very, very close to that mark every time. Every time you veer away, losing weight on WW, your body patiently, over time, gets you back to your rightful size, right where it wants to be. If your body is super freaked out because you are waging war on it every damn day, it will gain copious amounts of more pounds in order to protect itself from future wars of restriction and starvation.
This smart body of yours doesn’t want to be controlled any more than your unruly toddler, angsty teen, and frustrated husband.
And the more you pull back the metaphorical sling shot until you can’t hold it back anymore, the farther you it will sling it away from where you want it to be….far, far away.
Diet culture desperately wants you to believe that you can look like Pamela Anderson in a bathing suit, Kate Beckinsale in a movie, and Beyoncé in a dress. You can look like whoever you want to. You can lose whatever weight you set your mind to lose. Diet culture wants you to believe you can control almost every aspect of your growing, changing body, if you have “the courage to change the things that you can.”
It also promises one other horrible lie, worse than those listed above. It promises that when you get that incredible version of your body back from your 20s, you will feel just as happy and free as you did then. You will feel lighter. You will feel successful. You will feel more like you. The heaviness you complain about will magically disappear. And you will likely always feel that way.
Until you don’t.
You will never be that age you were when you have “memories of being thin” again. And that is good. You know more now. You love more now. You are ready for the real, authentic beautiful you now. You are ready, and you do have the courage to change the things that you can.
One of those things is accepting yourself and being honest with yourself. Is there going to be one more magic diet that truly heals this discomfort you have from being your genetically determined size? Is fitting into your college jeans going to make you feel truly successful and happy?
I can’t answer these questions for you, but I can answer them for myself. And I can tell you that by getting real with myself about who I am, I have found my little piece of serenity.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Comments