I wanted to believe it. I even told other people the same thing I was being told. “If you’re an emotional eater, once you work through your issues you will lose weight naturally.”
*poof* No issues, weight loss ensues.
Well, it’s not true.
The last three years have been key to my life. I addressed major issues in my life. I was in therapy, I was getting ED support, I was making new friends and I was actually sorting out life issues. There were major issues with my parents, my sister, my marriage, my spirituality and my self-respect (or lack thereof). I worked on all of these things and I worked my ass off. Are they 100% “fixed”? Maybe not, but I’m at peace with these issues.
Ok, so why am I still overweight?
Where do I start? I have yo-yo dieted for over 30 years. I have lost the same weight over and over again, only to gain it back and pack on more. I have hurt myself – mind, body and soul – in the name of weight loss. I can even say I’ve almost taken my life (a couple of times) because of the stress I’ve put on myself about my size. I have told myself over and over that I’m a failure because I can’t lose weight and that only starts the cycle once again…hate myself and call myself names, eat to comfort, beat myself up, eat to avoid feelings, hate myself, eat because I’m hungry. Sometimes within that cycle, there was weight loss. I have placed these huge expectations on myself and because of this I feel myself to be a failure.
“If you’re an emotional eater, once you work through your issues you will lose weight naturally.” What if you don’t?
Am I a failure? No! Far from it. Life is full of different experiences. I have moved from one experience (hating myself and dieting) to another (accepting myself and not dieting) and I don’t see myself going back to dieting EVER. The experiences and adventures of the past few years have taught me that if I never lose another pound, or even if I gain weight, I can accept and love myself. Am I saying to not work on your issues? Absolutely not. But do it to be a better person for yourself. Do it because the anger and bitterness of the past can be mind numbing sometimes. Work on those issues that bring you down or that hurt you and keep you “stuck”. Give yourself the chance to see who you really are.
Just remember that your size does not determine your worth. It’s society’s loss if they don’t accept fatties for WHO they are, not what they weigh.
~sas
Angry Gray Rainbows 
Good for you realizing that YOU are special – weight or no weight. Your story read like my own, for the fact I too have been dealing with weight for over 30 years, and sick of it. I have lost it – gained it and here we go again many times.
Finally I said ‘screw it’ and just accepted me for me. I am losing but because I want to be healthier and feel better. I am not dieting just eating foods that don’t drag me down.
Good luck to you – you deserve it!
Sandy
Thank you Sandy.
I am not losing weight and haven’t for a very long time. If I do, that’s fine, if I don’t, I can live with it and accept it. I just had to take the pressure off that I was imposing on myself. I missed out on too much of my life because I was so focused on losing weight.
My focus has shifted.
Sandy – Welcome to AngryGrayRainbows!!
Sas – One thing that always got me about the claims that if you finished all your emotional work that you’d lose weight and become “normal” weighted, is – HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? And, if it can work, HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?
The only people I have known that have “weight restored” to normal had to go on food plans and, in my opinion, it seemed like a rigid regime and not worth the trouble.
Anyway, HOW DO WE EVEN KNOW THAT ‘WEIGHT RESTORING’ IS THE HEALTHIEST THING TO DO?
The fact is, that many folks are fat, because they dieted themselves into fatness. And, so after you heal all those wounds, the answer is to go back to dieting wearing a costume called “lifestyle change”?
If the body has been through so many periods of what it thought was famine, would fighting the body down to a weight it truly doesn’t want to be at the right thing? Couldn’t this potentially cause rebound weight or allow some folks to stay in their eating disorders?
Other than medication changing my appetite, I have lost weight in two ways and I think they’re the only really valid ways. 1) I became more active – not for the sake of losing weight, but for the sake of being a happier person, 2) I thought about food “match making”… I experimented with different kinds of food to see if more veggies (for example) would make me feel better. In this way, I learned to balance out my diet in a fairly intuitive way. Again, weight loss was not the goal, but one of the results.
It strikes me as body-hating to insist on a rigid meal plan in order to get down to some arbitrary weight. I also don’t understand the people who swear they love their bodies, and then go on to say that the fat they gained while having an ED feels like some kind of punishment and they want to diet to get that fat off.
The fat ISN’T a punishment. It is the body’s way of trying to ensure YOU SURVIVE. Why aren’t more people challenging the thought that being fat after recovering from an ED is a punishment??
Sigh.
And, for example, let’s say weight restoration for some people could take 10 years. Would it be a good idea to rush that? I’m thinking no. I’ve learned through experience that it’s better to listen to and respect the body, rather than to try to get it to conform to arbitrary cultural standards.
But hey… that’s just me.
*headdeck*