What Will Make Me Happy

I just read this great post by one of my favorite plus sized bloggers, CeCe Olisa, of the blog, Plus Size Princess. In this post CeCe talks about how strangers and co workers noticed that she was losing weight and started making comments. At first she found the comments to be benign. People would tell her how good she looked. Then as she lost more and more weight people would start policing her plate. CeCe said that someone actually had the nerve to ask her if she should be eating cheese while she was at a party.  This post made me think about how others perceive my body and how that perception affects my self-esteem.

I won’t lie. I know that a major part of the reason that I want to lose weight is so that I can gain the acceptance  of other people. It’s hard being a fat woman. Strangers say rude things about my body. I can often feel other people judging my body even if they don’t say anything. I know intellectually that no one has the right to judge my body or to make me feel less than because of my weight. But emotionally I have internalized all that negativity over the years. That’s a problem.

I don’t want my sense of self-worth to be at the mercy of someone else’s opinions. I don’t want to be at the mercy of someone else’s approval. I can’t control how other people think about me and my body. I can only control what I think. And quite frankly, I alone have to live in this body.

I am committing to this weight loss journey again because I want my body to feel better. I can’t pretend that I don’t want to be thinner and enjoy all the privilege that comes along with a smaller body. But honestly I forget about how I look a lot of the time and I just live my life. But since this latest weight gain, my body has been hurting. I want to heal myself.  I want to be able to walk farther and for longer. I want my strength back. I used to be crazy strong. I also think that exercising regularly will help with my panic disorder and I know that eating cleaner will help with my stomach troubles. What I don’t want to do is to make MY journey about gaining the approval of OTHER people.

Thanks for reading,

Karen