Last week a new client looked me dead in the eye and asked me if I would honestly be ok gaining weight when I was older?…
My work more than anything is centred around helping people to recognise that their body is not, has never been nor ever will be the problem.
I’m sorry if you were ever made to believe it was.
I know how deeply that stuff sticks, how important and consuming it becomes.
There’s no way I could capture the solidness of the yes, my mouth answered, and my heart feels in response to her question.
Yes, I would be ok with gaining weight when I get older.
It would be an honour to grow old.
It’s only been a few years that the realisation that growing old is a real possibility for me has sunk in.
What my body chooses to do and decides is best for it with regards to weight, shape, size is of no business of mine.
I trust my body.
I know what weigh and how our bodies look are not where happiness is found.
I know that not just theoretically but with every fibre of my body.
I’ve done the field work.
I’ve been in the frontline trying to recover from anorexia nervosa.
For 15 years.
I’ve got all the evidence I need to know that what your body looks like, how much you weigh or any other arbitrary way your body look is not the answer.
I learnt a lot from that experience.
Weight Is Not the Answer
I don’t miss the terror of knowing someone was making food for me.
I don’t miss the fear and panic of having to eat.
I don’t miss missing out on time with people I love.
I don’t miss never being truly present.
I don’t miss how much I hated my body no matter what.
I don’t miss how disgusted I felt no matter what.
I don’t miss how tired I felt.
I don’t miss the rigidity.
I don’t miss every decision being premade.
I don’t miss feeling I never fitted in.
I don’t miss never feeling I was good enough.
I don’t miss feeling unworthy.
I don’t miss anything about that time.
So, no I’ve never been more excited than I am to know that I get a chance, a solid chance at getting older, growing old as me.
After all isn’t growing old the point of life?…
Whatever my body looks like along the way and by the end of it all I don’t mind.
I’m not here to fight it to be anything it’s not.
I’m here to give it what it needs to be as healthy, strong and happy as it can be.
Behind the Scenes
What I realise in the moment she asks that question is that most people are not privy to is what I see every day in the work that I do.
People struggling.
People struggling to be smaller and to be bigger.
Confusion.
Overwhelm.
Fear.
Telling themselves that when they reach that goal then they’ll be happy.
Then and only then they’ll allow themselves the kindness they crave.
I see people’s lives lessened, consumed and destroyed by this.
Every. Single. Day.
I know many people who’ve died from eating disorders.
That’s the reality that may be missed unless you work in this field.
Eating disorders kill.
I also know many more people whose lives have been much less than they could have been had they lived without an eating disorder or without the focus on changing their body or simply not being enough as they are.
So, no I don’t wish any of that upon the people I work with, and I don’t wish that upon myself now or into my future no matter how my body chooses to change as I get older.
Life is for living.
There is no way I am going to hold myself back from living because I’ve been taught that my body should be a few kilograms lighter.
Weight loss and maintaining your weight at a lower weight than your body wants to be is not a sign of strong willpower, success, achievement, or something you should be proud of.
It is a sign that you’ve learned along the course of your life that weight loss and maintaining your weight at a lower weight than your body wants to be is a sign of strong willpower, success, achievement, and something you should be proud of.
It’s not hard to see how we learn these things and when you work with hundreds of people a year to help them repair their relationship with food and their body, I can tell you we all learn it in different ways.
Maybe it’s driving past the billboard that says “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”.
Maybe it’s seeing our mum on a diet or speaking about her own body in mean ways.
Maybe it’s as a kid overhearing our dad talking about us being chubby or seeing her point out the fatness on someone else.
Maybe it’s watching movies where every princess is stick thin and every villain fat.
There is myriad of ways we learn that smaller = good and larger = bad.
The frustrating thing about it is that it’s all not true.
So very not true.
Which means you can go on living your life as if it is true or you can decide what beliefs you’d like to have in the place of those old ones that got forced upon you before you had a choice.
What Would It Take?
From someone who lived with anorexia nervosa for 15 years, from someone who’s worked with thousands of people in recovery from eating disorders and the myriad manifestations of disordered eating I can confidently tell you, hand on my heart that it doesn’t matter what weight you reach, it doesn’t matter what your body looks like it will not change your relationship with yourself.
The way to change your relationship with yourself is through changing your relationship with yourself.
You cannot force, fight or bully yourself to health and happiness.
What would it take for you to believe that?
What would it take for you to live your life as if you believed that?
Your Life Is Now
As I’m writing this I look down at my belly.
In this moment I have fat and softness where once I had muscle and hardness.
I look at and touch my belly and my body with genuine love and with wonder.
I don’t remember a single time I looked at or touched my belly and my body with love or wonder when my body was what much of the fitness industry would have us believe was a far more ideal and desirable body.
A body I should have been proud to live in.
I wasn’t.
I was ashamed and repulsed.
It was never about my body.
It’s not about your body.
It’s about who you are.
If I could give any message to the world, it would be to not buy into it all in the first place, but I know that’s impossible. What’s more possible is that when we know better, we choose to opt out. If you choose to opt out, you have to both take the consequences of that and reap the rewards.
A life where you get to grow old and as you do your sense of love and wonder just continues to grow.
A life where you are free to be you, free to be kind to yourself and free to do and be all the things you want. Not some day when you are smaller or bigger but now.
Your life is now.
So, when I say no, I won’t mind if I gain weight as I age, I am not trying to trick or deceive anyone.
I feel no desire to convince anyone of how they should or shouldn’t be living.
I care, that’s undeniable but at the end of the day their lives, your life does not change mine.
I know both sides of the coin both personally and professionally and there is only one way I am willing to live now that I have that choice.
Your choice is your choice.
What would it take for you to consider giving yourself the chance to live life another way so you can make a fair and informed choice?
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
