Ok, now that I have your attention, hi and happy Friday 🙂
The title of this post it, only half of the sentence.
The whole sentence reads: You will not be happy at your ideal weight if you were not already happy before you got to your ideal weight.
I know, you are most likely groaning right now, because you have heard this so.many.times. But do you still, kinda, sorta, maybe, a little, or a lot think that you will be happy, or happier, as soon as you drop the last 5-10-20-50 pounds?
I get it. I really, really get it.
I used to attach pretty much all of my happiness, and my ability to be happy, on my weight. I missed out on a tone of experiences - both by just physically not going or mentally not allowing myself to enjoy what was happening - because I was so pre-occupied with my weight.
The fact is, it was not that I couldn't be happy at the weight I was at, it was that I refused to give myself permission to be happy at the weight I was at.
Then, when I finally dieted myself down to my ideal weight, saw the number on the scale I was looking for, fit into the clothes I wanted to wear - I still wasn't happy. In fact, I was LESS happy. Now I had to figure out how to maintain this impossible weight. I realized that I had literally put so much of my time and energy into getting to this weight that the majority of my life revolved around being thin. I wasn't living. I was existing to be thin.
So there you have it. I am one of a million examples of people that got to their goal weight and were not happy. So why is this? Why do we think we will be happy when we get thin, even though so many people tell us we wont?
There are a few reasons, and here they are for you. Hopefully these reasons will make perfect sense to you, and will give you a reason to let go of the belief that your ideal weight will make you happy, so that you can actually start being happy.
Reason One: You Made Your Weight Mean Something It Doesn't
The first reason you think your ideal weight is going to make you happier is because you have attached meaning and stories to your ideal weight. You have attached feelings, emotions, experiences and even the permission to be happy to the number on the scale. These things are not intrinsically linked to your weight.
I personally attached my value as a human being, my ability to be seen as loveable and acceptable, my ability to feel worthy and special to being thin. Those were links I made in my own head that actually had nothing to do with one another.
When I lost the weight, I did not become smarter, prettier, funnier, more loveable, or more acceptable. I became thinner. Thats it. I was still the same old Ali I had always been. Only I was meaner and grouchier because I was starving myself.
It is likely that you have attached painful stories to your current weight, and pleasant stories to your losing weight. You believe that getting to a certain number on the scale is going to make you feel a certain way.
So think about it. What would being at your ideal weight make you feel? How would you feel about yourself? What problems do you believe being at your ideal weight is going to solve for you?
The trick here is to start to allow yourself to feel the way you are desiring to feel NOW. Today. In this body. I know this may be challenging, but try it out. Start to attach your desired feeling states to things that are not your weight. Give yourself permission to feel how you want to feel.
If you cannot experience your desired feelings in this body, you wont be able to experience or appreciate them in your ideal body either. Feeling good takes practice, and you must start now.
Reason Two: You Think If You Start To Be Happy Now, You Wont Ever Get To Your Ideal Weight. Ie. You Will Stay 'Fat' Forever
You may believe that if you let yourself be happy at this current weight, then you will never get thin. You may feel that as long as you keep beating yourself up and feeling badly about your weight that you are motivating yourself to get someplace healthier and happier - where you deserve to feel good about yourself. This is also so untrue it will make your head spin.
The first reason why this doesn't work is because shaming your body into thinness is not a long term solution. As long as you keep hating your body, you are always going to be in a battle with it.
If you are unable to accept your body as it is right now, with love and appreciation for all it does for you, you are going to continue to find things you don't like about it. Even after you lose the weight. With this thinking you will most likely get yourself on a slippery slope where no weight is low enough, no amount of muscle tone is tone enough, no skin is smooth enough and so on. With this way of thinking, there will never be a good enough. You are not hating yourself into your ideal body - you are hating yourself into a battle with your body that can never, ever be won.
Secondly, your body interprets your hate as stress. This stress is fear to your cells. Your cells, when you are in a state of fear, essentially diminish most growth, healing and reproductive functions in favour of maintaining the status quo. In short, your body is not likely to heal and become beautiful and lean when you are in a state of fear and stress. The exact opposite will happen when you are in a state of love, and sending your body loving thoughts. You can learn more about this here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjj0xVM4x1I
Essentially, when you learn to love your body, to send it loving thoughts and feelings it is far more apt to change shape and look the way you want it to look. Because love and health go hand in hand.
Send your body your love, right here, right now. This sets you up for creating your ideal body, and loving yourself and enjoying yourself along the way.
Reason Three: You Are Dissociating A Lack Of Self Love (Or Other Negative Emotions) Onto Your Body
Lastly, if you are at a place where you cannot love and accept your body - where how you look evokes a negative emotional response in you - it is likely you have areas of unhealed wounding that you did not know or do not know how to deal with, and you have displaced those issues onto your body.
The reason you do this is because your body is tactile. You can see it, feel it, and you can physically do something about it. You can go on a diet. You can exercise. You can see the scale moving up and down. You can plan and focus all your energy on how you are going to lose weight, what is wrong with your body, what clothes you want to wear and so on.
Emotions - especially the tough, hard to navigate negative ones - are far less tactile. Most of us are not taught how to healthfully process our emotions and feelings. Many of us are taught not to have or express them at all.
This means it is possible that when you experience a negative emotion or have a hard life situation you automatically dissociate that pain onto your body and your weight because it makes you feel like you are in control of the situation.
It is a lot easier to decide you are going to cut out ice cream to lose ten pounds than it is to say you are going to sit with a journal every night and process being bullied as a child.
When you get back in touch with your emotions, and stop displacing how you are feeling onto your body, it may be very uncomfortable. You may feel overwhelmed or out of control or unable to deal with what comes up. But I promise you, you can do this. And as you do, you will start to heal your relationship with your body.
Get a councillor. Talk to a friend. Journal. Do a yoga teacher training. Support yourself through this process. It may be tough work, but it is worth it.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is, if you want to be happy (and you really, really deserve to be happy) you have to start now. Happiness is a choice you make every day - and when you do the things in your life will fall into place as they should - including your body.
How does this sit with you? Do you agree with me? Do you feel that you will be happier when you are leaner?
Thank you