Chapter 23
Above All, Love Yourself
Bear with me for a chapter, because I’m going to get a bit mom on you and maybe even a little mushy. This chapter might be long, and it might even get preachy.
I grew up as a very fat kid. I think I was about eight when I was first classified as morbidly obese. Nothing ever worked for me. I spent at least half of my childhood crying myself to sleep at night asking God why he had afflicted me in this way. As a child, it always felt like something was very wrong with me. I never felt normal or okay. Glaring eyes were always on me. As a result, my character and personality really had to over-compensate because without getting laughs or positive reactions from my peers in some way, I don’t think I would have survived. It has taken me a very, very long time to learn to love myself. To cherish myself. To take care of myself. It still hurts today, at 37, for me to even think about it too deeply.
I’m sure that many people probably think that my program is too restrictive, or over the top with the elimination of most of the products found in your local store. I’m sure people say things behind my back about how I’m missing out, or how I’m cruel to my kids because they don’t get to partake in the “normal kid foods and treats.”
Let me explain what I think this program really is. The Wilder Way is a love-yourself program. It’s a program based on putting only the best foods into your body. It’s a program about taking the time and energy to really care for your body through nutrition and movement. If there is ANYTHING I want you to take away from this book, it’s that you deserve this. You deserve to feel whole, healthy, and strong. I do, and so do you. I’ll even take it step farther and say that this is your moment to finally have that. What would make you feel truly healthy? What would you need to be capable of feeling really strong? Let’s take the first steps to make that happen today. Friends, this might not happen overnight, or even in a few months. But if you do this more and more, day by day, little by little, I promise you that you’ll begin to see and feel things you may have never thought possible. You will run that full mile, lift that barbell, hike the mountain, and see test results from your doctor that say you are in fact HEALTHY! This is something I want for yousobadly.
There is only one thing that can keep you from this, only one person who will keep telling you that this isn’t possible, that you won’t ever be strong, or learn to eat healthy, or control the cravings, or give up the soda, or lift the heavy weight, or run the mile and that’s ... you, yourself, and your own doubts. Listen, I know that bitch too! Her voice is a powerful thing.
Let me tell you what I’ve learned so far, and what I know to be true:
YOU ARE STRONGER. You are unstoppable. I know you’ve had years of pain. Maybe it’s all emotional, but maybe it is also that your body is just tired. You have sore and bad knees? You have asthma? Your back hurts? You don’t have time? You just aren’t smart enough? That’s me! I am all of of those things. Yet, I did it. I’m here nine years after being told I probably had cancer. I’ve been unable to get out of bed. I’ve had to have a home health nurse come daily to take care of me and give me life-saving infusions. Yet, here I am! Healthy for the very first time in my life. Running, lifting, walking, and wogging!
This isn’t just a miracle, or an answer to a prayer, friends. This is science: Sugar + the human body = slow death. So, I want to talk to you as frankly as I can. I want to change the conversation that might be going on in your head right now.
You CAN do this. You CAN be strong and healthy.
If you hear yourself saying, “I could never lift this weight,” say instead, “One day I will be able to lift this weight,” and then go grab a smaller one, I don’t even care if it’s a two-pound dumbbell! Just keep lifting until you have that down, and it becomes easy, and then grab a heavier one!
If you hear yourself saying, “I’m weak,” instead say, “I was made to be strong, and every single day I am getting better and stronger.”
If the voice in your head keeps saying that you have no will power and you will never reach your goals because there is no way you can ever change, then I want you to say out loud to yourself that you WILL reach these goals. Each meal is an opportunity to make healthier choices, and each day is an opportunity to use your body.
Let me be honest and say I don’t think you will ever really be super excited to work out as soon as you wake up in the morning. I actually question the sanity of people who wake up feeling that way, but I promise that you will get to the point where you will both want it and need it. Being good to your body with movement and exercise (yes, even just walking) will become a kind of therapy, not only for your body, but also for your mind. Youwillstart to feel stronger and better just by putting that first foot in front of the other.
And now the big one—if the voice in your head tells you that you don’t deserve this, that for some reason you don’t deserve full health or the use of your body in the way God intended, I want you to say with me ... I want you tell that voice toFUCK OFF! I truly believe that the feeling of not being worthy is at the root of why we give up on our journey to health, often before we even get started.
I hear all the time how five days into my program someone gained three pounds and so they’ve decided that this just isn’t going to work for them and so they’re giving up, they’re throwing in the towel.REALLY? Do youreallythink you’re only worth a week or two? Please ladies, please give yourself the gift of time and grace. You need to learn to love yourself every day. Change won’t happen overnight.
Ironically, I just saw a People magazine cover where Oprah was once again saying she had finally made her peace with food. Gosh, I really hope she has but, as I’ve learned along my journey, often we think our health issues have more to do with our failings than it actually does. Eighty percent of your health issues have to do with the junk you’ve been told is food. This isn’t about you! This is about companies wanting to make as much money as possible. Don’t take that crap—it’s bullshit, and it isn’t about you. Once you get back to real food, nutritious food not filled with sugar and processed chemicals, you’ll actually find that so much of the rollercoaster you’ve been on had nothing to do with you at all, but with the fake, evilNOT-food shit you’ve been sold. I’m asking you to do a total 180 in every thought you’ve ever had about food.
Stop the conversation in your head now,please!
As I mentioned earlier in the book, a few months ago I realized I was having issues with body dysmorphia, and it was expressing itself in weird ways. I just didn’t feel “normal size.” What did normal size mean anyway? I couldn’t figure out my body, or really get comfortable in it—not in the ways I should have been. I just felt awkward. The excess skin was bothering me. I couldn’t shop at the stores I had shopped at before. I was trying to figure out how to get accustomed to the person I saw in the mirror. She’s different in some ways, but she’s also the same.
This is hard to explain to someone who hasn’t been through these sorts of drastic body transformations, but the strange phase of rediscovery and pain is a very normal part of the process. Yes, there’s joy, but there is also grief—grief over the time I lost as an unhealthy, young woman, grief that I didn’t learn these things earlier, shame at the state of my body, shame from the abuse of my body. It’s pretty complicated when you’ve lived the majority of your life in a body that was not only unhealthy, but is a reminder of emotional and physical pain.
I was also angry with myself for even having these issues in the first place. I had waited all my life to have a healthy body and now I was dealing with these stupid mental and emotional hang-ups. I finally decided I should probably talk to a professional; it was time to make friends with my body. Yes, it wasn’t in the shape or size I had always envisioned, but it had gotten me this far, and it had given me my beautiful children. I made an appointment with a therapist to discuss the best ways to go about shifting my mental and emotional processes, and I think what I learned might help you a bit, too.
I learned several things when I sat down and began talking to Dr. E, my therapist.
First, I learned that I needed to change the way I thought about my body, the way I looked at my body, and make some peace with that. My body will always have extra skin, lumpy cellulite (I’m convinced all the fat left has been here since 1984 and won’t leave), I am covered in scars, my feet will always be big, my bottom half and my top half probably won’t ever match. There, I said it to you too, so it’s really out there.
Now, here’s the other side of the truth: although I have lots of skin, my body is much healthier than it ever was before. The skin might be a reminder of where I have been, but as long as it’s hanging it’s a reminder of where I’ll never be again. That lumpy cellulite ain’t pretty, but very few people see it. There are so many worse afflictions, or more painful things to bear. My scars tell a story, a story with a hero in it, and even though the hero is tattered, she’s also me. These big feet have carried me across finish line after finish line. God has blessed me with a husband who has no problem with my bottom.
Seriously though, I’m learning to accentuate those things with my fashion choices and I’m lucky that stores like New York & Company, American Eagle, and Fashion Nova make so many great, inexpensive clothes for my body type. Remember ladies—just because the dress fits, doesn’t mean you have to own it ... there are so many options out there for us now.
Here’s another thing that shocked me when I talked to Dr. E: she asked me if I thought I had a normal-sized body, and I immediately said no. My response wasn’t something I really even thought about. Whatisnormal these days anyway? I think, in America, the current average size for women is 14-16, so I’m actually a bit below that, yet I still FELT so much bigger. My body just didn’t identify any other way, probably because most of my life I was always the biggest person in the room.
It is at the root of my psyche to just feelbig.
I’ve realized I have to give myself grace and time with this. It’s okay that I’m still getting used to this new body; I haven’t lived inside a space this size since 6thor 7thgrade, so this will not happen overnight. We can’t snap our fingers and immediately adapt to the new normal. It’s still hard for me not to ask for a seatbelt extender, or not push my car seat all the way back before I get in. It’s hard to remember that I don’t need the largest size anymore, and I don’t need to pay the extra fee to have something made even bigger. This is how things were MY WHOLE LIFE. We can’t expect our minds to adjust at the same rate as our bodies.
As a person who always tries to challenge and push herself, this is hard for me to talk about. I’ve been abused, and I’ve treated myself badly and beat myself up so many times in my life. But this is a new day, and I am going to let the emotional healing happen on the timeline it needs. I know that acknowledging this and continuing to work on it will only help, and I hope my sharing helps you, too.
