Recently, I have been dealing with accepting my body image and being proud of it. It can be hard for a person of my size to be proud of my body when I know it needs a lot of work that is truly my responsibility to work to make improvements to it. However, being such, it can be difficult to accept compliments from others on my appearance because I do not believe that I am worthy of it.
Being a person with obesity has been something I have been struggling for decades and I know that the struggle will not go away. Therefore, I know that I must put forth the work necessary to make my weight manageable for living a healthy life. Now I am not obsessed about it, but it is often at the forefront of my mind, particularly when choosing to eat something that may not be considered as a wise food choice. I realize that I do not make the wisest food choices and eventually what I will consume will show up somewhere in my body. I know that no one is forcing me to eat the foods that can be triggering for me and cause weight issues.
It is something I wish that I could have the magic answer for, but until I can comprehend the need to be more proactive about needing to make wiser decisions as to whether something I consume or an activity I do will help or hurt me, no change will occur and I will continue to repeat the vicious cycle I am with no fruitful result. It is my choice and sometimes it is all I think about. But when someone goes out of their way to make a compliment about myself, I wonder whether or not it is genuine. I feel people just say it to be nice. I have a hard time accepting compliments because I do not think that I am worthy of them.
Being a person that is continually fighting obesity makes it hard to see past the size of my body and what it is and whether or not I am acceptable to be in this world sometimes. Fighting the battles to work at losing weight, while slow, is at many times difficult to battle especially when your brain is wired differently and can sometimes do nothing but think about how to numb your feelings and bring them to a better place, even if that feeling is only temporary. What happens to it when your ability to numb it with the ingredient you were doing it with is no longer there at the moment. You feel like crap or you just move on to the next food item that will make you feel better. If you are like I was this past weekend and feel totally sorry for yourself, I often retreat to my bed for several hours because I get into a really bad spot that at times can be difficult to come out of. It can be particularly harder to come out of this mindset when you are constrained to your home and when the hunger pang abounds.
I realize that I am responsible for what passes my lips and not taking care of my mind to keep it occupied is also my responsibility. Being able to combat everything in life can be difficult for the simplest person, however when combating multiple issues on your hands it can be increasingly difficult to realize the priority to focus your energy on the things that are detrimental to making me feel bad about my body. When I am in a good mindset, I can focus my energy even as I am writing my weekly blog posts. However, when hunger strikes it can be difficult to realize a need to taper down the feelings to make sure that I only consume the suggested amount of food to eat.
While it is my responsibility to control my food and activity, I must also give myself some grace and understand that I cannot strive for perfection and that I am trying the best that I can given the circumstances. I must also realize that I am doing better in many areas and that things will get better eventually. I must also not live in sorrow and gloom but realize that there if I truly want to have something, as I have had in many other arenas I will have it. I know when I want it, I will go for it once the motivation is there.
In the meantime, I must continue to do my part that I want to by making an attempt to keep looking as nice as I can and accept myself for I am along with the compliments that are given to me for doing so. While they can be hard to accept, I must understand that others are truly being honest to make me feel good for the effort that I am putting on my appearance.
Dustin's Dynasty 