Body Positivity and Weightloss

Missed a part?
Part 1 here.
Part 2 here.

At the end of 2020, I knew that I had gained weight. I had already surpassed my "heaviest" weight, but I wasn't really doing anything different. I was still eating according to my plan, and I was working out. So in the last week of December, I made a plan. I grabbed an accountability buddy, a workout program, and my meal tracker. I set to work. At this point, I had stepped back from any coaching work that I was doing. I was really needing to focus solely on my journey. I quit taking sweaty selfies. I quit recording my workouts. I quit sharing on social media. I just wanted to do this for me.

Christmas 2020--I have never really liked any picture of myself, but when I was looking for a picture last week, I stumbled upon this one. This had been my "norm" after having gained the weight. I now know that you don't realize it until you can look back to see how far you've really come.

I submitted my food tracker to my friend every day, which honestly was difficult at first. No one had ever seen how much I weighed. Not only that, I had to be honest about what I ate, which held me to a standard and kept me accountable. I didn't necessarily want to have a "perfect" day of eating, but I wanted to make this my lifestyle, which meant treats here and there. This was not going to be another battle with food. This was about learning to love food and knowing how to fuel my body properly.

At this point in my journey, I had gotten into my own head. I had been hearing some voices and thoughts about this journey and how it shouldn't be about weight loss. I kept hearing the phrase "weight release," and how we shouldn't refer to it as weightloss (it's the same thing...call a spade a spade). The #bodypositivitymovement is definitely something that can be this way. There are thoughts about how you should love your body where you're at, and you don't have to lose weight to love it.  I had also been hearing thoughts about how we should steward our bodies well because it's where the Holy Spirit resides, and we should think beyond weightloss.

It took me a long time to sort through these things. I had to bathe this in prayer because honestly, I wasn't sure what I should be thinking or saying. I wasn't sure what I should put out there on social media for everyone to read. I didn't want to lead anyone astray or make them think a certain thing about their own journey, and honestly, I didn't want to take myself down a harmful path.

So here's what the Lord guided me to, and what we came up with together:

My body is a good body. It has served me well in the 30-some-odd years that I've been on this earth. I am especially more grateful for what it did through my pregnancy and birth. I thought it was broken because that's what many doctors had told me. But it's a great body, and I can be thankful that it gets me where I need to go! I can also recognize that it definitely could stand to lose some pounds. 

 

Just because I think it could lose some weight doesn't mean that I hate it. Yes, I do understand that the Holy Spirit lives in my body, and my body was made as a temple for the Holy Spirit. I understand that I get one body (on earth...can't wait for those heavenly bodies...am I right?!), and I am to take care of it well. But I am not to idolize my body. I shouldn't elevate it to the state where all I'm thinking about is my body. I shouldn't be obsessing over every little thing I put in my mouth, and I should be obsessing over what it looks like or my body's relationship with gravity. 

 

I can say proudly that "I am the daughter of the Most High God. I want to take care of my body, because He entrusted it to me. I recognize that I haven't taken the best care of it in the past, and unfortuntely my body shows it, but I will do my best to steward it well. I will eat nutritiously and move it, and hopefully my body will reflect that."

So, yes...I love my body. I want to steward it well, and I want to lose some weight.

Friends, if I could encourage you for a moment, I want to say this: there are so many voices out there telling us what we are and what we're not. There are a lot of things being said to us, and we have to use the "Jesus filter" to figure out what is right and what is wrong. God gave us His Word so that we might be able to discern truth. Not someone else's truth. Not your truth. HIS truth. When you turn things over to Him, He will help you sift through the things to help you see what is right.

By March, I was struggling. I was working out and eating right, and I had barely lost 10 lbs. I knew that something wasn't right. It was also at this time I was struggling with the fatigue. I couldn't keep going on like this...not when I knew how it felt to feel good. But Satan was definitely at work through this. I had thoughts that I didn't want any more kids if this was how motherhood was going to go. I couldn't believe that others had more than one kid because I felt like I was drowning. I'm not saying any of this to be dramatic. It's truly how I felt at the time.

I had come through the postpartum depression and the pandemic depression, only to feel defeated. I knew I had to do something, so it was then that I made an appointment with a new doctor. The more I've learned about health, the more I desire to do things as naturally as possible. Yes, I believe there is definitely a place for modern medicine, but I wanted to keep my options open. I made the appointment with the functional medicine doctor, and right off the bat, I knew it was going to be a different path.

After my first appointment, I had hope for the first time. There was no, "You just need to lose weight." I was met with compassion and belief about my symptoms, something I hadn't ever experienced before. He ordered some lab tests for me, and off I went.