By recommendation of my friend Melissa, I was encouraged to read Women, Food, God by Geneen Roth. It's a quick read and I highly recommend this book for any Woman who has ever struggled with weight or body image issues.(Let's be honest, I think every lady has struggled with this at some point in their lives)
A few thoughts on this book and self realizations...
As long as I can remember, I have always been a bigger girl. I've struggled with my weight since I was very young. I remember as early as 4 years old being told that I was chubby and should be put on a diet. Constantly being criticized by family and even bullied a little bit in school by peers. Food was my enemy along with being my friend. I went to food for comfort. When I was sad, I would eat, when I was happy, I would eat. I remember being told and even recently "You have such a pretty face, Jess... if only you could loose that weight, then you would have it all." As you can imagine, this negative reinforcement lead me down a self destructive path of compulsive eating that has followed me into my adult life. I am by no means placing the blame on these people and even family members who said hurtful and discouraging things, but I am trying to explain perhaps the reasoning behind my painful journey in dealing with my weight. I have tried many diets and even had success with a few. But at the end of the day, they ultimately led me to gain the weight back.
In the past 2 years I have managed to loose 30 lbs and gain approximately 12 of those 30 lbs back. I made the decision a few weeks ago that I need to get back on the wagon, but I was just looking for the motivation and drive within to take on this battle again. Melissa's recommendation of this book couldn't have come at a more perfect time. The instant I starting reading this book, I feel like it was written to me for me. I totally relate to everything she was saying. This is going to sound totally low self esteem of me to say but for the longest time (and even still today at times) I always felt like I was single because I was overweight. That no one was ever going to see past the physical part of me. The whole "Such a pretty face" line has replayed time and time again through my head, that if I just lost the weight, I would be happy, then I would find a boyfriend, fall in love, get married, have a family and live happily ever after. I totally believed (and still do at times) that crazy and absurd lie.
The whole purpose and point of her book is to make you realize that its not about the weight, but it is about the weight. The physical weight of your heart and how it plays tricks on you and your mind into believing ridiculous lies. All in all, realizing that you need to listen to your body. Truly listen to yourself. When you are "Hungry" what are you hungry for? Are you hungry because you haven't eaten, or are you hungry because you are feeling low, sad, alone, stressed, overwhelmed or all of the above? She encourages meditation and really becoming in tune with yourself. Being a crazy busy person and often running a million miles a minute most days (as are most women) we often forget to take care of ourselves, or in other words "Listen" to what our bodies are telling us. She also encourages not to diet, but instead listen to your body and not to deprive yourself of anything because the "Rules" of dieting restrict therefore your mind tells you that if you have that cookie, you are bad and a failure because you fell off of the diet wagon. The whole cliche of everything in moderation and just all around taking care of yourself. Seems simple enough, right? It should be. I think Women put so much pressure on ourselves to be thin because that is what the world expects of us. Instead of telling people that they need to loose 10-20-30 or however many pounds, perhaps we need to focus on being healthy and finding what our realistic ideal weight should be and just live our lives.
This is whole new outlook for me and I am encouraged, motivated, and inspired to take this approach going forward. We shall see what happens. In the mean time, go pick up this book. I believe it to be an important book to add to any women's collection. Enjoy and hopefully you find as helpful as I have.
