Perspective
I came across some old progress photos over the weekend and they really shocked me. It's been a while since I had it reinforced into my brain just how fat I was, and I didn't realise that it was quite that fat.
I always used to convince myself that I carried my weight well, and that was a form of denial that allowed me to put off doing the necessary for far too long. But now, with the benefit of knowing what my body can be like, I realise that I didn't carry my weight well at all. Or at least, while I may have looked better than someone else who weighed eighteen and a half stone, I didn't look half as passable as I thought.
The even more worrying thing was that some of these progress photos were taken at about thirty or forty pounds down. Holy shit, if I was so fat then, then what the hell did I look like before. And I remember being pleased with those photos, so it must have been bad.
It is funny how your perspective changes. As your goals move, so does your satisfaction with your previous goals. It's good, but scary that gaining half a stone still seems as undesirable as it ever did, but it would actually still put me at a normal BMI for my height. Regardless of whether that half stone is added here, or on top of my starting weight, it's still not something I want to do.
I'm still trying to get my head into a maintenance mindset, but this is a good part of it. I don't want to set my personal limits too high, to say that getting out of obesity was such a good thing that anything below that is OK. I've looked through the pictures, and it's not. Not compared to what I know I can be.
This is the one thing that scares me the most. Before, I could blame my fatness on genetics and on all sorts of stuff that I couldn't control. I could persuade myself that I just wasn't the sort of person who was built to be thin or athletic. But now that I know I am, I know that it's all down to me if I fail. If I fall onto the yo-yo rollercoaster, there will only be one person to blame.
So I guess it was good to remind myself why I don't want to go back. I know what I need to do, and I need to make sure that I do it.
I always used to convince myself that I carried my weight well, and that was a form of denial that allowed me to put off doing the necessary for far too long. But now, with the benefit of knowing what my body can be like, I realise that I didn't carry my weight well at all. Or at least, while I may have looked better than someone else who weighed eighteen and a half stone, I didn't look half as passable as I thought.
The even more worrying thing was that some of these progress photos were taken at about thirty or forty pounds down. Holy shit, if I was so fat then, then what the hell did I look like before. And I remember being pleased with those photos, so it must have been bad.
It is funny how your perspective changes. As your goals move, so does your satisfaction with your previous goals. It's good, but scary that gaining half a stone still seems as undesirable as it ever did, but it would actually still put me at a normal BMI for my height. Regardless of whether that half stone is added here, or on top of my starting weight, it's still not something I want to do.
I'm still trying to get my head into a maintenance mindset, but this is a good part of it. I don't want to set my personal limits too high, to say that getting out of obesity was such a good thing that anything below that is OK. I've looked through the pictures, and it's not. Not compared to what I know I can be.
This is the one thing that scares me the most. Before, I could blame my fatness on genetics and on all sorts of stuff that I couldn't control. I could persuade myself that I just wasn't the sort of person who was built to be thin or athletic. But now that I know I am, I know that it's all down to me if I fail. If I fall onto the yo-yo rollercoaster, there will only be one person to blame.
So I guess it was good to remind myself why I don't want to go back. I know what I need to do, and I need to make sure that I do it.
posted by YP at 6:25 PM
2 Comments:
And just how long have you been on that Yo-Yo Rollercoaster anyways?
Striking a balance with maintenance must be difficult - a challenge I hope to reach someday! But I can see that one would want to maintain one's weight and fitness, but wouldn't want to be obsessive. We all have those skinny friends who freak out about a 5-lb gain, but on the other hand those 5 pounds can be the start of 10, of 20, etc.
I know what you mean with the photos. I always thought I "didn't look that bad"; when I see the photos now it freaks me out.
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