Good point... about indifference. Not caring what others think is the goal.

I thought I would share another part of my story. Before the heckler incident. I was pretty depressed about my weight. My weight had flip floped most of my life but never was I as heavy as when I went abroad. I had gone through 3 sizes of clothes in a matter of months and could no longer fit into pants at all. I was limited to wearing skirts with shorts underneath to prevent chaffing. I was always a runner and even at that weight I was running 3 to 5 miles a day. Still the weight kept coming on.

One day I decided to go on a fast. I told myself it wasn't to loose weight but rather to hear the voice of God about other things I was questioning in my life. The fast went on for 12 days. Just liquids. Right through the American Thanksgiving no less. lol. It was an amazing experience and I was blessed in awesome ways totally unrelated to my weight concerns. Still at the end of it I was curious to see how much weight I had lost. I was sure it would be significant even though my clothes were fitting pretty much the same as before. I hadn't lost a pound. Not one single solitary pound. How could that be? I was devestated.

It took me a while to sort it out but in the end I realized that as long as I was wraping my self worth around how I looked then the weight was going to stick with me. As long as I felt rejected by others or mocked by others because of my weight, real or not real, then the weight was going to stay. My first mission become clear. Acceptance first. I had to love myself just the way I was. Every last pound of me. I had to see all of me as one complete package and love every bit of the whole package. I had to stop letting my weight define me. Sure others may still have seen my weight and made judgements about me based on it. Gradually it didn't matter what others thought of my size because I wasn't judging myself anymore based on my size. Their looks and comments and 'helpful' advise didn't register anymore. I knew who I was as a person and if others couldn't see past my weight then that was their problem. Not mine.

As you might expect over the next few years the weight started to drop off. At first I didn't even notice until people started to comment. It took a while for me to even register their comments because I had been successful at letting any discussion about my weight go right over my head. Still the weight kept coming off. Looking back I can see some lifestyle changes that contributed for sure but mostly I think it was a change of my attitude about my weight that was the momentum. When it didn't matter to me so much is when the changes started to happen. I was happier and that made me more active. I was happier so I made healthier choices. One thing led to another and none of it had anything to do with body image. It was all about self love and self acceptance.

I am not sure if my story makes any sense to you but I thought it was interesting how our own attitudes about ourself impact how we are effected by other people's perceptions of us. When we don't care how other people view us then we cross over to a place where we can truly love ourselves as we are. Its the self love that ushers in changes in how we feel, how we react, what we do and maybe even in how we process food. It's not always about the food but perhaps more importantly its about how we feel about ourselves. That doesn't excuse other people from making judgements but it makes other people's judgements insignificant.