Love Yourself Now
Posted by Jen Anderson on
There's a song by Jill Sobule called "Lucy at the Gym," that really hits hard. It's about an exercise-obsessed woman who dies and goes to heaven which is a gym, "where everyone's beautiful and thin, AND YOUR LIFE CAN BEGIN." (Emphasis mine.)
I've seen her perform live several times, but this one time I started to cry because I realized that's what I'd been waiting for - to lose "the weight" so that I could get on with the rest of my life. It was the first of several things that led me to stop making weight loss my top priority.
I was reminded of all this when I received a private message from Marla P., an avid fan of Vikki Vi. With her permission, I'm going to share it with you.
"I have been having to lose weight because I need knee surgery. I’m on a medicine called Mounjaro, which makes me feel tired and queasy about 2/3 of the time. Its an Ozempic type of med covered by insurance. But I have dropped 40 pounds and on my way to another 20, which probably will only take about three weeks.
This is what I want to say about losing the weight. I do not feel better, prettier, cuter, more desirable to my husband, or like I have a big win under my belt. I don’t feel better about myself. I simply feel that I’ve dropped weight in order to make a doctor happy who believes there’s less chance of infection for my knee surgery, period. And I do mean PERIOD.
So for those of us who have thought the ongoing mind mantra, “if I could just lose some weight...” forget about it. Lose it only if you want to or of course MUST.
I’ll tell you also my cardiologist told me the last 3 patients he had were tall sinewy slim men who were runners and bikers!
Instructions from a 75 yr old woman is love you right now. Invest in you right now - a facial, new lipstick, some Vikki Vi and live it up. While dropping pounds may please your doc (and I’m giving no medical advice here) how you feel about you is inside yourself. Let self love be your looking glass."
So often we're made to think that weight loss is a prerequisite for receiving love and respect - even from ourselves. We think that we don't deserve to treat ourselves nicely, and that buying nice clothes is a waste of money because we're going to be wearing a much smaller size in just a few months.
As a result, we walk around feeling bad about ourselves. We put so much energy into feeling shame that we could put into so many other things. That's the real waste.
What's the worst that could happen if you bought yourself nice clothes now? You might have to buy nice clothes in a different size at some point. Oh, the horror. And yet you buy nice clothes for your kids and grandkids even though they'll need a different size next week. If you only wear cheaply made clothing, you're not going to have the slightest idea of how to shop for well made clothing when you finally deem yourself worthy. So you end up sticking with the cheap stuff.
You deserve to love yourself now. The You who you are today is pretty fantastic. You deserve to be happy and to enjoy life. High quality, well made clothing isn't an indulgence so much as it's a reminder that you deserve it.
I’m glad you posted, Jen. This attitude of waiting to be worthy also kills the plus size business! Kills our chance for lots of choices when shopping and dressing. Ok one more story. Some years ago I walked into a lunch meeting. We were not women who had met. I was by far the best groomed person in the room. However, there was attitude in that room. I’ve never been so “checked out” in my life. I mean how dare a heavy woman be made up, well dressed, perfumed and coiffed? How dare she take herself seriously AND eat dessert at the luncheon? Do you all think there’s envy involved? The French say the secret to the beautiful woman is that she’s ‘bien a sa peau’ translates as comfortable in her own skin. THAT’s the issue. Work on that one and stop living by comparison. This is a great website. Go shoping shopping girlfriends. This new stuff looks so pretty!