Amazing - You've Reached Your Ideal Weight - Now What?
You’ve done it – you’ve reached your ideal body weight – yay, congratulations! 🎉 But what happens once that initial euphoria wears off, once the congratulations stop?
What, apart from the size of your body and the number on the scale has changed?
Do you really feel more fulfilled, more satisfied in your life?
Does the fact you are a certain body size change your value to the people who really matter in your life?
You’ve put in an amazing effort to reach that number - now what?
Does that mean I can’t want to change?
Does that mean you can’t desire change? Of course you can, but it’s important to recognise that losing the weight in itself, will not ultimately change how you feel about you and your life.
I’m not anti-weight change.
What I am anti, is the culture that stipulates we should all fit into a body ideal perpetuated by media & societal attitudes and where we’re made to feel bad if we don’t. I’m anti a world where people are stigmatized by the way they look, by their size of their body – to feel less than.
I believe we can still have physical goals but they don’t have to be based on hitting a certain number on the scales. Read more about this here. As I’ve written about before, if we focus on how we want to feel and live and eat to feel that way, then our body is purely a by-product of that – how we feel is the important thing. It has no bearing on our value and is nobody’s business but our own.
We can introduce health improving factors into our lives that won’t necessarily induce much, if any physical change but will significantly improve health markers.
“I believe that whatever an individual’s size, they should be treated with the same respect and evidence-based healthcare. I believe that individual behaviours should aim to maximise health, not to reduce weight – the two not being automatically equivalent, regardless of what we are often told; ”
— DR ANGELA MEADOWS PHD
The size we are should not effect how we are treated. Focusing on maximizing health rather than a weight reduction is a much more positive outlook on introducing new behaviours.
What you miss by purely focusing on numbers.
Unless along the way to this “new” body you have learnt to accept yourself, addressed your mindset around food & your relationship to it you could come unstuck. When we have restricted our way down to a certain weight it is really hard to maintain it. Roughly 90% of people who lose a significant amount of weight put most of it back on again.
By focusing purely on the numbers, you don’t discover yourself – you don’t find out what really makes you tick.
You don’t find out what your goals and priorities truly are – about your lives and your bodies. Some people want to run marathons, some want to lift really heavy weights, others want to be fit enough to be able to play with their children/grand-children. It’s different for everybody. (see connect to your why).
What to focus on instead.
By focusing on how you want to feel you will discover how different foods make you feel, how habits that you have, serve you (either positive or negative) – you’ll find out what makes you feel alive – what really gives you energy and makes you feel good.⚡
By focusing on what your priorities are you come to your own goals, therefore deciding what a fulfilling, healthy life looks like for you.⚡
By focusing on you an appreciation and respect will develop for your body – you will become more self-compassionate and self-accepting. You will feel more connected and aware of your body and not think of it as this separate entity.⚡
Your weight may change along the way, it may not - but you will feel different. You will feel free. You will feel confident.⚡
It won’t just be a battle with a number, it will be getting to know you and what’s really important to you.