200lbs

My eating had been out of control. I had been snacking, eating more, and not sticking to my eating guidelines. My exercise routine had slipped, the seizure episodes had me in bed, and I knew I was gaining weight. I was failing and putting fat back on. I was never going to reach my goals, look fit, or get in shape.

My heart thumped low in my chest as I stepped onto the scale. The hateful red needled bounced back and forth between the 199 and 200lbs line. I blinked my eyes, shook my body a little, and waited for the needle to resettle; 199-200lbs.

I lost 5 more pounds?

I find myself in a cycle, maybe it is familiar to you. I feel unable to see or feel the weight I have lost. I am down 165lbs from a year and a half ago, yet when I look down, I see and feel like the same old me. I can not remember a time when I weighed so little, yet I still feel fat.

I asked my therapist about this issue, “Every three or four weeks I start to become convinced that I am gaining weight. I feel fat and out of control but when I weigh myself, I have actually lost more weight! This cannot be healthy, right?”

I will not burden you with the lengthy conversation that followed but allow me to summarize some of the highlights. An inability to see or feel your own progress is common. The panic over losing control is likely related to allowing yourself to loosen your control from time to time and feeling guilty over it. It is important to remind yourself of how far you have come, how much progress you have made, and the reality of where you are today.

She told me to stop avoiding looking in mirrors, suggested printing out pictures of me before the weight loss and posting them on the mirror, and suggested keeping an old pair of pants to put on occasionally.

The trick is to physically see the progress. I need to retrain my brain to recognize how far I have come.

Just as important, however, is to train my brain to see what I actually look like now. This is an uncomfortable task for me. I have never cared for how I look and have never been satisfied with my body, so I have never been much of a “selfie” guy.

The prospect of looking at my body and not only seeing what needs to improve is difficult to imagine. I think that there will always be things to improve on, and to a point that is a healthy reality, but it should not prevent you from seeing the positive that is already there.

So, I need reminders. Reminders of progress like old photos, old clothes, and the like. Reminders to see what I really look like? Those are more difficult.

Dressing up, looking at myself in the mirror, and weight training all work to help change my mental image to reflect more of what I really look like.

These are intentional decisions that I must make to battle my brain’s habit of seeing me the way I was before. They are little things I can do to remind myself daily that I am making progress and things are improving.

As I said before, this is not an uncommon problem. People have a hard time seeing the change in themselves. We get a picture of ourselves stuck in our minds and it is hard to change that picture.

We can change physically, our attitudes can change, our outlook, and even aspects of our personalities. Many of us work every day to change unhealthy thought patterns, habits, and behaviors for the sake of our physical and mental health.

All these can happen gradually, resulting in major progress that we struggle to see or feel. It is easy to get discouraged and give up on a hard process when we fail to see the beneficial results. We can even develop new unhealthy patterns in response.

It is vital that we give ourselves consistent and effective reminders of our progress.

Have you suffered from severe depression and have been putting in the time and work to get better? What reminders have you set up to point out and measure your progress? Did you make it through an entire weekend without intrusive thoughts, self-harm ideations, bedridden days, or panic attacks? That is progress! Take note, celebrate it, and remind yourself.

Your brain had years to establish a sense of who you were before, it is going to take intentional time and effort for it to learn who you are becoming.

We must also see clearly where we are today.

We want a real picture of where you are. Yes, you want to see how skinny, healthy, happy, or stable you are, but you also want to see the work that still needs to be done. You need balance.

Life is a process.

The academic term for the life process for a Christian is “sanctification.”

Sanctification is the process of becoming more like Christ. God tells us that change is neither sudden nor one and done. Change is a process. It is a steady progression that will never end. With each passing day, month, and year we are transformed to be more like Jesus and there is always more room to grow.

The awareness of where we have been, where we are now, and where we are going is what makes up our life’s story. It is what allows us to know our place in that story and how to navigate the scenes unfolding around us. It is what gives us hope that God, who is the author and finisher of our story, knows what He is doing and will be faithful and just to see it to completion.

Do not let discouragement blind you to the progress you have made. Set reminders of where you’ve been and how far you have come, then celebrate your progress.

And remember, I’m proud of you.