Mitra
03-08-2006, 04:30 AM
From Staying Power:
Tip: When you weigh and measure yourself, be brutally honest. The only person you cheat with a less than truthful answer is yourself. You deserve better than that!
Quote: It only takes one person to change your life - you.
Ruth Casey
Whether you weigh yourself, or measure with a tape, or calculate your body fat, or assess the fit of your clothes, this tip still applies. One of the reasons I decided to weigh myself is that it's easy, and at least it gives me a number. I can argue that I'm a bit up or down today because of x,y,z... but I can't deny the number. With clothes, I know from experience that I'm capable of wearing the looser fitting ones, and just telling myself it's because I wanted that colour today, or even buying new things, all the time ignoring the fact that the old ones don't fit any more.
But I think the honesty in looking at our size/weight involves more than just facing what the numbers actually are. It involves the much more difficult issues of what is a healthy size to aim for. If we can manage to deceive ourselves about the size we actually are, it's equally hard to be honest about the size that's healthy for us. Whether we're looking at an overweight body and saying, "Oh, I just have a large frame and anyway it's all muscle," or looking at a healthy body with dissatisfaction because it's not the shape we want, or doesn't look like the latest fashion, or even looking at an underweight body and believing it's still overweight, there are many ways to be dishonest with ourselves. It's an area where there are so many pressures from our fashion and culture, and expectations from ourselves and others to conform to a standard. Those who've never been slim often continue to see themselves as overweight, even when they aren't. Those who were slim in their youth expect to recapture that size/shape 30 or more years later (well, I do anyway!). I think the brutal honesty that's mentioned here is harder than just accepting that you've allowed a bit of extra fat to creep on and need to deal with it, I think it means truly accepting your body. Accepting that a healthy and strong body is a wonderful thing, even if it doesn't look like a supermodel; accepting that it won't be the same healthy, strong body it was a few decades ago; accepting the healthy, strong body you have, not the one you fantasised that you would get. Of course, all of us have some vanity along with our desire to be healthier, and of course, looking better is very enjoyable. It's only a problem when the way we want to look starts to diverge from what's healthy - either too low a body weight, which has it's own health problems, or just a perpetual striving to have a fundamentally different body type, which will only make you unhappy.
Whether it's BMI or body fat %, we're all different, and don't necessarily fit the standard numbers, but if you're way outside the "normal" range, particularly on body fat, then you need to at least check that you're really being honest (if necessary ask someone you trust for their view), and if you're solidly in the "normal" range and not happy about it, then again, I think it's time to wonder what you're really aiming for.
I don't think that honesty here requires constant weighing and measuring, or a great preoccupation with it. In fact, I suspect it's when we're deceiving ourselves in some way that the obsessive qualities are likely to emerge.
Out of all that lot, the one I'm prone to is thinking that my body "aught" to be the way it used to be. I accept that I look older, that my skin isn't the way it was at 20, and all that stuff, but I somehow think my body should be the same size and shape. Actually, at the moment it is pretty close, but somehow it's "the same, but not the same." I think I'd be better off forgetting all about how I looked then, and just focussing on what I have now. The journal section in Staying Power has a blank each week to fill in your "goal for the week." Learning to live with reality might take longer than a week, but we are just starting lent, so it's a good time for me to work at losing a few delusions.
What are the rest of you up to? Are you giving yourself the honesty you deserve?
Tip: When you weigh and measure yourself, be brutally honest. The only person you cheat with a less than truthful answer is yourself. You deserve better than that!
Quote: It only takes one person to change your life - you.
Ruth Casey
Whether you weigh yourself, or measure with a tape, or calculate your body fat, or assess the fit of your clothes, this tip still applies. One of the reasons I decided to weigh myself is that it's easy, and at least it gives me a number. I can argue that I'm a bit up or down today because of x,y,z... but I can't deny the number. With clothes, I know from experience that I'm capable of wearing the looser fitting ones, and just telling myself it's because I wanted that colour today, or even buying new things, all the time ignoring the fact that the old ones don't fit any more.
But I think the honesty in looking at our size/weight involves more than just facing what the numbers actually are. It involves the much more difficult issues of what is a healthy size to aim for. If we can manage to deceive ourselves about the size we actually are, it's equally hard to be honest about the size that's healthy for us. Whether we're looking at an overweight body and saying, "Oh, I just have a large frame and anyway it's all muscle," or looking at a healthy body with dissatisfaction because it's not the shape we want, or doesn't look like the latest fashion, or even looking at an underweight body and believing it's still overweight, there are many ways to be dishonest with ourselves. It's an area where there are so many pressures from our fashion and culture, and expectations from ourselves and others to conform to a standard. Those who've never been slim often continue to see themselves as overweight, even when they aren't. Those who were slim in their youth expect to recapture that size/shape 30 or more years later (well, I do anyway!). I think the brutal honesty that's mentioned here is harder than just accepting that you've allowed a bit of extra fat to creep on and need to deal with it, I think it means truly accepting your body. Accepting that a healthy and strong body is a wonderful thing, even if it doesn't look like a supermodel; accepting that it won't be the same healthy, strong body it was a few decades ago; accepting the healthy, strong body you have, not the one you fantasised that you would get. Of course, all of us have some vanity along with our desire to be healthier, and of course, looking better is very enjoyable. It's only a problem when the way we want to look starts to diverge from what's healthy - either too low a body weight, which has it's own health problems, or just a perpetual striving to have a fundamentally different body type, which will only make you unhappy.
Whether it's BMI or body fat %, we're all different, and don't necessarily fit the standard numbers, but if you're way outside the "normal" range, particularly on body fat, then you need to at least check that you're really being honest (if necessary ask someone you trust for their view), and if you're solidly in the "normal" range and not happy about it, then again, I think it's time to wonder what you're really aiming for.
I don't think that honesty here requires constant weighing and measuring, or a great preoccupation with it. In fact, I suspect it's when we're deceiving ourselves in some way that the obsessive qualities are likely to emerge.
Out of all that lot, the one I'm prone to is thinking that my body "aught" to be the way it used to be. I accept that I look older, that my skin isn't the way it was at 20, and all that stuff, but I somehow think my body should be the same size and shape. Actually, at the moment it is pretty close, but somehow it's "the same, but not the same." I think I'd be better off forgetting all about how I looked then, and just focussing on what I have now. The journal section in Staying Power has a blank each week to fill in your "goal for the week." Learning to live with reality might take longer than a week, but we are just starting lent, so it's a good time for me to work at losing a few delusions.
What are the rest of you up to? Are you giving yourself the honesty you deserve?