I know that feeling so well! I cannot tell you how many times I repeated this “I feel fat” sentence over and over in my head. All of a sudden, that thought and feeling would ruin my day and my sanity. Tight jeans, my reflection in a mirror, a heavy meal, seeing a photo of me would trigger the thought and put me down for the rest of the day. A sudden feeling of a body that had tripled in size, a sense of unworthiness, depressing thoughts, all provoked by tose three words “I feel fat”.
Unfortunately, “feeling fat” didn’t motivate me to get healthy and it kept on making things worse. My reaction to sooth myself was to go on a super restrictive diet to ending up binging after a few days, sometimes a few hours.
Here are some things that can make a huge difference in your life…
1. Stop trying to lose weight
Sounds weird to say, right? If you read my blog HOW AN OBSESSION WITH WEIGHT LOSS PREVENTS WEIGHT LOSS, you know by now that obsessing about weight loss will never bring you anywhere.
When you start shifting your focus on “being healthy” instead of “losing weight”, magic happens. It is only when you stop trying to control food that food stops controlling you.
Does it mean that you will not want to lose the weight anymore? Of course not. ‘Feeling fat’ is really insane but as long as you hold on to “weight loss only” goals, you will stay stuck with your extra pounds, binges, yo-yo dieting and “feeling fat”.
I witness this every day in consultation, it is only when my patients let go of the obsession of losing weight and focus on health that they start shredding pounds. I have to admit that the shift is not easy but it is the only way.
2. Unlearn and rebuild
Accept to rewind and unlearn old habits and preconceptions. Relearn how to eat, how to nourish your body, how to appreciate the foods that will bring you energy. Relearn how to make peace with food.
Rebuild a healthy relationship with food where you will finally eat for health not for weight loss. This is the whole purpose of the HAPPY SPOON 30-DAY PROGRAM.
3. Stop comparing
My godmother told me one day that comparison rhymes with poison and she was so damn right. Comparisons are NEVER helpful even when in the best of mental states.
It is about time to create a new realistic definition of beauty and the Western culture needs to participate in the same effort. Society and media outlet perpetuate an unrealistic ideal of perfection. It is no surprise that a large percentage of women ‘feel fat’ and have body image issues. It was the best news ever a few years ago when I heard brands would be sued if they continue to hire anorexic girls as models. No wonder how generations of girls at a perfectly normal weight started to feel fat. I am glad to notice now on most big brands websites that models have a healthy weight.
4. Love yourself first
Let me finish by saying that ‘feeling fat’ is much deeper than a weight problem. The proof is that we all know very thin people also ‘feeling fat’. My best advice to be able to make some changes is to start loving your body FIRST.
Trying to hate yourself into a body you will love is the best recipe for failure. Love yourself first no matter what you weigh. Dieting is all about self-punishment to make sure we can attain a body that will finally be worthy of love, which implies that the body we have now is not worthy of love. Living in a continuous state of absentee self-love is a guaranteed recipe for unhappiness.
Loving your body doesn’t mean that you are giving up, it is actually the opposite. It is only when you start loving your body that you can take better care of yourself, let go of the struggle and end this detestable “feeling fat” thoughts. How liberating is this?
Check out the HAPPY SPOON PROGRAM that will give you all the tools to find food freedom and love your body again.
I also have a 5-day FREE course to set you up on the road to food freedom (coming on May 1st)
