As I travel, spreading the word about permanent weight loss, I often speak to middle and high school girls about health, body image, and the negative impact of dieting on weight. It’s always very touching for me to look out over the classroom and see the young women as I speak. Many of them (according to some statistics, about 50%) are already dieting and associating being thin with deprivation.
Thin = Deprivation
Wrong!
Most of them can’t look ahead to see how their current behavior and stringent dieting will lead to frustration, anger and excess weight in their twenties and thirties. It takes many years to see the real equation:
Dieting and Food Avoidance = More Fat
If I could do one thing for these girls, who deserve a healthy future free from disordered eating, it would be to freeze them right where they are.
Why?
If I look back to my high school days, when I weighed in the mid-150s, I think: “If someone had just been there for me and taken me by the shoulders and told me: “YOU ARE FINE. DON’T LOSE OR GAIN ANOTHER POUND AND YOU’LL BE HEALTHY ALL YOUR LIFE. DON’T MEASURE YOURSELF BY OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS OR THE INSURANCE COMPANIES’ IDEAL WEIGHT CHARTS. NEVER DIET – IT’LL RUIN YOUR BODY’S RESILIENCE AND ITS NATURAL METABOLISM.”
If someone had said that to me, I’d be the weight I am today but I would have avoided 30 years of severe depression, loss of confidence, battles with diet mentality, various health problems including severe hypoglycemia, and the feeling of utter failure over and over in my life as I literally lost hundreds of pounds and regained them.
I’ll tell you the truth. It was hell. It colored every aspect of my life. It held me back from many of my dreams.
So, I find myself wanting to take each and every one of the young girls in my audiences and look them in the eye and tell them: “The truth is your weight now is what it’s probably meant to be. Accept it and accept yourself. Trying to be a weight that is unreasonable for you is only going to lead you to obesity, and maybe even severe health problems.”
When I talk to parents who are concerned for their children’s weight, I tell them this too.
When I mentioned this to one of my classes, my lovely client Judith was particularly affected by this concept. She just sent me these pictures and this note:
Hi Pat,
I came across the attached in some old photos of my Mum’s and I thought you might like to see what I looked like when I thought was dreadfully overweight at age 19/20. I am holding this as my vision of the future for myself as I work gradually towards regaining my rightful body weight.
I have also added a picture of me taken recently, rather glamourous and without your work I wouldn’t have had the nerve to have pictures made at the size I am, but hey, I am on the road to a new body just in time for the next Olympics! It will be my own Olympic gold medal.
I have become much more conscious of what I am eating and I have a clear vision of what I can look like (not what I think I should look like, but what I know I’m meant to look like). I feel wonderfully positive each day about the future and less worried about food than ever.
Thank you for your huge contribution to turning around my life and my weight.
Always a disciple, always a friend,
Judith
(Read about my Discover Your True Core Body! CD to see what Judith has learned!)
Why was I so unhappy at 155 lbs? Well, as I mentioned, the diet guides and insurance charts said I should be 135. And I didn’t look like the actresses and models I considered beautiful. It was all a comparison game.
And there was no one to tell me any different. I am here to tell you there is a different approach.
So, if you know a young woman, encourage her to accept herself. Love her as she is. Never compare or criticize – it is unloving. Encourage her to own her own life and take responsibility for it. And praise her for who she is. As you can see from Judith’s picture, she was vibrant, beautiful, lively! And that has not changed, nor will it!
This blog was featured on “Prevention Not Prescriptions!” Find out more and share information for “Prevention Not Prescriptions” at The Kathleen Show here.
17 Responses to Freeze Where You Are…
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- Confused? Most people are. All this is diet advice from the perspective of what I call Diet Mentality. Based in fea… https://t.co/oLbdhU6utw
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- I've always said exercise is more important than food control. What do you think? https://t.co/nRyJeKMZ9y
- Before and after pictures are usually complete fakes, and give us the misconception that the "after" picture is the… https://t.co/QUdTrITjeG
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Just LOVE this post of yours Pat. I had the amazing good fortune of being told to “Never compare yourself to anyone” at a very early age and it did stick, but that didn’t stop me from comparing myself to some ideal I invented in my own mind. I took the idea of constantly improving myself to an unbalanced extreme. I am going to reread your blog post, it is so relevant!!!
Thanks again for all you do for people.
Pat, you have a wonderful way of insuring we all get healthy serving of wisdom through your insightful blogs. I was just speaking with another midlife sistas yesterday in fact, about how our idea of self-image and beauty has changed since high school. Wish that we could have known then what we know now about trying to go against our own good sense in order to fit into someone else’s idea of how we should look and simply accept ourselves as we were, beautiful. Would have saved us all alot of time depriving ourselves of calories, happiness and putting dreams on hold until we reached that illusive ideal of what we should look like.
Yes, Joanne, valuing who we are is so important. That’s my message to young women everywhere. Value exactly who you are, especially your unique qualities. You don’t have to look like anyone else. You don’t have to fit a mold or a particular size but you do have to hold your own hand in life.
I know Judith as a dear friend. And what strikes me most powerfully is the similarity between the two photos! I’d even go so far as to say they are identical. For what I see is the smile from her core, the smile in her eyes. The vibrancy of love and life in her essence. It strikes me that when we come from our spiritual centre and listen to and honour ourselves at this level our mind emotions and our body follow naturally and with ease. We naturally come to the the right shape and weight when we are in right relationship with ourselves. The joy is then that right relationship with others follows too.
Love your work Pat.
I have really enjoyed your blog in the time i have been following it. The one thing i put out to teenage girls is for them not to focus on what the television and magazines tell them. I had a patient who once told me she used to have an eating disorder when she was younger due to what she saw on tv. It is such a shame
Thank you so much for this, Pat (and for what you are doing especially when you talk to middle- and high school girls). I too weighed about 155 in high school and thought I was enormous. I had some other things going on with family, etc. but I thought being THIN would solve my self-esteem and ‘popularity’ issues…so I literally starved myself down to 112 lbs. I *wish* someone would have been there to tell me to eat healthy and exercise instead! Even too thin, guess what, I didn’t love myself nor did my problems go away. Today I’m at a healthy weight but every day I need to remind myself how important it is to take good care of myself and eat well to fuel my body, mind, and spirit. The message you carry is SO important, Pat. You are giving people so much more than the tools for weight loss, you are giving them a secure, self-loving and caring foundation. Thank you!
When it comes to teens I think you can show them that healthy eating and healthy activity really is an act of self love and self respect. No one can ever show you more love than you show yourself. Sometimes healthy eating requires a bit of extra effort, but never think that you are not worth that extra effort. Dancing is never wrong.
And for all of you that have stated “I wish there was someone there when I was younger” be that person to a youngster. We all have something special to offer the generations that are following us.
Excellent point, Amanda. Just this weekend, a friend of my son’s mentioned mounting a huge diet. It was so great to be able to talk to him about how that might look, and how it might backfire too. My experience gave him a whole different perspective – because he thought the only solution was a stringent diet. He was preparing himself for pain when it did not have to be that way, and indeed, would possibly set up a lifetime of strict dieting and metabolism reduction.
There’s a song on the radio right now called More Beautiful You. The first verse:
Little girl fourteen flipping through a magazine
Says she wants to look that way
But her hair isn’t straight her body isn’t fake
And she’s always felt overweight
Well little girl fourteen I wish that you could see
That beauty is within your heart
And you were made with such care your skin your body and your hair
Are perfect just the way they are
I sat my family full of girls down to listen to it and we discussed it. I felt like such a fraud since I can’t quite get to that point of self-acceptance. But we’re working on it together!
Peggy – That’s amazing that you are talking about it as a family! Your values will have great effect on your children and everyone you know and, if you are working towards self-acceptance, you are teaching them how to do it as you work through it. Great courage!
I really love this posting and I wish every parent would read it.
A couple of years ago, a mother brought her teenage daughter into my office, saying the girl wanted to lose 5 pounds. Mom was at a loss as to why organizations like Weight Watchers would not work with her daughter. This girl was absolutely gorgeous, fit & athletic and had nothing to change. I also refused to put her on a weight loss plan (and silently noted that it was the mom who probably wanted to lose weight herself). A few months later, the mom called me to say her daughter seemed to be developing an eating disorder and would I help. I really hope this young girl is doing well, despite the pressure she felt to lose weight.
And I wish I had read this posting when I was a teenager!
Thanks to the author for article. The main thing do not forget about users, and continue in the same spirit.
Excellent point, Amanda. Just this weekend, a friend of my son’s mentioned mounting a huge diet. It was so great to be able to talk to him about how that might look, and how it might backfire too. My experience gave him a whole different perspective – because he thought the only solution was a stringent diet. He was preparing himself for pain when it did not have to be that way, and indeed, would possibly set up a lifetime of strict dieting and metabolism reduction.
When I speak to middle school and high school girls’ classes about body image, I try to make this point to them. They do not want to hear they might be programming their 20s and 30s with their behavior around food now. But I did it, and many of my clients have done it. Stringent dieting is OVER! Pass the word! Thanks Steve for commenting!
I am glad you wrote this post!?
Paula
Juliet ROCKS!!
Great read! Maybe you could do a follow up to this topic??