How I Finally Learned to Love my Body

Being liberated from masked self hatred is really amazing and possible

Photo by Fuu J on Unsplash

How many moments do you catch yourself admiring your form in the mirror everyday?

Once? Ten times? A few times each hour? Everytime you pass by a mirror?

I used to pull up my shirt and grab my potbelly every time I could get away with it. If that sounds hella awkward, it’s because it is.

I think I now know why I’d get so frustrated by my weight.

I’m no dummy. I pick up on stuff relatively fast, since I am known to be persistent. I don’t give in easily to defeat.

This gives me an advantage academically, but in other areas of my life, trying to apply the same expectations will wind up disappointing me.

Weight loss doesn’t happen overnight. We might all know that since we’ve been told that ad nauseum, but do you really know and accept that fact?

Think about it. Success in weight loss appears as time goes on. Developing healthy habits is key. Not crash diets. Not rolling 48 hour fasts that you don’t seek to regularly incorporate into your lifestyle on a monthly (or even weekly) basis. But for intelligent people who are accustomed to grasping concepts quickly, relative to their peers, this can be a distinctly hard pill to swallow.

My husband has been actively engaging with repairing my self esteem, which used to be in the toilet. I’d find any excuse to bully myself, my jutted-out potbelly not being an exception. Everytime I call it a big dumb ole belly, he corrects me and encourages me to use kinder language.

At first, I was resistant to his insisting on being gentler to myself.

Then, it started to click.

Every time I started digging into me, I’d stop. Now we’re at the point of him raising an eyebrow, and I reverse what I’ve just said about myself with something nice and affirmative.

I’m on the road of not really giving a fuck anymore about my enduring potbelly. He says it’s cute and he likes seeing me enjoy my food. I also married into a Middle-Eastern family, and boy do these people like to shower their loved ones with food. Forcefeeding is a…