Plateau Be Gone! Week 4: Mirror-phobia

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Using the traffic light system I've adopted for talking about weight loss, today's result was like getting all the green lights when you're running late for work. I'm really pleased.

Given that I've been living off yoghurt, "Up N Go", weetbix and fish*, I really wasn't sure what the scales would have to say (*soft, squishy braces friendly foods). Eating a lot of fish has been fantastic for my skin. My skin tone is more even and it feels softer, too.

Over the past few weeks I have started to notice that I do look different to how I did at my heaviest. This might seem like a ridiculous thing to say, on paper I am approaching 20 kilos lost but my body is changing faster than my mind.

I am well and truly in the habit of avoiding mirrors and photos. When I was gaining weight it distressed me so much to see my appearance that I had to avoid looking at it in order to be able to go about my daily life. 

At the time I was at my heaviest I worked part time in an office in the CBD. It was a fantastic job but the corporate world is full of mirrors and I couldn't focus on the task at hand when my concentration got interrupted by a sickening feeling induced by my own reflection. The lifts in the building I worked in were fully mirrored from floor to ceiling. I trained myself to focus my eyes on the floor the entire time from walking in to walking out. 

The bathroom is another place that went from being just another room in the house to a site of torment. As well as the main mirror above the vanity, there is a row of mirrored cabinets along the opposite wall that faces the shower. I quickly got into the habit of opening all the cabinets in the bathroom or covering them with towels so that I wouldn't have to see myself without clothes. 

I am very much afraid of my appearance. Gaining weight and being overweight was so overwhelming. A lot of things were not going well in my life, but I felt like I ought to be able to get my weight under control by myself. I couldn't. Every time I saw myself in the mirror or in a photo I felt like a worthless failure. How could someone with my intellect not be able to control something as rudimentary as their weight?

Whilst it was horrible, being very overweight was a great learning experience. It gave me a harsh slap of reality about how much of my identity and self worth was wrapped up in my appearance. I wouldn't have readily called my self a superficial person before, I don't think many people would. However, I really did not have anything close to an honest grasp on how closely I tied how I felt about myself to how I looked. I don't think many people do.

Being fat also helped show me who some of my most valuable friends are. Most people treated me incredibly differently when I was overweight to how they did when I was slimmer. I was particularly shocked at how differently complete strangers reacted to me.

Accepting your own appearance is a challenge for many people, and most women and girls I know are constantly grappling with their body image and self esteem. I think a certainly level of insecurity can be normal but a life ruled by insecurity is barely living at all. One thing I can say with confidence is that the mental part of this weight loss business is much harder than the diet and exercise stuff. 

I think we all place to much importance on appearance full stop. We each read way too much into what it means to be too fat or too skinny. Whilst there are valid health concerns for both category, the fact that we subconsciously make value judgments about each other based on how they look is not right. 

Coaching gymnastics helps to remind me of how important the "self acceptance" part of this process is. Hearing primary school aged girls dissect their appearances makes me sad. It also reminds me that if I want to have a family one day, I ought to learn to accept myself so that I don't teach my children how to hate themselves.

I long for the day where I am no longer horrified by my appearance. I don't feel I need to love my appearance, I just need to be comfortable enough with myself that I don't think about it all the time. These feelings are very slowly just beginning to subside but it was not all that long ago that thinking about how fat I felt was on my mind constantly. 

Whilst the number on the scales continues to decrease at a steady pace, the "fat girl" in my head is only just starting to shrink. With time, I hope that both the "me" on the "inside" and the "me" on the "outside" can both reflect health and contentment.