For as long as I can remember, I've driven myself over the edge trying to bring my weight down.
As a petite woman who is barely five feet tall, even the slightest uptick is visible on my tiny frame. I have always been very conscious of looking plump, which acquaintances don't fail to point out. "Oh you look lovely, but a bit chubbier than before," they say nonchalantly while sipping their coffee.
I hated every minute of it. People talk about feeling a great adrenaline rush from the gym, but I felt the opposite. I felt suffocated, as if someone was sitting on my chest. I have always felt like your body knows when you hate something, and so mine remained defiant. It wouldn't shed any pounds, no matter how hard I tried. It knew I hated going to the gym. I wanted to scream at it.
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I obsessed over their Instagram feeds and sent screenshots to my friends. "Will he still want to date me if I don't have a thigh gap like that?" I asked them. A small waist, flat tummy, big booty and a thigh gap: that's what I was aiming for.
Instead of monitoring my food habits or dieting, I started going for runs for the sake of sanity. This time, weight loss was not a motive: I had never been able to bring my weight down before, so I finally stopped focusing on it. Sometimes, I didn't even run, but walked endlessly at a languid pace, taking in the surroundings and allowing myself to breathe as the world crumbled in the wake of coronavirus. It helped clear my mind, and I was hooked on it.
I focused on not caring about a number, and ate whatever I wanted without feeling guilty. Getting through the day was hard enough, and I didn't have it in me to obsess about an ideal body anymore. It feels sad now, remembering how I equated my self-worth with a number. I judged myself and let myself wallow in self-loathing, even though I was perfectly healthy.
No matter how hard I tried to push past it, deep down, I refused to believe that my body would change as I got older. I still wanted to be able to say in a cooing voice, "I don't have a diet or a work-out routine, it's just natural." But nothing I was doing to my body these last few years was natural.
My pandemic experience taught me to respect, not punish, my body. I started loving my body, even if that meant not having a thigh gap or a tiny waist. I still go for runs - not because I want to lose weight, but because I want to remain healthy and feel relaxed. At the end of the day, it's about listening to your body and respecting its likes and dislikes.
It's been constantly raining where I am, and I haven't gone for a run in about a week. But I am not losing my mind over it, or worrying about putting on "quarantine pounds." The batteries of my new scale ran out again last month, and I haven't felt an urge to replace them anytime soon. I don't know my weight, but I know that no matter what, I am not scared of it anymore.
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After years of dieting, I finally stopped obsessing over my weight - and lost 20 pounds - Business Insider India
