There’s this long thought idea in the health space that you got yourself to this place, which means you can get yourself out. It’s a harsh reality confronting us every time we attempt a new diet or workout program. A problem we’re faced with every time we look in the mirror or step on the scale.
Questioning how you got yourself here? How did you end up here?
If there’s one thing I know, no one chooses to be at an unhealthy weight.
No One Chooses To Be Overweight
I’ve yet to meet one person who was happy they gained 20 pounds or purposely choose to be 100 pounds overweight. Of course, I’m making broad statements, but if you’re someone who fell into the trap that has made you believe you are the reason for your weight problems.
I want you to hear me very clearly – you did not end up here on purpose. This place you find yourself in, you did not choose.
And you don’t have to stay that way! But you have to choose to believe in something new for your life.
You have to choose to find comfort and safety in something outside of your weight.
Which starts by coming home to see yourself. To understand why the weight crept on and then change your beliefs to see a solution greater than the pain you carry.
Where did the weight come from?
Let’s start with the basic biological fact that body fat is a protective mechanism inside our body. It may seem absurd, and it certainly doesn’t always make sense, but our reality is that our body is hardwired for survival.
When your body feels threatened, it hoards, stores, and conserves energy (body fat) as a protective mechanism.
Body fat does keep you alive – or at least safe from its greatest threat. A threat that more often than not is emotional rather than physical. Of course, survival or body fat storage can happen when our body physically feels threatened with a lack of energy. But for most people, the protective mechanism of body fat comes in the form of emotional protection.
Meaning your weight, the fat that you hate, is serving a larger role in your body and one we have to understand if we want it to change.
Leading me to ask the question, is your weight keeping you safe?
Is Your Weight Keeping You Safe?
Think of body fat like a moat around a castle. It’s the protective barrier that brings safety and security to your body. Yet, at the same time, it’s often the very thing causing excess pain, leading to more threats.
I know it seems like a backward approach, but your body sends out a biological response based on your perception, even if that is self-hate. Your body doesn’t change its patterns based on where the pain is coming from. Your body responds to all pain, even self-induced pain.
But that’s the thing about hiding behind our weight. Internally the pain that we’re suppressing believes this is the only way to keep it safe. But daily, we are acting out of our deepest pains.
It may not be obvious, but what you think about, how you react, and what you worry about are birthed to keep these pains suppressed.
Making us masters of our own misery.
Perhaps, even this message feels threatening. Fearing the pain you’ve worked your entire life to suppress is being exposed. But you don’t have to hold onto it any longer. Whatever you’re hiding from or whatever you’re suppressing, you can let go. Holding onto it allows it to do more harm than choosing to let it out.
You Can Let it Go
Right now, if you find yourself hiding behind your weight – your pain has control of you. Whatever wrong was done has power over you, and daily you’re living this out.
But what I want you to know, it’s okay to let it go. It’s okay to say enough.
It’s time to move on from the pain that’s keeping you stuck.
Maybe for you, you don’t have anything that traumatic, or at least you don’t think it is. But our body doesn’t judge pain based on a sliding scale. Pain is pain without a rating. Inside your body, it appears to be all the same.
The degree of the pain is based on the suppression of the pain. The deeper you push it and the longer you hold onto it, the bigger the pain tends to grow.
So don’t discount and level of pain.
But choose to do something with the pain or whatever the reason you keep yourself hiding behind the weight.
What do You Believe About the Pain?
Remember, you didn’t just gain weight on purpose. There was a threat to your body that allowed the pounds to pack on. For many people, the trauma that caused the threat was not your fault at all. And even if it was, we still must know that the weight we carry, while you hate it, has become a safe place to hide.
Using weight as a preventative mechanism to keep that pain suppressed. This makes it nearly impossible for any weight-loss strategy to work because survival trumps everything else.
What your body needs to change is a safe environment.
A place to open up and let go of the pain that your body is holding onto. Knowing you are more significant than the pain you carry. Your worth is not devoted to a number on the scale or where that number came from.
Today, you’re going to choose to see that God did not put you on this earth to play small. To hide behind the pain others have flung your way. Or to stay stuck in the insecurities of your size.
Your weight may feel safe. It may be a comfort to you. But it’s also what’s keeping you stuck and hidden—a place to stay small.
You Were Not Designed For This
But I believe God has something more for your life. And I believe He wants to be that safe space to let go. He says to cast your cares on Him. Knowing that the pain you carry does not have to be fixed by you. In fact, it can’t.
You can’t fix what’s broken with something broken.
But in your brokenness, in your ashes, you can find hope, knowing that Christ desires to work all things out for good. Even the worst things, He can bring good to them. He is big enough to handle whatever you’ve suppressed.
But it’s a choice that falls on you.
Today, will you recognize that while you didn’t gain weight on purpose, you also don’t have to stay that way?
Go back to faith and rest your life in His security. Let God be your safe place and anchor when all else fails.
Your weight has a story. Your body is working to keep you alive.
But more than just surviving, you were made to thrive. It’s time to step out behind the weight, to let go of what keeps it stuck, and move forward in health.
I believe in you, and I believe this could be the beginning of a new day for you. A free day, if that doesn’t sound to cliche.
Remember, health is more than a journey of the body – it’s the mind and soul working in harmony.
Today, I pray you’ll come out of hiding.
Where Do You Start?
I know this all sounds so big and scary. Most likely, that pain you’ve carried around has been there longer than any other relationship you have. I’m not lying when I say our misery can become a comfort.
That’s why getting started can often be the hardest part. Because you’re letting go of something that has kept you safe, even if it’s something you’ve hated, to walk into unknown territory.
But I promise you’ll never look back. You have to trust the process.
Where Do You Start?
- Acknowledge if your weight is stuck because it’s holding onto something you’ve been scared to let go of? Is your weight associated with pain?
- Acknowledge how you feel and remind yourself that you are in charge of how you feel.
- Remember that while you feel pain, you are not the pain.
- Write out the habits you established living out of the pain and ask if they are healthy or unhealthy.
- Create a battle plan that will help you fight off triggers and cravings that keep you cycling in your past behavior.
- When you get scared or feel insecure, remind yourself of God’s truth.
- Go back to God. Again and again and again. Ask him to give the strength and meditate on His promises.
- Let go of perfection and instead stay in it. It will be a choice to work out of a healthier version of yourself every day. Keep going.
- Find a therapist. For some of us, we need a safe place to talk things out and get prompted to let out whatever it is that holds you back. A therapist can be a great place to hold space for you to heal.
- Trust the process and keep moving in a forward direction.
Your pain will want to keep you stuck cycling in the same repeated cycles of your past. This is what is considered your small self or insecure self. A place where pain rules and you live controlled by fear.
But today is a new day.
Today you will act out of your healthy self. Your secure self and put fear in its place. It won’t be perfect, but every moment of the day is a new choice. Keep making the choice to act in health.
Want more information?
- How to Emotionally Eat The Right Way
- Get Motivated – The Backwards Approach to Success
- 5 Small Daily Things that Can Change Your Habits for Good
