inspiration. [#10]

"what has the potential to trip me up once in awhile is not so much the physical transformation as the emotional transformation. i’ve said many times since reaching goal that i finally feel like the outside me and the inside me finally match, but the longer i maintain, the more i think that descriptor may be a bit premature. in many ways, my inside is still catching up.

the emotional transformation from obese me to maintaining me is perhaps even more astounding than the physical transformation. it’s just not as apparent. the transformation began the moment weight loss “clicked” five years ago. most people who successfully lose and maintain their weight had an “aha!” moment – that realization that things are different “this time” as opposed to all the other times they tried to lose weight and failed. for me, that moment was followed by an avalanche of changes, not just in the way i ate – that was the easy part – but in the way i related to food and, even more important, how i related to myself. i began to demand from myself respect, forgiveness, and understanding – three things i rarely asked of myself or others. i often hid in my fat or other emotional insecurities and believed i didn’t deserve to be treated fairly.

physical transformation is, for the most part, finite. we can sculpt our bodies through weight training and surgery, but if we remain the same weight, we pretty much look the same. emotional transformation is infinite, an evolutionary journey."

[lynn @ refuse to regain: emotional transformation and the skinny girl]