Who Do You Love?

I met a young lady last week, who made me really think about the message I am sending. She came to see me because she heard from one of my students that I was on a weight loss journey. We talked for about an hour about who she wanted to become. Let me start by saying that she is a beautiful and intelligent young lady with a very bright future.
She told me how she has been overweight her entire life and that she thought that if she lost weight she would have a better life. She talked about being alone because nobody wanted to be friends with the fat girl. When she described her body, she spoke of how she hated herself. She thought that no one would ever love her because she was overweight. At 19 she thought that her life was over because she was not a size 6.
Now I myself have been overweight for most of life and for a long time subscribed to the motto that I could be big and beautiful. I have been teased, laughed at, demeaned and disrespected because I was overweight. Sometimes it hurt me and made me feel bad about myself, other times I just let it roll right off my back. In fact, in starting this blog I even had a person, who decided to leave a nasty comment about weight loss.
Losing weight will not change how you feel about yourself; it will just make you smaller. If you don’t LOVE yourself right now then losing weight won’t make a difference in your life. I love me right now; if I did not lose another pound I could still be happy. My life is full of love that I have created with people based on who I am not what I look like. There are immature and sad people in this world that spend a lot of time spewing hate. I think they do this because they are unhappy with themselves. It is easier to be loud and talk down about others instead of looking in the mirror.
If you are on a weight loss journey make sure that you embark on that journey for the right reason. Happiness cannot be found in a smaller pant size. This is journey that I hope will allow me to have a longer life with my family. It is about improving my health and longevity in life. You may need to ask your self what  this journey is about for you. As for the young lady that came into my office, I have taken her under my wing. She will be getting some therapy but I will help her on her weight loss journey. My first priority is to help her on her journey to loving herself.
One of my sorority sister posted on her face book page that she used to look in the mirror before she lost weight and say “Hey Sexy”.  We should all give that a try!!