This is a subject very close to my heart and the more I ponder writing about it, the more I wonder if I should even be discussing it at all. Our own level of fitness and weight is a very personal matter. Some women are very comfortable in their own skin and carrying some extra weight or whether they can do 20 push-ups in a row is not a big deal for them. But I would wager that for the vast majority of women, extra weight can be a source of low self esteem, negative thoughts, depression and a general feeling of unhappiness with ourselves and our bodies. That kind of negativity does not foster a feminine spirit and so I felt it needed to be addressed. This is an area that will be a constant personal battle for the rest of my life. I've done the diets, the crazy gym routine, the roller coaster of lose/gain many, many times. So I feel I have some insights into this subject....both physically and emotionally.The first thing I want to make plain is that how big or small, physically fit or "soft" you are does not define you as a woman. You can be 50 pounds overweight and still be a feminine women both in looks and attitude. You can have 5% body fat and flatter-than-flat abs and still be a feminine woman. Femininity is deeper than our physical appearance or shape of our bodies. We know this intellectually, but often, I think, have a hard time internalizing that fact. When we are carrying extra weight, it's hard to feel beautiful and feminine....at least on a consistent basis. I know, for me, when I'm feeling less than fit or when I'm feeling less than beautiful my coping mechanism is to shop. If I have something new it makes me feel pretty and special and feminine - for a while. Until the new outfit is put away and I look at myself in the mirror and those old feelings of inadequacy, guilt and negativity return. My coping mechanism is temporary and how feminine I look and feel in my new clothing is shortlived. As women we are all feminine inherantly just be being "female". However, sometimes it's hard to maintain a feminine spirit of joy, contentment and peace when our minds are assiling us with thoughts of negative body image and how overweight we are. I say all of this out of personal experience.
Most of you only know me as I am now, or maybe as I was back in college. Five years ago, I was not the same person I am now, physically or emotionally. Five years ago, I weighed almost 200 pounds at 5'6 with a medium build. The weight came gradually - those 10-15 pounds when we first got married and I was cooking on my own for the first time, the pregnancy weight that I never totally lost after each baby was born/weaned, the stay-at-home mom job that left me around food 24 hours a day. I didn't cram cake into my mouth at every opportunity or eat fast food every day. It was slow and methodical and often crept up on me. I'd get out my clothes from the previous winter and realize I needed to go up another size, but that was OK. Just another opportunity to shop! I still felt beautiful at times during those years....wearing a new outfit, or if I found a flattering picture (which was rare, I avoided pictures at all costs), or when my hair was longer and curlier. What I can't remember is having much joy, much love, or much contentment. I remember looking at pictures and cringing inside. What I saw in the mirror was not what other people were seeing. I was seeing some skewed version of myself where I looked healthy and happy...until I saw the reality in pictures and realized that how I viewed myself was false. And that just added to the negativity and the coping mechanism - shopping. I was also far from God at this time, at least internally. Outwardly, everything was great. We were involved in church, active in working with the youth group, raising 2 adorable children in a cute little house with 2 new cars in the driveway. Inwardly, I was just apathetic for the most part.
For no reason, other than a whim and because the government sent us some sort of rebate check and we had some free cash, I joined a gym and hired a personal trainer for 5 weeks. My husband told me later he thought I'd never go, much less stick it out. That's how non-commital I was about anything involving sweat or long-term weight loss. He'd lived through my attempts at "reform" before. For some reason, my resolve was different this time. I started to lose weight, got into a gym routine and never looked back. In 9 months, I dropped about 50 pounds. I was at the gym every weekday unless it was a major holiday....at 4:30am for 1.5 hours or more. Once I met my weight loss goals, I kept going to the gym. Trained for and ran a 5K, was able to best some of the men at the gym on the machines, developed friendships through classes and working out routinely, had shoulder muscles I was quite proud of, a stomach that was flat and calves that were rock hard. I did this for 3.5 years....and the weight stayed off (for the most part). But what I noticed through all of that was that as fit as I was out the outside, the internal war with my mind was still the same. There were still fat days, still days when I felt ugly and my thoughts were always centered on food and how hard I'd have to work at the gym to maintain my weight while still being able to eat what I wanted. And something else never changed - that coping mechanism of shopping and outfitting myself in something new so as to make those negative thoughts disappear for a while. After all, I'd lost 50 pounds and now needed an entire new wardrobe.
At the end of my almost-4-year stint at the gym, I was left with 50 pounds lost (and 15 regained), almost as much negative body-image as before with a dose of pride thrown in over how much better I looked than "those" people, spiritual apathy, and thousands of dollars of credit card debt from my spending sprees. My husband finally made the decision to cancel all of our credit cards and we entered a debt-management program (to my shame, the vast majority of the debt was my own...he didn't even know about some of the cards/balances). I was burnt out at the gym, tired of going to bed at 9pm and getting up at 4am, baking up a storm in the kitchen and eating all the goodies myself. Something was wrong. I quit going to the gym a year ago in September. I put on 15 pounds last fall and had to buy bigger pants when I swore I never would again. I couldn't shop very much because we now had to save cash for all purchases which is extremely hard for me. But all of this came with a bright side - God was reawakening my heart. I had a desire to read his Word for the first time in literally years, He was teaching me about His love and how far-reaching it really is, He was showing me that my feelings of beauty and femininity need to be satisfied in Him (not my husband and not my closet), He was giving me a small group at church where I could air all my issues without feeling judged. These were things I needed far more right then than my gym routines, my holiday baking or new clothes. By the end of the year, I felt a new focus physically, mentally and emotionally. We went to the mountains with friends for the New Years weekend and I can remember sitting on the swing, wrapped in a quilt, in the early morning hours with my coffee overlooking a river and thanking God for what He was going to do in my life and in our family during this year of 2012.
I'd love to say that my personal fitness and femininity journey has been smooth sailing since then. But I doubt I'll ever be able to say that on this side of Heaven. I still have ugly thoughts about myself and my body. I still have days where I curse my skin and body shape and wish for something different. I still struggle (oh, so often) with shopping and overspending as a way to compensate for these things. But honestly, I'd rather struggle and have that struggle push me toward God and his love than be the apathetic person I was before. There is joy and victory in the struggle, and a haven to be found in God when I can find nothing lovable or good about myself. I've proven repeatedly that my contentment and feelings of worth cannot be found within myself because, regardless of my weight, the struggle is still there. I'm learning that as much as I desire for my husband to tell me I'm beautiful and skinny and desired, it's not his job to affirm my worth and it's selfish of me to expect that from him constantly. My self worth, self esteem and negative body image need to be laid at God's feet....so then He can pick me up and tell me - yet again - how much He loves and value me. That kind of peace and joy and contentment, that spirit of femininity, can only be found in Him - not in what I weigh, how defined my muscles are, or what new clothes I've found to wear.
I want to encourage you to take a look at what you tell yourself about your body, your weight and your physical fitness level - and then give those negative thoughts (whether they come often or rarely) to God and rest in His overwhelming love. True femininity is found in the contentment that only He can provide.
**I am no expert on weight loss or physical fitness and can only give insight into what has worked for me over the years. I can honestly say that I am at the most balanced point in my life as far as my attitude toward food and get asked sometimes what plan I'm following or how I've kept the weight off for almost 5 years. I'll do my best to address this later this week and provide a few tips for long-term weight loss and maintenance.**
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