As a woman, I am grateful I didn't live 100 years ago. I have always thought this was true, but a little while ago it really sank home. I got to wear a Victorian Era dress. It wasn't one of the crazy beautiful ones. It was more practical. More like what the rich ladies would have worn on a day to day basis--not to parties. And let me tell you something: it was HEAVY! I didn't even have all the proper under clothing, but it was heavy. I only had one petticoat and then the actual skirt and then the top. Yet I felt like I was carrying around an extra 20 lbs. (It was probably closer to 10). Don't forget the fact I burned up! It was HOT in all those layers! I thought to myself: Man, I'm lucky I live today when I can go outside in Bermuda shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops and be considered conservative.
You may be looking at the above comic and my last paragraph and wondering what they have in common. The answer is simple. Being fat is like wearing around a lot of layers of clothes. It adds extra body heat. It weighs you down. Literally. If you had to carry around 20 lbs all day, you'd understand why you feel exhausted, yet we often forget that extra body fat is exactly that--extra weight we're just carrying around. Why do you think people who struggle with obesity end up with bad joints and feel like they have no energy? How can you have extra energy when you're carrying around all this extra weight?
My Health Coach posted this picture the other day:
This is what 1 lb of fat looks like.
Say you're only 14 lbs overweight. That means you have 14 lbs of that stuff you're carrying around every day. Just like carrying around all that extra clothes. Except not near as cool looking (and I honestly think, much grosser).
We all need a certain amount of fat to live. Matter of fact, fat holds your kidneys in place. This is one of the reasons people who are anorexic are at risk for kidney failure. We can't get rid of all fat and survive. But why carry around any more of it than we need?
This is another reason why even though I know so many people who weigh so much more than I did I stopped "weighting" around and got on the healthy bandwagon. I don't want to carry around an ounce more weight than I have to.
I've lost 14 lbs in 5 weeks on my program. And honestly, that's not the best part. I have had IBS for years. It hasn't acted up once since the first week of the diet. My bad days are where my good days used to be emotionally. And I have SOOO much more energy. For a few weeks, I was waking up by 8:30 am without an alarm clock (unheard of for me).
Just like I was relieved to pull that dress off at the end of the day, I feel so relieved to not have those extra 14 lbs. I'm not done with my "get healthy" journey, not by a long shot. But these last 5 weeks have taught me so much about my body, who I am right now, and who I want to be. No more needless weight. No more unexplainable FATigue. And no more Weighing to be healthy.
No comments:
Post a Comment