I Still Hate My Body

This post is going to be a little sad but also very very honest.

I’ve been at my goal weight for a few years now.  I’m very happy with almost every aspect of my new lifestyle and continue to be able to motivate myself towards new goals.  Even though there are so many things I love about my body now, I still kinda hate it.   I’m hoping to feel ‘meh’ about it in the near future but….if I had to choose…..I still have to go with hate.

To be very clear: This isn’t a ‘poor Kim’ post.  I’m just trying to be real for all my other extreme weight loss peeps out there.  I 100% love what my body can do and I’d still lose the weight every single time.  But….I don’t 100% love the way my body looks.  I know that no one does.  Everyone that we envy or think is perfect still has issues, but when you’ve been through a transformation like me, everyone is shocked to know you still have some confidence problems.

Extreme weight loss leaves behind extreme results but also extreme skin.  I knew after losing 160 lbs, my body would look much different but I never knew what to expect.  The fear of my end result actually stood in the way of my weight loss for a long time.  And now that I’ve been on the other side for so long, it’s weird that it’s still literally hanging around.  And I’m really. freaking. sick of it.

I went through a lot of phases about my extra skin.  Phase 1: At first, I was honestly ok with it.  I loved to watch the show Extreme Weight Loss while I was on my journey. 

(One of my favorite contestants: Bruce Pitcher lost 181 lbs! I still follow him on social media) If they hit their goal weight in 9 months, the contestants on the show would then qualify for skin surgery.  Then at the 12 month reveal, you’d see them post surgery and at their goal weight.  Once I’d completed my transformation, it had been 15 months.  I could not have imagined having surgery that soon.  Changing that much and so quickly is quite shocking.  I’m not sure surgery would have been mentally healthy for me at that point.  It didn’t really bother me at first.  I was so happy to be buying small clothes, it didn’t matter to me that I needed several layers to ‘hold everything in’.

Phase Two: Grossed out anger? Is that an emotion? I’m not sure there’s an emoji for that……… Once I had settled in to my new body,  I found my hanging skin just plain gross.  I had worked so freaking hard, just to carry all this around? That didn’t seem fair at all.  Now I can hold a 2 minute plank but have 4 inches of skin hanging down? Now I can fit into the tiniest shorts in the store, but even I don’t want to see my thighs.

Phase 3: Over it. It has now been long enough that my skin is what it is.  It’s not getting better. So before you email me a lotion to try, a new skin firming technique, or your sister’s friend Suzie’s number because she once lost 20 pounds…….Tried it.  Tried It. and Oh yeah…. Tried it.   Even though my age was in my favor, there’s some things skin can’t recover from.  Lots of my body looks normal, and thankfully those are most of the normally exposed parts.

On the other hand, there are parts that just ain’t coming back. Maybe someday I’ll be bold enough to post a photo.  But there’s no miracle cream that will raise my stomach above my pubic bone.  I’ve been medically cleared for surgery that insurance will pay for but I still hesitate.

It’s only within the last 6 months that I feel good about getting rid of the skin.  I’ve been dying to get rid of it for a long time, but I knew it would change me.  It was important to me that I wait until it wouldn’t.  If I had gotten it done when I was in my first phase, it definitely would have added an additional barrier to my mental and emotional acceptance of my transformation.  I don’t know how that would have changed my final outcome.  If I had gotten my surgery during my second phase, it would have been a huge relief.  Forcing myself to keep the skin through my second phase, taught me even more lessons.

Once the confidence and shock of extreme weight loss wears off, you’re left in almost a mourning for change.  You get addicted to the change.  When you stop changing, people stop noticing.  They stop complimenting.  They stop being shocked.  It’s hard to let that go and find the confidence in yourself.  It’s hard to learn to fill your confidence meter with self love and thoughts instead of depending on others.  This is something I’m still working on.  My therapist (whom I’ve gone to……once……because self care is still something I’m working on) asked me, “Do you ever think you’ll love your body?” and I had to say no. Not how it currently looks.  So then she asked, “Do you ever think you’ll be neutral or ok about your body?” and I could say yes. On the love to hate meter of my body image I’m closer to love than I’ve ever been but I’m still not that far from hate.

I know that I’ll be ready for my surgery in the near future because I can envision being ok with my body how it is currently.  I know that skin surgery wouldn’t change me now.  Until then,  I’m going to work on continuing to fill my confidence bank from within not the outside.