My Life, My Times, My Whines: Blogging Sporadically Through March a/k/a I Like Me!

To start off, I have been a bad blogger. I was doing so good with the daily posting, but these past couple of weeks have just been crazy busy and I gave up :-/ Oh well, perhaps I’ll try again in April. Today, I just had to blog. I needed to get back in my Word, but I also wanted to verbally express my birthday joy. I also needed to vent a little bit. So, here it goes:

Yesterday was just chock full of awesome! Celebrating the day of my birth throughout the course of my regular day totally worked for me. While I kinda wanted to go do something fun, I was just as happy to head home at 9pm. If I counted up the birthday love via call, text, email, Instagram, and Facebook, and in person, I would say about 200 people wished me some form of happy birthday and that made me really happy. A lot of people also noticed my cute outfit and curves yesterday and gave me compliments on my appearance and/or my recent weight loss…. Like most folks, I love compliments and it was nice to get them from so many people.

BUT….

Some of those compliments were not so complimentary. Some of those compliments had hidden daggers inside them and they stung a little bit. One dagger is “keep up the good work”… “Keep up the good work” is a cliché generally used as a word of encouragement. How is that a dagger? Because a word of encouragement implies that I need encouraging. If I was on social media asking others for prayer or talking about how hard this journey has been, I could see the need for it. But the only things I have posted about have been reaching 10lb goals and comparison pictures. See, I’m in a weight loss challenge for my sorority and I think winning the prize money would be awesome, but that’s not what my journey is about. I changed my diet for 1 week of the challenge and quickly realized how much better my digestion became. If you know me, you know that I have acid reflux and IBS, and that I have a naturopathic doctor who I see for that. All these years he’s been recommending these food changes, but I never did it. Now that I have, I feel so much better. I have the challenge to thank for that! And while I spent the month of December and January walking from bus to bus, I’ve only worked out 3-4 times since I got my car. So, this 25+ lbs that I’ve lost is really more of my body’s response to the changes in my diet, not from some great effort to lose weight. My gut is not bloated with undigested crap, so my waistline is shrinking. I’ve started taking more selfies lately, because I can feel the difference, but I wanted to see the difference. I’m also ecstatic that I’m fitting pants I haven’t fit in 4 years. Who wants to buy more clothes when you can fit the ones you already have?!

I think a lot of people assume that being overweight is a sign of poor self-esteem. They just assume that because you’re big, you don’t care about yourself. In my case, that’s far from the truth. I think I’m amazing all the time. Perhaps I’m deluded, but I think I’m beautiful 24-7, 365. Whether I weigh 260 lbs or 180; Whether my clothes are wrinkled or pressed; Whether my hair was straight, nappy, or somewhere in between. Overall, I think I’m amazing and people who really know me have gotten used to that (LOL).

Complimenting someone about their weight loss can be tricky. Because so many people struggle with their weight (and their perceptions of their own body image), I think it’s very easy for them to get caught up in their own stuff when paying a compliment. I also think you have to be careful because you don’t know why someone has lost the weight. Someone could be fighting a disease or going through something stressful. When I lost 60 lbs in 2006, I enjoyed being smaller, but I was so sick. I lost that weight because I couldn’t eat. I used to get upset when people would compliment me on my weight loss because I just wanted to be able to eat food again. When my doctor helped my body to get back on track and helped the issues to heal, I was actually okay with putting the weight back on because I was happy to be able to eat without feeling sick.

In my opinion, if you can see a person losing weight and feeling good (which my selfie-thon is surely proof of), perhaps just compliment their appearance and keep it moving. “Girl, you look amazing!” is always safe. Regardless of how or why they have lost weight, you are acknowledging that you can see it and confirming what they already know. I actually had someone tell me yesterday that I look good now, but just wait until I lose even more weight…. I was a good girl because it was a national holiday (i.e. my birthday) so I just said thank you. But I really wanted to go in! First of all, I looked just as good in January as I do now. Second of all, who says I want to lose more weight? Are you saying that I need to? Are you saying that I’m not good enough yet? Chile… mmmph. Some people... Woooo-sah! I had to quickly put myself back in check! I had to remember that some people tend to project their own issues with weight onto others. Smh, I’m just thankful to God for holding my tongue. And while I’m fussing about it now, the purpose of this post is really to just enlighten some folks, but also to help some others. I think about the people who really do struggle with their weight and all that comes along with it, the shame and the depression that some people deal with. I’m praying that they come to recognize their worth and beauty too. Regardless of what we look like and how much we individually weigh, our confidence should really come from knowing who we are and whom we belong to.

The Word:

Jeremiah 1:4-5a

“ The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;’…”

Psalm 139:1-6;13-16; 23-24

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain… For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secrete place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be… Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Proverbs 31:30

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty if fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”

The Video:

I Like Me (Kirk Franklin)