How my weight loss journey turned into a lesson on self love

Man this was a tough post to write. If I’m being honest, I can’t really remember a time that I was truly really happy with my body. Looking in the mirror, I’d always see some flaw or something that could be improved. Especially my legs. Always my damn legs!

Why am I sharing this with you? Because I want you to know that I see you, and I know all-too-well how easy it is for goals to spin down into self-criticism and impossible standards of perfection.

SO, back to the story. After college, I resolved myself to lose weight – I convinced myself that I’d finally feel happy once I dropped those 30 pounds that had relentlessly packed on over the past 5 years.

For the next few years, I started dieting. I went pescatarian, I went paleo, I went low carb and I went low fat. I was so motivated by losing weight fast that I had no regard for how I was actually feeling. Just so hyper-focused on the goal: the number on the scale, while treating my body like a thing, not a living, breathing being.

Eventually, this cycle reached a breaking point. Though I had lost the majority of the weight, I wasn’t as happy as I imagined I would be because of the fear. I saw food as the enemy, food would make me go back to where I started.

After becoming a part of the CrossFit world, I heard about macros as the next thing. I was within 10 lbs of my “goal weight” but was feeling so weak in workouts. My husband and I decided to try a macro coaching program together. Looking back, the day I signed up for that program was the day I found my light again.

Macros forced me to look at how much I should be eating, not how little. It taught me to learn about food for its nutrients, not calories. It taught me how to fuel, not restrict and binge. It taught me how to feel strong again.

Without even knowing it was happening, I learned how to treat myself well again.

So when those abs popped out after months of hard work, I didn’t break. I felt amazing inside and out and I knew exactly what to do to keep working on that relationship.

My journey of weight loss was far more than rebuilding my body.

It was rebuilding the most important relationship I have: the one with myself.