Hating myself began long before I began trying to diet. In middle school, I was acutely aware of not only the fact I was overweight, but additionally every other perceived flaw both my body and personality held. I used food as a coping mechanism to manage untreated depression, which caused further frustration in my inability to lose weight – one failing on the long laundry list I held against myself.
It was only when I entered high school was I able to understand the connection between caloric intake and my weight, which only added another layer to my self-loathing. There were now concrete numbers to document my failings on the daily, which led to cyclical self-harming behavior (binge eating -> attempting to ‘fast’ to compensate for my mistake -> binging again). There was no sense of sustainability with my actions, there was only the present failures and immediate attempts to ‘fix’ those mistakes.
After struggling with depression for nearly a decade, I finally received help in the form of a 40mg dose of Prozac this past April. It, quite honestly, was like a switch flipped in my brain. Suddenly, dieting and counting calories held the same tedium as brushing my teeth every day. The binging stopped, and more importantly, I had the capacity to plan out what I was going to eat every day in order to stay satiated throughout the day.
(Note: When I say planning, I mean in the most basic capacity. I open MFP for less than 5 minutes, enter in what sounds good [carb-heavy breakfast like oatmeal / smoothie generally, protein heavier lunch and dinner] out of the food in my house, and just follow that throughout the day. The only exception is when I don’t feel like going to the effort of making certain foods [like I ended up eating microwaved dumplings instead of a smoothie last night, because I didn’t feel like dealing with a blender lmao], then I swap foods out within my caloric range. I tend to eat my meals within 300-500 calories, and kind of think of it like food tetris, fitting in what I want.)
The point of sharing this, I think, is because I spent a very long time aware that I had a problem far larger than simply over-indulging. My highest weight was 285lbs at 5’5. I still have a long way to go, but I weigh 244lbs today. My obesity was severe enough that I needed an entire lifestyle change in order to begin losing weight successfully.
However, that lifestyle change manifested in the form of getting help for a problem that was the root of my binge eating behaviors and weight gain. If I hadn’t received that help, then I would continue fighting an uphill battle against myself with no success.
I think, getting help for my mental illness was far more difficult than counting calories is. The short of it is, if you know you have a problem, stop letting that problem beat you up via your attempt to lose weight. This process of weight loss should not be agonizing, or an exercise in daily emotional self-harm.
Just like you teach yourself healthy habits through the daily practice of changing your eating habits, you ought to examine if you’re been overly unkind or self-critical to yourself so you can practice healthy mental health habits.
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