Whenever I need a little shove
in the motivation department, I grab the Mac and search online for weight loss
before/after photos. Come on, you do it too... Today I searched
before/after pics on Pinterest while inhaling a BK Big Fish sandwich and medium
fries. (But hey—no tartar sauce, and diet soda instead of regular, which I’m
pretty sure is kind of… not at all what health professionals have in mind when
they talk about making “healthy choices.” Sigh.)
There’s something so
gratifying about looking at split shot after split shot of the complete body
transformations of people who have lost 60, 80, 100+ pounds, and to see the
dramatic difference between the two sides of the photo. In a split second,
before/after photos show a woman at her absolute worst—the fattest point of her
life that somehow got captured in a photo that she probably wept when she
looked at for the first time—and then at her absolute best: a skinny, sexy
version of her, radiantly happy and proud and bikini-clad. Her weight loss
story is told in less than one second.
The good thing about
Before/After photos is that they inspire me to be thin (other than the
occasional selfie of Spray Tan Teen Girl in her panties as a size two, and
three weeks later as a size 00, which mainly inspires me to hunt her down and
wring her scrawny neck).
Yeah, stop it.
The bad thing about before/after photos is that
they inspire me to “BE” thin. Not necessarily to exercise, eat right, choose a
salad over a fried meal, or spend month after hellish month fighting all of my
natural instincts to eat a lot and be lazy.
The truth about weight loss
would be better portrayed in a before, during and after photo
(Before/HELL ON EARTH/After). But the edited version is what we love because we
don’t have to be bothered with all the hard work and sacrifice that made
“after” possible. At least, that's my problem. I don’t want to think about the reality of
“during” because I’d rather skip that part of my own weight loss story. I want
to decide, mentally, to lose weight, and then a split second later
become my “after” shot, without killing myself for a year or two or five
minutes to get there.
This isn’t a problem with
photos, obviously. It’s a problem with me. The before/after pics just put a
spotlight on one of my glaring faults: the desire for immediate gratification.
When I had 20 pounds to go before I reached my goal weight, my struggle with
immediate gratification wasn’t as bad, but now that I need to lose 100 pounds,
it’s something I have to fight constantly. I’m fighting the knowledge that if I
eat a healthy meal instead of fries for lunch today, it’s a better choice but I’ll still be fat tomorrow. And I’ll be fat the next day, and next month and
probably the month after that. I could lose 70 pounds and still be fat, so my
inner comfort-seeker is constantly popping into my head asking why she can’t
just go ahead and have ice cream when it’s not going to make me look any
different to eat carrots, and it definitely won’t feel as good in the moment.
Of course, the truth is that
when you string together dozens, hundreds, thousands of healthy choices, (the often painful,
difficult choices that the before/after pictures don’t show you), eventually
they’ll add up to an “after.” It’s a long, tough road, but I know that “after” is not
impossible if I’m willing to work at it, and make those torturous carrots-rather-than-ice-cream decisions. That’s the truth that I need to focus
on as I set out to lose 100 pounds. The before shot has been taken. I’m
officially in the “during” phase of my photograph. It’s the phase that no one
is very excited to see, but it will determine the end result: my after.
Amen.
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