I have decided that it is redundant to keep making the title of my blogs Life After Biggest Loser since everything I write about is my life after the show. After reading my blog a couple times yesterday I decided that I want to talk more about what I am going to call “Fat Person in a Skinny Body Syndrome” or FPSBS for the purposes of my blog.
As most of you know, I am not a doctor or psychologist so the things I am talking about are my own experiences. When you have been a contestant on a show like The Biggest Loser, people remember you one of two ways when it comes to physical appearance. What you looked like before the show or what you looked like at the finale.
When people see you in person who remember you from when you started the show they are very complimentary. “Wow, you have done a great job!” Those who remember you from the finale say “Wow, you have put back quite a bit of weight on!” They are both right.
If I had lost a bunch of weight in the privacy of my own home and people just learned through conversation that I once weighed over 350 pounds they would be like “Wow, that’s great!” Since I chose to do it on national television it’s a little different. The day I signed the contract to be on the show I signed up to be publicly judged by strangers.
Today I want to talk about how words from strangers and even people we know can take root in our lives and sometimes even cause us to self destruct.
Believe it or not, spring is just around the corner. This spring, farmers will start planting seeds in their fields. They will drop them in the ground and then cover them up with dirt. Even though we can’t see it underground, that seed is sprouting and developing a root system for whatever type of plant it is to become. As the seed continues to sprout the roots will take hold and become the support system for the plant as it begins to push it’s way through the dirt.
That little seed, once planted continues to work it’s way to the surface even though we can’t see it. “Great Matt, thanks for the farming lesson, what’s the point?” Here you go. Let’s imagine the words other people say to us are like that seed. They may something mean or discouraging and at the time we think nothing of it and just brush it off. We may even think to ourselves “What a jerk.” We bury it.
Maybe after a few hours we are sitting around and the words that person said come back into our mind. This time rather than dismissing the words we begin to dwell on them a little bit. If those words were seeds, we have just planted them in our mind. They have begun to take root if you will. Now is when the words that have taken root can grow in one of two ways. We can use them to fuel us to become better or we can begin to believe them and let those words bring us down.
I once had a lady at an event I was speaking at only a couple weeks after the finale, a time when I actually felt the best about my appearance, say I better watch it because I had already gained weight. A couple of weeks later she was kind enough to email me and tell me that I better get honest with myself because I was probably gain all my weight back.
At first I dismissed her as the ignorant person she was, but then I found myself becoming more and more critical of myself. Guess what I did. I cultivated those words into thoughts and actions that became detrimental to myself. I let a perfect stranger plant the seeds of doubt in my mind and rather than turning it into a positive began to feel guilty.
Thoughts like “She’s probably right”, “I’ll show her, I’m going to go eat whatever I want”, and “That’s what I’ve done before” consumed me. A perfect stranger! I started to punish myself and set myself up for failure because of words a stranger said to me took root. It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it!
As ridiculous as it is when you read what I just wrote, how many of us have done the exact same thing? If we don’t learn to appreaciate ourselves and our new body, it can be really easy for those seeds of insecurity to take root and undo all of the hard work that we have just done. A fat person in a skinny body is much more likely to go back to being a fat person in a fat body if they don’t plant new seeds and see themselves as the new person that they have become.
See you tomorrow!
#1 by Marie - January 28th, 2010 at 15:08
So true…we can’t let those negatives take hold in our minds. We have to fous on the positive commetns and feelings and move forward. Thanks for the reminder Matt!
#2 by Debi - January 28th, 2010 at 15:42
So true! I also remember having so many positive comments when I lost all my weight that EVERYONE was coming up and saying something to me. While I loved that and appreciated it……I realized it scared the crap out of me because I didn’t want to let anyone down. I couldn’t even fully enjoy the new found me, because I was so worried about being ‘perfect’ in everyone’s eyes. I had become an ‘inspiration’ to so many, that I didn’t want to let them down. I was ‘front and center’ in the public eye on a much smaller scale than you, and found it difficult to adjust to the new me. I so very much appreciate you sharing all this, because it’s honestly helping me figure out what so many of my struggles were and have been!