What A Tight Bridesmaid Dress Taught Me About Body Confidence

Today's guest blog is from Anne, who struggled with binge eating and knew that dieting wasn't working for her (in fact, it only made things worse).  When she gave up dieting and started examining "why" she was eating, instead of focusing on food, everything began to shift.  She didn't realize how much she had changed until THIS happened:

Anne's Story:

"I never realized how much I had changed until I had a bridesmaid dress disaster a few weeks ago.

My cousin Kate's wedding was a few weeks away and the bridesmaid dresses had finally arrived.   I was a little nervous--we've all seen 27 Dresses and know just how awful a bridesmaid dress can be! 

Well, my cousin pulled out a lacy, peacock blue dress out of the bag and I thought it was gorgeous.   I put it on, started to zip up, but as it got about halfway up my back, the zipper stuck. 

Kate came around and started yanking and pulling and tightening, but it didn't budge. The dress was simply not going to fit. 

In a very quiet and tentative voice, she said, "Are you going to be okay if we order a bigger size?" 

She was afraid that my self-esteem was going to plummet simply because I needed a different letter on the tag of my dress. 

A year ago, I would have been devastated.  But a lot can change in a  year.

I thought, "The size of the dress doesn't change my body! Just because this size doesn't fit doesn't mean I need to lose weight! 

And I'm certainly not going to keep the too-small dress around as motivation to diet. 

Heaven forbid I diet and the second the wedding ends, I turn around and binge on everything I've restricted the last three months. 

Why not order a dress that fits me and and makes me look like a million bucks?" 

To Kate's compassionate question, I cheerfully answered, "Of course we should order a different size! We don't want me walking around with my dress zipped down all day! What would grandma think?" 

She laughed, and together we called the company to ask about their exchange policy.  

And that's when I realized how free I was from all the body hatred and shame that I'd struggled with for so long."

Anne is a college student in the Midwest who's thrilled to have created a healthier, happier relationship to food - and most of all, to herself.

Wow, what a story!

I love Anne's body-positive response to the bridesmaid dress.  As I considered her experience, I started thinking about numbers.

Why do we allow our identity and our worth be determined by the letter or number on our clothing? 

Some of the world's largest crimes against humanity have been when we stripped others of their names and identities, and instead we assigned them a number. 

Enough!!

Promise yourself today to stop seeing yourself as the size of your jeans or the number on the scale, and instead see yourself as a person with wants and needs, likes and dislikes. 

Be more than a number... be YOU!

Today, refuse to say anything negative about your size. Assess the size of your heart, not the size of your jeans. Count the number of your friends, not the number on the scale.

  

Today, find positive attributes of your body to focus on. 

Today, challenge the thought that you will be happier when you are skinnier. 

Today, tell yourself that you love and respect yourself. 

That's how you win the diet war! 

Hugs,

Dr. Nina

Why I Don't Believe In Recovery

Recently, someone came to my support group for the first time and shared  about his problems with binge eating.  And then he said something that I hear a lot - but no matter how often people say this, I'm always stunned:

He said he he knew he'd be dealing with bingeing for the rest of his life and that it would always be with him in some form. 

And did I mention he was in his mid-20s?  Yikes.

I'm sure I looked openly taken aback.  I said, "Oh, really?"

He nodded.  "Recovery means that you're always dealing with the problem.  Like, forever."

I said, skeptically, "Oh, really?"

At that point he asked if I believe in recovery.

I shook my head.  "No, I absolutely do not believe in recovery."

The whole group looked at me in shock.  This was not what they were expecting to hear.  That's when I clarified:

"I don't believe in recovery.  I do believe in liberation.  

No matter what your eating issues are, you can completely change your relationship to food and to yourself.  I know this from personal and professional experience.

If you're familiar with my work, you probably know my thoughts on the importance of language.  The way you speak to - and about - yourself affects the way you feel, which impacts your behavior.   

Changing your language can change your life.  

So to me, you recover from the flu.   You recover from a bad break-up.   You recover from a financial setback.

You don't say, "I'm in recovery from depression."  You might explain you were depressed and now you feel better.

You're not "in recovery" from anxiety.  You describe that you were anxious and not you're not, or you're less anxious.     

You don't recover from eating problems.  You liberate yourself.

Liberation means freedom.  It means freedom from counting calories.  Freedom from the idea that you're good if you eat healthy foods and bad if you don't.  Freedom from negative self-talk.  

Freedom from thinking about this stuff All The Time.  

When you identify what's going on in your head and your heart, when you express your needs, wants, emotions, and conflicts, when you change your relationship to yourself and others, you don't need food to numb, distract or express difficult or painful emotions, conflicts, and wishes.  

That's how you liberate yourself from the dictatorship of food and win the diet war.  And then lunch becomes lunch, and not a battlefield.

In the last decade, I've helped many, many people liberate themselves from the tyranny of disordered eating.  They are free - and you can be, too.  

You CAN win the diet war and make peace with food.

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https://winthedietwar.com/kick-the-diet-habit-now/