�Write down what you say to yourself about...�
Your appearance...I have a pretty face. I could be pretty, even beautiful, if I weren�t so fat. I look less �professional� than I should, even in business suits, because of my weight. I�m not attractive. No one could ever find me attractive at this weight. No man will ever love me as long as I look like this. I�m fat and I�m ugly.
Your body shape....I�m fat. My ass and thighs are too large. Hell, my calves and ankles are even fat. I never used to carry my fat around my stomach, but I do now...a big roll of fat around the middle. The only part of me that�s too small are my breasts...they will never be proportional to the size of my ass.
Your ability to manage your weight...I want to get control of my weight. I need to be more disciplined, more focused about it. I�m able to succeed � to set a goal and to persevere until I reach it � in every other aspect of my life, I can�t understand why I can�t do the same and finally get control over my weight. I�ve been fat all my life, maybe I�ll always be fat. I can do this. If I fail, there�s no one to blame but myself.
Your exercise level...I�m lazy. I could get up early to exercise, but I�d rather sleep. I don�t have any time to exercise. If I don�t do it first thing in the morning, then I can�t do it at all because there are so many things that come up during the day. I don�t like to exercise. It�s not fun. It doesn�t feel good. I need to have a large block of available time � at least 1 hour � in order to exercise. If I sit down or do anything else after work, instead of exercising straight away, then I won�t do it. . . . . But, I do feel better after I exercise. And, it only takes 20 or 30 minutes to do an aerobics video. I feel great after I do yoga. I liked the way I felt when I was strength training...I felt strong and it felt good.
Your self-control...I have none. I know when I�m crossing the line � eating something that I shouldn�t or making some excuse for not exercising, for example � but I go ahead and do it anyway. I always have an excuse, a reason.
Your general health...I am horribly out of shape. I can�t climb the stairs or walk up the hill without huffing and puffing. I�ve just been lucky that my weight hasn�t had worse health consequences.
Like the other chapters of this book, I�ve been postponing working through this chapter for over a week now. I knew, on some level, that the things I think about myself were harsh. But the edges of those words were somehow not as sharp as long as I didn�t write them down. Now that some of what I think about myself is on paper, I can see, and I can feel, how deeply those thoughts cut.
I talk a big game of healthy self-esteem and well-developed self-worth...but my own thoughts belie this.
Why do I do this to myself? I wouldn�t put up with someone else telling me these things. Why do I allow this from myself?
In some of this internal dialogue, I see reflected some of the things that AJ said to me ... basically that he couldn�t love me unless I lost weight. Damn it. I thought I had purged that. I thought I had recovered the sense of self-esteem that was trampled under his indifference. But there it is, his disdain running like a broken record through my own thoughts.
I don�t know what to do with this stark look at the voices in my own head. How do I go about changing what I think about myself?
Listening To: the heater humming
Reading: Dr. Phil's "Ultimate Weight Loss Solution"
Feeling: exposed