Ok! Time to come clean. How many of us ate too much over the Christmas holiday? I'll be the first to say that I did. I had the best intentions of eating pretty good, but my family likes to cook and I like to eat. That's a bad combination just waiting to happen. :-) After making it through the New Year, I looked at my body in a mirror one morning and I could see that I needed to make some changes. I had lost a lot of the definition in my body and just didn't feel good about the way I looked. I told someone close to me that I wanted to drop about 30 pounds. They looked at me like I was crazy. They asked where I wanted to lose it from and told me I was already looking pretty fit. At this point I realized that one of us wasn't seeing something correctly. At that moment I realized that maybe it could be me. I deal with clients all the time that complain about the way they look but they look pretty damn nice by our societies standards. Here are a few examples of what I mean. Just recently I was talking with one of my clients and she was talking about how bad she had been over the Christmas holiday and how she needed to look good and as soon as she got it out of her mouth one of her neighbors looked at her with her mouth wide open and said "Wow, you look so skinny!" She looked at me confused and asked if the lady was talking about me. Another example is one client who swears her butt is a big as a house, but in reality this lady could finish in the top 5 in a fitness show easily. Or, one client who swears she is so obese, but realized after visiting with old high school friends that she is the same size she was in high school and she looked great back then. Just as people see themselves as being overweight it works in the same way with people actually being overweight and seeing themselves as being petite. Have you ever seen someone wear something (male or female) that you know they should not have walked out of the house wearing that was fitting way too tight? I know I have!
I had the opportunity to pick the brain of a psychiatric professional and we discussed these issues and we came to the conclusion that these may be some small traits of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. In layman's terms it means an individual with a skewed perception of their body image. The extreme cases of BDD are those who develop anorexia nervosa or like Michael Jackson and his multiple plastic surgeries.
I asked the psychiatric professional how does one end up with these symptoms and how can one combat these symptoms. She explained that there is usually a direct correlation with one's self-esteem in general. Causes of low self esteem often stem back to childhood and adolescence and how one was parented or if one was bullied. Working on self esteem or subsequent body dysmorphia symptoms is not an easy or swift process. It may involve taking a look at people in your life and assessing if they lift you up or keep you down. It may involve enlisting the help of a therapist to assist you in changing the way you think about yourself. But mostly it's engaging in a reality check with yourself that may require assistance from someone who loves you and whom you trust.
After writing about this subject and learning more about this, it really made me take a long hard look at the way I see myself. I realized that I never really gave myself any credit for what I have accomplished with my body thus far. Coming from a background of being extremely overweight to being fit is a massive change. Sometimes, I still look in the mirror and still see that overweight guy. I guess I am still a work in progress like most of us are. If you find that you can relate to this try some of the strategies mentioned in this. Until next time people!
