Friday, March 16, 2007

I'd Be Happy If I Were Thinner



I will be writing an article for my site on this shortly, but I HAD to blog on this topic because I think it's super important.

I was watching an Oprah show that I had "Tivoed" yesterday. She had a woman on there who had gastric bypass surgery. She had been overweight for most of her life and just knew that if she lost the weight her life would be better and she'd be happy.

Turns out the opposite happened. Since her stomach was reduced to the size of a walnut, she could no longer use food for comfort so she turned to drinking. She drank so much that she began tearing her family apart and her oldest daughter (who was 20) says she wished her mom was fat again.

The point is so many people think the weight is what's keeping them from being happy, when really the weight gain is just a symptom of a deeper issue.

I get e-mails from people all the time who say "If I could only be skinny, then I would love myself" or "If I could just lose 50 pounds, then I'd be happy." But in reality the food addiction or weight gain is a symptom of a much larger problem.

If you don't love yourself, then weight loss is not going to change your life. Gastric bypass surgery will help you lose the weight, but it doesn't change your thoughts about yourself. Or if you are really emotionally wrecked over something in your past, then weight loss won't cover it up. It will continue to resurface in your life in other ways.

Just some food for thought. Stay tuned to my site because I will be writing a more in depth article on this topic, because I think it affects more people than most people even realize.