I usually wait to write until I am ready to go to bed each night. But tonight, I had so many thoughts swirlling around in my head I decided to do it earlier.
We all have an image in our mind about what we look like, and then we look in a mirror or see a picture that was taken by someone and that image becomes a reality. I still have a hard time believing I let myself get to over 300lbs and now that I have lost 15lbs and I am moving better, I am not feeling as heavy and lets admit fat. I have a picture of myself that is closes to my goal. I had a swagger this last week and was feeling pretty amazing. ( I still am amazed by my loss) I was outside on my lunch break and I saw my shadow. I felt like Phil the ground hog. I wanted to hide, go into a hole, because what I saw in the shadow wasn't the picture of myself that I had in my head all day. I saw how round I am (yes I know shadows are distorted) and I wasn't feeling round today. It made me think of the distorted images we get about ourselves. Usually my distorted image about myself is much worse than what I really look like.
For some reason today I felt thin and seeing that shadow reminded me how much harder I need to work to get to the picture I have in my head. It also got me thinking, how much I have changed in these last 4 weeks, how much better I feel about myself and what I am doing. How proud I should be that I have stuck with this for 4 weeks and that I still have the mind set to keep going. We let the images we get in our heads dictate a lot about how we feel and what we can do. So I think I am going to keep the better image in my head, because that image isn't limiting me on what I can do. The distorted shadow I saw today, is limiting, because when I see that I think I can't. The distorted image that I have about myself and what I am capable has been limiting me for a long time, and no more. The thin me is screaming I am here, see you can see yourself that way, come on you can do it, you can meet me. I am so ready to put the distorted me away and move forward to the reality of what I really am.