I spent a very long time believing I wanted to be thinner. And of course, on one level, I did. I wanted clothes to fit differently. I wanted to look in the mirror and like what I saw. I wanted to feel comfortable having my photograph taken. I wanted to walk into a room without wondering how my body looked to everyone else.

But looking back now, I wonder if being thinner was ever the whole thing I was chasing.

Because somewhere along the way, I had attached an awful lot of promises to a smaller body.

When I lose weight, I'll feel more confident.

I'll wear what I want.

I'll stop being so self-conscious.

I'll feel attractive again.

I'll like myself more.

I'll finally feel like me.

Without really noticing it, weight loss had become the doorway to a version of myself I thought I would like better.

And perhaps that is why the pursuit of weight loss can become so consuming.

It isn't always just about the weight.

It's about everything we have decided the weight will give us.

The life waiting on the other side

I think many of us have a picture somewhere in our minds of who we'll be when we finally get there.

We imagine ourselves lighter, happier, freer, more confident.

Perhaps we buy clothes for her.

Perhaps we keep photographs of when we looked more like her.

Perhaps we make plans for what we'll do when we become her.

And in doing so, without ever consciously deciding to, we can begin putting parts of our life on hold.

Not necessarily the big things.

Sometimes it's wearing the dress.

Getting in the photograph.

Going swimming.

Dating.

Booking the holiday.

Letting ourselves be seen.

Or simply allowing ourselves to feel good on an ordinary Tuesday without first checking whether we've been "good" enough to deserve it.

There is something quite sad about how easily a number on a scale can become permission to enjoy being alive.

What if the body was carrying a much bigger story?

This is something I wish I'd understood much earlier.

A body is a body.

But the meaning we attach to our body can be enormous.

Being thinner can come to represent being disciplined, attractive, successful, desirable, in control, good enough.

Gaining weight can somehow come to mean the opposite. And once those meanings become tangled together, changing our body starts to feel incredibly important. Because we aren't simply trying to change our shape anymore.

We're trying to change what we believe our shape says about us.

I know that feeling very well.

I spent years trying to become someone I could approve of.

And I kept assuming that approval would arrive when my body did.

But there was another contradiction I couldn't see

The more dissatisfied I became with myself, the more desperately I tried to control food.The more I tried to control food, the more pressure I created around it. And when life became difficult, uncomfortable, lonely, stressful or simply too much, food was also one of the ways I knew how to feel better.

So I was caught in a strange loop.

I was using food for relief and then judging myself for needing the relief.

I was trying to become thinner so that I could feel better about myself while making myself feel worse about myself every time I struggled.

I didn't need another person telling me to love my body.

At the time, I probably wouldn't have believed them anyway.

What I needed was to understand why I had made my body responsible for how I felt about myself.

That was a very different question.

You are allowed to want to change your body

I think this matters.

Self-worth doesn't mean you have to stand in front of a mirror every morning and adore every inch of yourself.

You can want to lose weight.

You can prefer how you feel at a different size.

You can want to feel fitter, healthier or more comfortable in your clothes.

I don't think there is anything wrong with any of that.

But there is a world of difference between wanting to change something about yourself and believing you need to change it before you are allowed to like yourself.

One is a preference.

The other becomes a condition.

And perhaps many of us have lived with that condition for so long that we don't even realise it is there.

I'll feel good about myself when...

I'll be confident when...

I'll wear that when...

I'll start living properly when...

There is always a when.

And life keeps happening while we're waiting.

Perhaps there is something else worth chasing

These days, I am far more interested in the feeling underneath the goal. If I want something to change, I like to ask myself what I imagine that change will give me.

Confidence?

Freedom?

Peace?

Acceptance?

The feeling of being enough?

Because once we know what we're actually longing for, a much more interesting question appears:

Do I really have to wait for my body to change before I can begin giving some of that to myself?

You don't have to abandon the desire to change your body.

Perhaps you simply stop asking your body to prove that you are worthy of your own love.

And I wonder what might change if we did that.

Not someday.

Not ten pounds from now.

But here.

In the body carrying us through our life today.

Something to sit with

If your body changed tomorrow, what are you hoping you would finally give yourself permission to feel?

Maybe confidence.

Maybe freedom.

Maybe acceptance.

Maybe simply the relief of no longer being at war with yourself.

Whatever your answer is, perhaps the more important question is:

Why must you wait?

Glenys xx